‘Nuclear Safety’ Warning As Strikes Cause Chernobyl Power Reductions

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Ukraine has three nuclear power plants still in operation, while Russia has for years controlled the large Zaporizhzhia site.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said backup generators had kicked in at two nuclear power plants in Ukraine in the past week, including at the decommissioned Chernobyl site, after months of punishing Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

Dips in the electrical grid automatically triggered the emergency diesel generators to power safety systems at "several facilities" within the roughly 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone around Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in southern Ukraine was cut off from all off-site power for more than 12 hours last weekend, the watchdog said. This caused four emergency diesel generators to start powering essential safety systems at the ZNPP, before dropping down to two to save fuel, the IAEA said.

Fears over a nuclear disaster have stalked Ukraine since Russia started its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Despite being the country most scarred by the 1986 Chernobyl accident—the world's worst-ever nuclear disaster—Ukraine has long been one of the top consumers of nuclear-generated electricity.

But Moscow's persistent attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, like its thermal plants, have forced the country to rely even more on its three remaining working nuclear power plants.

"It would be difficult for me to overstate my concern about the electrical grid in Ukraine and its impact on nuclear safety," IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, said in a statement.

"These concerns are only further exacerbated as temperatures continue to fall and winter takes hold," Grossi said.

Waves of Russian assaults on Ukraine's power plants, electrical substations and transmission lines have triggered frequent blackouts across the country and exposed Ukrainian households to freezing temperatures as the austere winter conditions set in.

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