Major risks at Ukrainian nuclear plant after power outage, Zelenskyy warns

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is one of four in Ukraine, but is the only one under Russian control.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and officials from the UN nuclear agency are warning of growing safety risks at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which has been without power for over a week.

While International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated that there is no immediate risk to the plant, he warned that the current setup is “clearly not a sustainable situation in terms of nuclear safety,” The Associated Press reported.

In a statement late on Tuesday, he maintained that the generators were holding up.

“The current status of the reactor units and spent fuel is stable as long as the emergency diesel generators are able to provide sufficient power to maintain essential safety-related functions and cooling,” he said, adding that he was in touch with both Ukrainian and Russian officials about reconnecting the plant to mainline power.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy said its emergency generators, which cool the facility’s reactors, were working beyond their intended capacity.

“The generators and the plant were not designed for this,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, describing the situation as “critical.”

According to the Guardian, he said that Russian artillery was preventing repairs to a power line used to cool the reactors. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed it on Ukrainian shelling, telling reporters on Wednesday it was “stupid to accuse the Russian side of shelling the plant it controls.”

Zaporizhzhia is one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants. It was seized by Russian forces days into the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.