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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s nuclear operator said Thursday that Russian bombing lines of force connect Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to the Ukrainian grid, leaving the plant once again dependent on backup diesel generators.
While fighting in Ukraine has broken power lines and substations of force, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has run backup turbines to cool the reactors and keep other protective systems running until overall strength can be restored.
The turbines have enough fuel for the plant in southeastern Ukraine for just 15 days, state nuclear power company Energoatom said on its Telegram channel.
“The countdown has begun,” Energoatom said, noting that it had limited features to “keep ZNPP in safe mode,” raising fears of an imaginable nuclear disaster.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that the most recent transfer of the plant to the backup force underscores “the incredibly precarious nuclear safety and security situation at the facility and the urgent need to identify an area around it. “
The progression “demonstrates again the fragility and scenario of the plant,” said Rafael Grossi, director-general of the U. N. nuclear watchdog.
Relying on diesel turbines “is obviously not a sustainable way to run a giant nuclear facility,” Grossi added. “Measures are needed to prevent a turn of nuclear fate at the site. necessary.
The plant’s six reactors did not operate during the war, but open-air electrical power was needed to cool spent fuel. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for months amid the war for bombings and around the plant that the International Atomic Energy agency said could cause a radiological emergency.
Russian forces occupied the factory at the beginning of the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The plant is located in the Zaporizhzhia region, one of the 4 Ukrainian provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month.
Although Putin signed a decree to pass the nuclear plant into Russian hands, Ukrainian personnel continue to run the plant and Ukrainian forces continue to occupy parts of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Energoatom has continuously called for the withdrawal of Russian forces from the plant and the creation of a demilitarized zone around it. Grossi spent months seeking to negotiate such a zone.
The latest loss of reliable electrical power overnight came when Russia bombed two power lines connecting the plant to the Ukrainian grid in “an attempt to reconnect the nuclear plant to the Russian electricity system,” Energoatom alleged.
The company claimed that the Russian side would try to fix power lines to connect the plant to the Russian grid and thus supply electricity to occupied Crimea and parts of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia also recently controls.
Across the Dnipro River from the power plant, the city of Nikopol was also bombed, damaging residential buildings, a fuel station and several personal businesses, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s workplace said Thursday.
Other Ukrainian cities were also targeted, with Russian drones, missiles and heavy artillery leaving six civilians dead and 16 others wounded, according to the president’s office. Power and water infrastructure was attacked in Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, leaving several neighborhoods without power. or water in the city, which before the war had a population of 635,000, said local governor Oleksandr Vilkul.
Further east, in the Donetsk region, fighting continued in the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where the government said people were under constant bombardment and living without electricity or heating. artillery, while in the northeast, 3 missiles hit Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, officials said.
Separately, seven ships carrying 290,000 tons of agricultural produce left Ukraine’s seaports for Asia and Europe, a day after Russia agreed to sign a war deal allowing Ukrainian grain and other goods to be shipped to the world markets.
Announcing that Russia would sign the pact, Putin said Moscow had obtained assurances that Ukraine would not use humanitarian corridors to attack Russian forces. He warned that Russia reserved the right to withdraw if Kyiv broke its word.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Thursday that Russia’s resolution to sign does not mean the deal will be extended beyond Nov. 19.
“Before we make the resolution to continue, of course, we will have to give a general summary of the effectiveness of the agreement,” Peskov told reporters.
Russia had suspended its participation in the grain deal over the weekend, bringing to light an alleged drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Blackmail has led nowhere. “
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Spanish radio station Cadena SER that Ukraine had never used the grain room for military purposes and said the attack was “people of intelligent will. “
At Coincow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert on Thursday and said it called in connection with the alleged involvement of British instructors in the Oct. 29 drone attack on Black Sea Fleet facilities in Sevastopol, Crimea. Bronnert did not comment when he left the ministry after an assembly that lasted about half an hour.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday he had not noticed any progress in exporting Russian fertilizers and grains, despite the reimplementation of the Ukrainian component of the UN-sponsored grain deal.
Speaking to reporters at a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, Lavrov also said Russia was pleased that the Ukrainian leadership had signed pledges “that no attempt would be made to use Black Sea humanitarian routes for military purposes. “
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko denied that Kyiv had made such commitments.
“Ukraine has not used nor has it planned to use the grain room for military purposes. The Ukrainian aspect obviously adheres to the provisions of the grain agreement,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. “Our state has not taken on any new obligations that would go beyond the limits of those already existing in the grain agreement. “
The ships that set sail Thursday included one with 29,000 tons of sunflower seeds bound for Oman and another with 67,000 tons of corn bound for China, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Since the agreement was concluded in August, 430 ships have exported 10 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products to countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Infrastructure Ministry said export volumes in October “could have been 30 to 40 percent higher if Russia had not artificially blocked inspections on the Bosphorus. “
Meanwhile, the Kremlin-backed government in the Donetsk region announced another prisoner swap on Thursday. The acting head of the Moscow-based region, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram that that aspect would exchange 107 members of the army.
Ukraine did not verify the exchange. In the last prisoner exchange, Aspect freed 50 people.
Donetsk is a region of Ukraine that Putin annexed last month in violation of foreign law. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Pushilin ruled a self-proclaimed separatist republic in a part of the region, and the Russian military was working to capture territory still in Ukrainian hands.
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