A serviceman with a Russian flag on his uniform stands guard near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the middle of Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar within the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 4, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the most important in Europe, has lost its last remaining external power source consequently of renewed shelling and is now counting on emergency diesel generators, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the plant’s link to a 750-kilovolt line was cut at around 1 a.m. Saturday. It cited official information from Ukraine in addition to reports from IAEA experts at the location, which is held by Russian forces.
All six reactors on the plant are shut down but they still require electricity for cooling and other safety functions. Plant engineers have begun work to repair the damaged power line and the plant’s generators — not all of that are currently getting used — each have sufficient fuel for not less than 10 days, the IAEA said.
“The resumption of shelling, hitting the plant’s sole source of external power, is tremendously irresponsible,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a press release.
Grossi visited Kyiv on Thursday. He said he’ll soon travel to Russia, then make one other trip to Ukraine, to further his effort to establish a “nuclear safety and security protection zone” across the plant, which he has advocated for weeks. “That is an absolute and urgent imperative,” he said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who’s to move a planned mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine August 30, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | via Reuters
The IAEA didn’t apportion blame for the shelling.
Zaporizhzhia is one among 4 regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has annexed in violation of international laws.
While the nuclear plant has been under Russian control for months, town of the identical name stays under Ukrainian control.
Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking up the plant. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called it a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void.” Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it could proceed to operate the plant.
