Ukraine just ‘one step away from radiation disaster’

UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of nearly causing a “radiation disaster” after the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was temporarily cut off from the electrical grid because of fire damage.

A blackout across the region on Thursday heightened fears of a catastrophe in a country still haunted by the Chernobyl disaster. The complex, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, has been occupied by Russian forces and run by Ukrainian workers since early in the war.

Ukraine claims Russia is essentially holding the plant hostage, storing weapons there and launching attacks from around it, while Moscow accuses Ukraine of recklessly firing on the facility.

On Thursday, the plant was cut off from the electrical grid after fires damaged the last operating regular transmission line, according to Ukraine’s nuclear power agency, Energoatom.

Mr Zelensky blamed Russian shelling and said the plant’s emergency backup diesel generators had to be activated to supply power needed to run the plant.

“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans one step away from a radiation disaster,” the president said in his nightly video address.

Zaporizhzhia’s Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, blamed the transmission-line damage on a Ukrainian attack. It was not immediately clear whether the damaged line carried outgoing electricity or incoming power, needed for the reactors’ vital cooling systems. A backup line supplying electricity from another plant remained in place, Energoatom said.

But Mr Zelensky’s mention of the emergency generators being activated raised questions over the safety of the cooling systems. A loss of cooling could cause a nuclear meltdown.

As a result of the transmission-line damage, the two reactors still in use out of the plant’s six went offline, Mr Balitsky said, but one was quickly restored, as was electricity to the region.

Many nuclear plants automatically shut down or at least reduce reactor output in the event of a loss of outgoing transmission lines. The UN’s International Atomic Agency said Ukraine informed it that the reactors’ emergency protection systems were triggered, and all safety systems remained operational.

A mission from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant next week after it was temporarily knocked offline and more shelling was reported in the area overnight, Ukrainian officials said. The plant’s three regular transmission lines are out of service due to previous damage.

“Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months,” Mycle Schneider, coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said before the latest incident.