External power restored at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Oct. 10 (UPI) — External power was restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant late Sunday after Russian shelling caused it to shut off a day earlier.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a statement that Ukrainian engineers reconnected Europe’s largest nuclear power plant Sunday evening, which allowed the facility to start switching off emergency diesel generators.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the IAEA, said that the plant’s six reactors remain in cold shutdown but require power for cooling and other essential nuclear safety functions and that the situation around the plant “remained fragile.”

“Almost every day now, there is shelling in the region where the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located and where the plant workers and their families live,” Grossi said.

“The shelling must stop, immediately. It is already having an impact on the nuclear safety and security situation at the plant.”

Grossi called Russian missile strikes Sunday on the city of Zaporizhzhia “tragic” and said that a landmine had exploded outside the perimeter of the nuclear power plant’s fence.

Russian forces blitzed the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight Saturday into Sunday, firing a barrage of missiles that killed at least 17 people, Ukrainian officials said.

At least 40 other people were injured. Five homes were destroyed and dozens of buildings were damaged, including four educational institutions.

“These military attacks in Zaporizhzhia and its vicinity increase the risk of a nuclear accident, if they hit the plant’s external power lines or make it more difficult to deliver vital supplies of fuel and equipment,” Grossi said.

Grossi added that he has proposed the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant and has been holding high-level talks with Russia and Ukraine to do so.

“The resumption of shelling, hitting the plant’s sole source of external power, is tremendously irresponsible. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant must be protected,” Grossi said in a statement Saturday announcing that the power had gone out.

“I will soon travel to the Russian Federation, and then return to Ukraine, to agree on a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant. This is an absolute and urgent imperative.”

At least seven Russian missiles also hit the city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, which came just days after Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant director-general Ihor Murashov, who had been abducted by Russian forces, was released from custody.

“I welcome the release of Ihor Murashov, Director General of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” Grossi wrote on Twitter upon his release.

Murashov is responsible for nuclear and radiation safety at the nuclear power plant. He was pulled from his car, blindfolded, and taken to an unknown location by Russian troops.

Western officials fear that fighting around the plant could lead to a nuclear disaster if the facility is intentionally or unintentionally struck.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations, told UPI in an interview this summer that an incident at Zaporizhzhia “potentially can be much worse than Chernobyl.”

In mid-September, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the conditions around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as Ukraine disconnected it from the power grid.

In a statement about that call, the Kremlin placed blame on threats to the security of the facility on “regular Ukrainian attacks.” Ukraine said that Russian forces have been staging at the nuclear facility to fire on surrounding communities and Macron called on Putin to withdraw his troops from around the facility.

Operations at the facility were stopped at the time because of critically low power after damages to the Ukrainian power system from Russian shelling.

The power plant was also disconnected from the grid in late August after shelling. Russian state media claimed that Ukrainian troops damaged the power lines and then cut the plant off from the grid.