Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was disconnected from the country’s power grid for the first time in its history Thursday — sparking fears of a catastrophic nuclear disaster before it was eventually reconnected.
The plant, the largest in Europe, was cut off from the grid after fires from the fighting damaged a transmission line, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator said.
“As a result, the station’s two working power units were disconnected from the network,” Energoatom said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
“Thus, the actions of the invaders caused a complete disconnection of the (nuclear power plant) from the power grid — the first in the history of the plant.”
The facility has been occupied by Russian forces for the bulk of the war and has become an artillery base for Moscow’s forces.
In recent weeks, both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the site, fuelling international fears of a potential nuclear accident in a country haunted by the Chernobyl disaster.
“Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months,” Mycle Schneider, an independent policy consultant and coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said before the latest incident at the plant.
Officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency said they were told by Energoatom officials that the plant at least twice lost connection to the grid during the day, but it has since been restored.
Disconnection from the grid makes the plant reliant on its own power to cool and control nuclear reactions. Safety systems at the plant involve a series of backup diesel generators — some of which Russia says have been damaged in recent fighting. A meltdown at the plant could be comparable to the 1986 Chornobyl disaster — and spread nuclear material hundreds of miles beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Additionally, the vast complex supplies more than 20% of Ukraine’s electricity needs and its loss would pile new strain on the government, which is already bracing for a difficult wartime winter of potentially crippling energy shortages.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, captured the Zaporizhzhia plant in March and has controlled it since, although it continues to be operated by Ukrainian technicians from Energoatom.
The Times of London claimed Thursday that videos and witness accounts from inside the plant indicate that some of the power disruptions to the plant have been carried out intentionally by Russian forces as false-flag operations to be blamed on Ukrainian shelling.
Additionally, the UK’s Ministry of Defense published satellite imagery on Thursday that showed Russian tanks within 200 feet of one of the reactors.
“Russian troops were probably attempting to conceal the vehicles by parking them under overhead pipes and gantries,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Claims of a Russian false-flag could not be verified by The Post.
Energoatom said the nuclear plant was still being supplied with power from Ukraine’s energy system through a final power line between the plant and the coal power station.
But an energy official who declined to be identified told Reuters that the two reactors that had been disconnected were being powered by diesel generators.
Each power unit, which includes a reactor, a cooling system and other equipment, has three Soviet-era diesel generators that “are not able to work for weeks,” the source said.
A spokesperson for Energoatom denied the diesel generators had been switched on.
Energoatom said the plant’s security systems were working normally and work was under way to reconnect one of the reactor blocks to the grid.
The uncertainty at the six-reactor plant has prompted calls for an urgent mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the site.
Officials from the UN nuclear watchdog are “very, very close” to being able to visit Zaporozhzhia, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Thursday.
Negotiations over how the mission would access the plant are complicated but advancing, he said on France-24 television after meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, who pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call last week to allow the U.N. agency to visit the site.
“Kyiv accepts it. Moscow accepts it. So we need to go there,” Grossi said.
President Biden discussed the necessity of an IAEA visit in a call with Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson Thursday, according to a White House readout of the discussion.
The leaders also called for a cessation of military operations around the plant.
