On the night of March 4, 2022, the Russian army captured the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Since then, the station has been under construction, but it continues to remain connected to the Ukrainian power grid.
As a result of the ongoing Russian occupation, the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is deteriorating and, after returning to Ukrainian control, it will take years to resume and restart it. The Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko said this on Monday, June 17, at an online meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy and Housing and Communal Services.
Galushchenko noted that we are talking, first of all, about equipment damage.
“The second problem is that in connection with the explosion of the Kakhovka dam, there is a question of how we will supply water to the station if, according to theory, the third problem is that the service life of the fuel has expired,” added the minister .
“In the usual way, if we get the station, it is very difficult to estimate how much time is needed to bring it to work condition and operate in six blocks, but according to today’s estimates, it is not months,” he said.
The Russians occupied the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant at the end of February 2022. Since then, there have always been personnel and military equipment there, which the occupiers stored in engine rooms and sometimes brought to positions to attack the territory of Nikopol district of Dnepropetrovsk region.
There is an IAEA monitoring mission at the plant, which must ensure that the nuclear power plant is not used as a military base, that the plant is not attacked or fired upon, and that external power supplies are not interrupted. However, blackouts at nuclear power plants continue to occur.
Ukraine is closer to de-occupying the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant after the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. President Vladimir Zelensky said this.
Let’s recall that earlier the IAEA announced three direct hits on the protective structures of the main reactor of the Zaporizhia NPP. Rosatom has traditionally blamed the Ukrainian military for the strike.
On June 11, a mine exploded at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant near the cooling pond. No one was injured as a result of the explosion, and there was no damage.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.