The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been completely cut off from the power grid following bombing raids by Russian forces, leaving it to rely on backup diesel generators, according to the State Enterprise National Nuclear Power Generation Company Ukraine’s “Energoatom”.
The company said the last lines connecting the power plant to the grid were damaged during Wednesday’s shelling, according to Reuters. All six reactors were shut down before the finish line was hit, but they all still need a constant power supply to avoid a disaster.
“Yesterday […] the last two stop lines Zaporizhzhia [nuclear power plant] voltages that connect it to the Ukrainian power system were damaged. At 11: 04 pm, the station went into blackout mode. The 20 diesel generators were on, Energoatom said in a Telegram statement seen by Reuters.
“In the near future, they (Russia) will try to repair and connect the communication lines of the [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant] in the direction of the temporarily occupied Crimea and Donbas”.
The power plant, which is under the control of the invading Russian army, had been running on emergency generators for the past two weeks and now only has 15 days’ worth of fuel to run the generators that supply power to the reactors.
Energoatom had previously accused Russia of deliberately attacking substations connected to Ukrainian power plants.
“Such nuclear blackmail by a terrorist country should not go unanswered by the world community,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said, according to Yahoo! Finance, after a similar attack. “Ukraine needs protection from the skies over its energy facilities”.
Energoatom believes that Russia now wants to connect the power plant to the Russian grid.
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