The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy reported on Tuesday that a blackout at the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) was caused by Russian air attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his regular video address on Tuesday night that Russian strikes have also taken the Zaporizhzhia NPP off the grid for seven days in a row.
“This is the seventh day. There has never before been such an emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant. The situation is critical. Russian shelling has cut the plant off from the electricity network,” Zelensky said.
“The generators and the plant were not designed for this, have never operated in this mode for long, and we already have information that one generator has failed,” he warned, referring to the diesel generators that supply the reactors with emergency power to keep them cool.
“This is a threat to everyone — no terrorist in the world has ever dared to do to a nuclear plant what Russia is doing. And it is right that the world does not stay silent,” he declared.
The Zaporizhzhia facility (ZNPP) has six reactors, making it the largest NPP in Europe. It has been occupied by Russian forces since early in the invasion.
ZNPP is not currently producing power, but the facility itself requires power to keep its reactors under control, so its periodic disconnections from the Ukrainian power grid are cause for alarm. The United Nations and its nuclear energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have warned that fighting around the plant could trigger a nuclear disaster.
Russia and Ukraine periodically accuse each other of attacking the ZNPP, either deliberately or through irresponsible missile and artillery strikes in the area. Each side has accused the other of attempting to stage a “false flag” attack to cause a nuclear accident that could be blamed on enemy forces.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday he was in “constant contact” with both Russian and Ukrainian officials, “with the aim to enable the plant’s swift reconnection to the electricity grid.”
“While the plant is currently coping thanks to its emergency diesel generators — the last line of defense — and there is no immediate danger as long as they keep working, it is clearly not a sustainable situation in terms of nuclear safety,” Grossi warned.
Grossi criticized both sides for making it unsafe for technicians to perform vital maintenance on the ZNPP. Zelensky rejected that criticism on Wednesday, insisting the Russians were doing nothing to repair the plant controlled by their forces.
“Russia is intentionally creating a risk of radiological incidents, taking advantage, unfortunately, of the weak stance of the IAEA and Director General Rafael Grossi, as well as the dispersed global attention,” Zelensky charged.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy said a Russian strike on “energy infrastructure in the town of Slavutych” caused an “emergency situation” at the Chernobyl NPP by creating a power outage.
“Due to voltage surges, the New Safe Confinement, which is the key structure isolating the destroyed fourth power unit at the Chornobyl NPP and preventing the release of radioactive materials into the environment, was cut off from the power grid,” the ministry said on Wednesday.
New Safe Confinement (NSC) is the huge metal structure erected over the Number Four Chernobyl reactor after it exploded in 1986, causing the worst nuclear disaster in history.
The NSC has been compared to a “sarcophagus” where radioactive debris can be safely confined for a century or more. The Ukrainian government has been in control of the containment system since 2019. The NSC is not just an inert sealed vault; its safety and monitoring systems require power to function.
The Ministry of Energy said on Thursday that power was later restored to Chernobyl, and “everything functions normally today.”
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