The Russian occupiers carried out a massive shelling in the morning of May 22, due to which the last high-voltage power transmission line of Dniprovska, which fed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), was disconnected. Since the beginning of the occupation of the NPP, it has gone into blackout mode for the seventh time.
"Energoatom" writes about this.
External power keeps the nuclear fuel cooling pumps running in the holding pools and nuclear reactors of the power units, but the NPP has now switched to diesel generators. They have enough fuel for ten days.
If it is not possible to restore the operation of the power transmission line, a radiation accident with consequences for the whole world may occur within ten days.
- The ZNPP was occupied by the Russian military at the beginning of March 2022, and since then it has been operating under their control. Since August, the occupiers have been regularly shelling the ZNPP and Energodar, as a result of which the station was completely disconnected from the power grid several times.
- In September, a 14-person IAEA delegation visited the station, after which agency employees remained at the ZNPP. They change periodically.
- Ukraine insists on the withdrawal of the Russian occupiers from the station. Volodymyr Zelensky stated that while Russian soldiers are at the ZNPP, "the world remains on the brink of a radiation disaster."
- The head of the IAEA plans to present the agreement on the protection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant at the UN Security Council. Sources say that Ukraine has long opposed the deal, but now supports it. Instead, Russiaʼs position is completely unclear. Earlier, the director general of the IAEA claimed that the Zaporizhzhia NPP could no longer be protected.
- In May, IAEA experts recorded that the Russians had placed explosives, weapons and military equipment in the turbine compartment of power unit No. 4 of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, and British intelligence said that the invaders had set up firing positions on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plantʼs nuclear reactors.