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Zaporizhia NPP
Photo: IMAGO/Konstantin Mihalchevskiy / IMAGO/SNA
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, occupied by Russian troops, has been reconnected to the power grid.
The operating company Enerhoatom announced that one of the reactor units stopped on Thursday was back online.
He is building capacity, it said.
According to the operator, the nuclear power plant was completely disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid on Thursday due to fires in ash pits.
It was the first time in the history of the facility that this had happened.
In the past few weeks, the area around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant had been repeatedly shelled, for which Ukraine and Russia blamed each other.
The shelling raised concerns that Zaporizhia could experience a nuclear disaster similar to that in Ukraine's Chernobyl in 1986.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj called for a rapid international reaction on Thursday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international organizations would have to act much more quickly in Zaporizhia than before: "Every minute that the Russian military stays in the nuclear power plant means the risk of a global radiation catastrophe," he said.
With six reactors, the plant in Zaporizhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
col/AFP/Reuters