The International Atomic Energy Agency warned parties in the Iran war to use “maximum restraint” after Iranian officials reported a projectile hit a nuclear power plant on the Persian Gulf.
“The IAEA has been informed by Iran that a projectile hit the premises of the Bushehr NPP on Tuesday evening. No damage to the plant or injuries to staff reported,” the IAEA said in a statement.
The U.N. nuclear energy watchdog said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, “reiterates” his “call for maximum restraint during the conflict to prevent risk of a nuclear accident.”
The hit on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant would make it the second nuclear energy facility to be targeted since the war started on Feb. 28. The IAEA announced on March 3 that the Natanz Nuclear Facility in the Isfahan province was hit by joint Israeli-U.S. strikes in the first weekend of Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion. The watchdog did not say which country launched the projectile at Bushehr.
The Natanz Nuclear Facility was also one of the facilities targeted by the United States in its June 2025 attacks as part of Operation Midnight Hammer. Following the June strikes, Grossi addressed the IAEA regarding the energy and environmental consequences of strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Grossi said the Bushehr power plant “is the nuclear site in Iran where the consequences of an attack could be most serious.
“It is an operating nuclear power plant and as such it hosts thousands of kilograms of nuclear material,” Grossi said in June. “In case of an attack on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant a direct hit could result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment.”
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The Iranian nuclear facility is heavily tied to Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom, which swiftly spoke out against the attack on Bushehr when it was first reported. Aleksei Likhachev, director-general of Rosatom, said the corporation calls on “all sides in the conflict to use every effort to de-escalate the situation” around the facility, according to Reuters.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to U.S. Central Command for comment.
