The Zaporizhzhia power plant was occupied by troops loyal to Moscow shortly after the start of the Russian war of aggression 15 months ago. (Archive) © Uncredited/AP/dpa
"The nuclear safety situation at the power plant is extremely vulnerable," warns IAEA chief Grossi. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is currently without external electricity. Cooling is currently provided by generators.
Enerhodar/Vienna - The Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhzhia is once again completely cut off from the external power supply. This was announced by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, on Monday. "The nuclear safety situation at the power plant is extremely vulnerable," Grossi wrote on Twitter.
The Ukrainian nuclear company Enerhoatom confirmed the incident. On Monday morning, the high-voltage line supplying the power plant was damaged by shelling. Cooling would be ensured by the existing diesel generators. For these, fuel is available for ten days. In total, it is already the seventh power outage since the beginning of the Russian occupation in March 2022.
IAEA fears nuclear accident
The IAEA in Vienna is concerned that a failure of the cooling systems could lead to overheating of the fuel rods and nuclear waste and thus to a nuclear accident. For some time now, there has been speculation about a Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, which also provides for the repatriation of the nuclear power plant. In October last year, a Ukrainian landing operation at the power plant already failed.
Grossi once again called for an agreement between Kiev and Moscow not to attack Europe's largest nuclear power plant and not to use it as a military base. "This cannot go on like this," he wrote. Dpa