Archive image of the facilities of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. /
Public operator Energoatom turns on two of the reactors while an IAEA inspection is expected next week
The high risk of a nuclear catastrophe dissipated this Friday with the reconnection of the Zaporizhia plant, the largest in Europe and located in southern Ukraine. The public operator Energoatom reported that “two of the reactors” have been restarted after the plant had to stop completely for the first time in its history the day before. It was caused by a fire that, according to kyiv, was caused by Russian troops, who have been in control of the facilities since March.
Energoatom specified that two of the last reactors in operation, of the six that operated in that plant before the war, could be reconnected to the Ukrainian network and “the power increase is being carried out.” A necessary measure to prevent the so-called fusion of the core from taking place, a serious phenomenon that could lead to a radioactive leak as a result of the fuel passing from solid to liquid state when it overheats because it is not properly cooled.
Only one diesel generator was in charge of carrying out this cooling task since Zaporizhia was disconnected, a single source completely insufficient to guarantee the safety of the facilities. “Russia has put the Ukrainians and all Europeans just one step away from nuclear disaster,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Thursday night.
kyiv, immersed with Moscow in a spiral of mutual accusations for the attacks around the plant, has reiterated on numerous occasions that the consequences of a nuclear disaster in Zaporizhia would be “ten times greater than those experienced after the Chernobyl accident”, in 1986. For this reason, they have urged an immediate inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and have asked that the plant be controlled by experts from this UN entity.
After the Ukrainian Minister of Energy, German Galushchenko, warned yesterday that the “employment and demilitarization” of Zaporizhia is “the only way” to prevent an atomic catastrophe, his office advanced that the IAEA is preparing to carry out an inspection on the field “next week”. This was announced by Galushchenko’s adviser, Lana Zerkal, who, however, pointed out that Russia “is artificially creating obstacles” to prevent experts from reaching the scene through the national territory as agreed.
Divert power to Crimea
On Thursday night, when the total stoppage in Zaporizhia became known, the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he was determined to “personally lead” the plant. “We can’t afford to waste any more time,” he declared. Meanwhile, Zelensky once again denounced a Kremlin strategy to divert the power supply from the plant to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
In this regard, the US condemned any attempt and its president, Joe Biden, demanded that Moscow return control of the plant to the kyiv government. “The electricity that Zaporizhia produces legitimately belongs to Ukraine and any attempt to disconnect it from the electricity grid to direct it to areas occupied by Russia is unacceptable,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
At the same time, in its daily war part, Ukraine reported three dead and ten wounded in another wave of Russian bombardments on the regions of Kharkov (northeast), Donetsk (east) and Dnipropetrovsk (center). In this last province on Wednesday a missile hit a train at the Chaplino station and left 25 dead.
themes
Volodymyr Zelensky, UN, Chernobyl, Crimea, United States, Kharkov, Kiev, Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, War in Ukraine