Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant again lost power from the external grid on Monday, relying on diesel generators to cool the reactors, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of responsibility for the situation.
Ukraine’s atomic energy authority Energoatom said the power plant was disconnected from the power grid in the early hours of today due to the Russian shelling of a substation.
“Today, October 17, Russian terrorists again fired on critical infrastructure substations in Ukrainian-controlled territory, as a result of which at 03:59 [menos duas horas em Lisboa] the last 750 kV communication line [quilovolts] (…) has gone offline,” the state-owned company was quoted as saying by the Ukrinform news agency.
With the external power cut, “the reserve transformer for needs” of the plant was turned off and the diesel generators were started, according to Energoatom.
“Once again, we call on the international community to take urgent action to demilitarize the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant as soon as possible,” Energoatom demanded.
For the Ukrainian nuclear authority, the plant must return to full control of Ukraine, “for the safety of the whole world.”
Russia, for its part, accused Ukrainian forces of being responsible for the situation at the plant, the largest of its kind in Europe.
The president of the movement “We are together with Russia”, Vladimir Rogov, told the official Russian agency TASS that the Ukrainian shelling prevents the plant from restarting.
According to Rogov, it is necessary that “the bombings of the militants of the [Presidente ucraniano, Volodymyr] Zelensky please stop and restore all power lines.”
The Zaporizhia plant has been under Russian control since March 4, just days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, it has been one of the main focuses of the war in Ukraine, faced with the danger of a nuclear disaster like that of the Ukrainian Chernobyl power plant in 1986, the most serious in the world, when the country was part of the former Union Soviet.
Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of launching attacks on the surrounding area, endangering the security of the plant and the region.
A special mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began in August to assess the condition of the facilities and their workers, maintaining a team at the plant.
Last week, the director of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, met with Ukrainian and Russian authorities to try to reach an agreement that would allow the demilitarization of the plant.
“The situation at the plant is untenable and we need immediate action to protect it,” he said on Twitter on Friday, returning from kyiv.
The information published by the two sides about the war in Ukraine, which Russia started on February 24 this year, cannot be independently verified immediately.
The number of civilian and military casualties is unknown, but various sources, including the UN, have admitted that it will be considerably high.
Source: TSF
