A line of force outside Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, was repaired on Sunday after shelling took the facility offline and forced it to move to a hotel with emergency diesel generators, the U. N. nuclear watchdog said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the 750-kilovolt line was reconnected to the plant late Sunday after Ukrainian engineers repaired the frames. Last connection to the network: Cut early Saturday.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi tweeted that the reconnection is “a temporary relief in a still unsustainable situation. “
The plant has been owned by Russian forces for months, but is operated by Ukrainian employees. All six reactors at the site are closed, but still need electrical power for cooling and other protective functions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week ordered his government to resume operations at the power plant in southern Ukraine, where fears of a turn in atomic fate remain high.
Grossi was in Kyiv on Thursday to talk about creating a coverage zone around the shooting site, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each other.
“Now there is a coverage area. I will go to Russia and then see [President Volodymyr] Zelensky of Ukraine to identify the area,” Grossi added in his tweet on Sunday.
Under pressure that the main objective of the area “avoid a turn of the nutransparent fate in the plant, which again becomes a very, very transparent possibility”.
“Almost every day now, there are shelling in the domain where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located and where the plant staff and their families live,” he said. “The bombing will have to stop immediately. This is already having and will have an impact on the nuclear protection and safety scenario of the plant.
Power has been cut several times since August.
Ukraine’s corps of operations workers told IAEA experts that a convoy of five trucks carrying “vital additional diesel fuel materials” lately in the city of Zaporizhzhia and planned to cross the front line to reach the plant on Monday, the company said. The site lately has diesel reserves for about 10 days. Meanwhile, a source of diesel provided through the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom arrived in Enerhodar, the IAEA added.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the 4 regions of Ukraine that Putin annexed in violation of the law.
Putin signed a decree Wednesday noting that Russia was taking over the nuclear plant. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called it a criminal act and said it thought Putin’s decree was “null and void. “Ukraine’s nuclear operator, Energoatom, said the plant would continue to operate.
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