The world narrowly avoided a radiation disaster as electricity to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was cut for hours due to Russian shelling on Thursday, Ukraine’s president has claimed.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the shelling sparked fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the reactor complex from the power grid.
Zelenskyy said the plant’s emergency backup diesel generators had to be activated to supply power needed to run the plant.
The power supply ensured by back-up diesel generators is vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant, he said, praising the Ukrainian technicians who operate the plant under the watch of the Russian military.
“If our station staff had not reacted after the blackout, then we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of a radiation accident,” he said in an evening address.
“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster.”
Russia blames Ukraine
A Russian-appointed official in the nearby occupied town of Enerhodar blamed Ukraine’s armed forces for a fire in a forest near the plant. He said towns in the area lost power for several hours on Thursday.
“This was caused by the disconnection of power lines from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station as a result of provocations by Zelenskyy’s fighters,” Vladimir Rogov wrote on Telegram. “The disconnection itself was triggered by a fire and short circuit on the power lines.”
Zaporizhzhia’s Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, also blamed the transmission-line damage on a Ukrainian attack.
Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom said it had been the first complete disconnection in the plant, which has become a hotspot in the six-month-old war.
It was not immediately clear whether the damaged line carried outgoing electricity or incoming power, needed for the reactors’ vital cooling systems. A backup line supplying electricity from another plant remained in place, Energoatom said.
Nuclear watchdog ‘very close’ to inspection
Russia captured the plant in March following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has controlled it since, although Ukrainian technicians still operate it.
The United Nations is seeking access to the plant and has called for the area to be demilitarised. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials are “very, very close” to being able to visit Zaporizhzhia, agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Thursday.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the site, fuelling fears of a nuclear disaster.
Nuclear experts have warned of the risk of damage to the plant’s spent nuclear fuel pools or its reactors. Cuts in power needed to cool the pools could cause a disastrous meltdown.
Zelenskyy’s mention of the emergency generators being activated raised questions of whether the cooling systems were endangered.
‘Russian roulette’
Paul Bracken, a national security expert and professor at the Yale School of Management, said the concern was that artillery shells or missiles could puncture the reactor walls and spread radiation around potentially a large area, much like the 1986 accident involving the Chornobyl reactor.
A failure at the Zaporizhzhia plant could “kill hundreds or thousands of people, and damage environmentally a far larger area reaching into Europe,” Bracken said.
“Russian roulette is a good metaphor because the Russians are spinning the chamber of the revolver, threatening to blow out the brains of the reactor all over Europe,” Bracken said.
“Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months,” Mycle Schneider, a consultant and coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said before the latest incident.
Ukraine cannot simply shut down its nuclear plants during the war because it is heavily reliant on them. Its 15 reactors at four stations provide about half of its electricity.