On the night of June 3, the Zaporizhzhia NPP lost external power supply for the 17th time during the entire full-scale war.
This was reported by IAEA.
The reason was an attack on a substation in Nikopol, which caused the only power line at the facility to lose power for about 20 minutes.
Emergency diesel generators supplied power to the station until power was restored.
Before that, on May 29, ZNPP had already lost external power supply.
What is known about the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP?
The Russians occupied the Zaporizhzhia NPP in early March 2022 and have been operating under their control since then. An IAEA mission has been at the station since September 2022. Ukraine insists on the withdrawal of the Russian occupiers from the station. Russia refuses to create a demilitarized zone at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
The Zaporizhzhia NPP has repeatedly lost external power supply due to hostilities near the plant. In such cases, it switched to backup diesel generators. The longest was the tenth blackout, which occurred due to Russian shelling and lasted a month — from September 23 to October 23, 2025.
The issue of the Zaporizhzhia NPP remains among the key ones in the trilateral talks between Ukraine, the United States and Russia. In January, Politico, citing sources, wrote that Russia had proposed during the talks to share the electricity from the Zaporizhzhia NPP between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. President Volodymyr Zelensky has already stated that such an idea looks unrealistic. Instead, he proposed that the Zaporizhzhia NPP be operated by Ukraine and the United States.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.