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Europe’s largest nuclear reactor has become a battlefield In defense of Ukraine against Russian aggressors as they risk a catastrophic meltdown in efforts to connect it to Moscow’s national grid.
Zaporizhzhya The nuclear power plant, which has six reactors, was quickly captured by Russian troops Full scale invasion of Ukraine In 2022. Since then it has remained a dangerous potential flashpoint for nuclear disaster.
Fighting and bombardment from both sides of the complex and the power station, which is completely occupied by Russian forces who station troops in its buildings, have forced the reactors to “cold shut down”.
This means that its nuclear material is not used to generate electricity but instead requires constant cooling.
The fighting cut off electricity from Ukraine, which meant the cooling system had to rely entirely on diesel generators for a month, running the power station with very few staff.
Regular power was restored to ZNPP only last week after being disconnected from power for the longest time to run its cooling system.
Russia needs to cut Ukrainian electricity links to establish its own connection to the Russian network – a long-stated ambition.
“The Russian Federation is laying its power line but Ukraine has successfully damaged its elements,” said Mykhailo Shuster, a nuclear expert and former director of procurement at Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency.
“Russia is now on a high level of preparedness, and to add to this, electricity supplies from Ukraine should be disrupted.”
It is unclear whether Russia will be able to connect the Ukrainian plant to its network during the 30-day outage. If it did so it would have to install converter stations to synchronize the two grids.
But after Russia blew up the Kakhova Dam, which provides the main water source for the ZNPP, power outages to cooling systems at the ZNPP and a near halt in water supply there are causing panic among local leaders.
The exiled mayor of Enrhodar, the town next to the ZNPP that is also now occupied, told The Independent he fears nuclear power could leach into the groundwater around the plant, polluting the Dnipro River and ultimately the Black Sea.
He said, “The Kakhovka Dam has been destroyed; there is nothing to cool it.” “Even if they miraculously restore the device in the future.
“Worst case scenario – the water will eventually evaporate from the cooling pond, and there will be nothing to cool the nuclear fuel.”
“It could melt the concrete and get into the groundwater,” Mayor Dmytro Orlov said from his office in Zaporizhia. Mayor Orlov runs humanitarian programs for the thousands of people, mostly nuclear energy workers, who have fled their city to safety due to the advancing Russians.
The mayor recalled the Chernobyl disaster, the catastrophic failure of a reactor in 1968 in then-Soviet Ukraine, the worst nuclear disaster in history.
“The estimated amount of nuclear fuel there is about ten times greater than at Chernobyl,” he warned.
A small team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Authority regularly inspects the power station and has reported military training and explosions in and around the facility.
Russian artillery and mortars were seen shelling and bombarding Ukrainian towns and villages on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River.
After power was restored, IAEA Director-General Mario Grossi said: “What was once virtually unimaginable – a nuclear power plant regularly losing power off-site – has unfortunately become a common occurrence during this devastating war. However, this was the most challenging power event ever experienced.
“There is still much work to be done to further reduce the risks of a nuclear accident.”