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Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Europe’s largest nuclear power plant The operator of the facility and the United Nations Atomic Energy Watchdog said the facility’s operator and the United Nations Atomic Energy Watchdog said the facility’s operator and the United Nations Atomic Energy Watchdog said the facility The operator of the facility and the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency said the last transmission line at the facility was cut off on Monday following a fire caused by shelling.
This International Atomic Energy Agency Said Ukrainian authorities notified it on Monday that the reserve line was “deliberately disconnected to put out the fire”.
“The line itself was not damaged and will be reconnected once the fire is out,” the IAEA said.
Meanwhile, the plant’s only remaining operating reactor will “provide the power needed for the plant’s safety and other functions,” the agency said.
That means the plant is likely to operate in “island mode”, generating electricity only for its own operations, said Mycle Schneider, an independent Canadian nuclear analyst.
“Island mode is a very unstable, unstable and unreliable way of providing continuous power to a nuclear power plant,” Schneider said.
The incident has raised fears of a potential nuclear disaster at Zaporozhye, one of the world’s 10 largest nuclear power plants. Experts say its reactors are designed to prevent incidents such as natural disasters and plane crashes, but leaders around the world have called for it to be kept out of combat because of the risk of catastrophe.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of attacking a nuclear power plant that Kremlin forces have controlled since early March. Ukrainian employees at the plant continue to operate it.
The plant’s operator, Energoatom, said on Monday that despite warnings, Russian troops had continued “intensive shelling” near Zaporozhye in recent days. The Russian military has accused Ukrainian forces of “provocations” there, including sending an intercepted drone and shelling the neighbouring city of Enejodar.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Facebook that the battle over the power station had left damaged power lines beyond repair, putting the world “on the brink of nuclear catastrophe again”.
The Zaporozhye developments come on the eve of a report by IAEA inspectors to the UN Security Council on Tuesday on what they found during their visit. Two experts are still at the plant after the IAEA conducted a dangerous inspection last week, asking its inspectors to travel through the fight.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoljak applauded the IAEA’s decision to keep some experts at the plant.
“There are now Russian troops who don’t understand what’s going on and don’t properly assess the risks,” Podoljak said. “There are some of our workers there who need some kind of protection, and people from the international community stand by their side and tell (the Russian army): ‘Don’t touch these people, let them work.'”
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made some of his most blunt comments in Moscow on its standoff with Western Europe over energy supplies, blaming Western sanctions for causing Russia to halt supplies to Europe. natural gas.
“There are no other causes of pumping problems,” Peskov said.
He said sanctions on Moscow and Rosneft had created problems with equipment maintenance, a claim that Western governments and engineers refuted.
German officials have said Russia’s complaints about the technology are just a political power play. Germany’s Siemens Energy, which makes the turbines used in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, says it can repair turbine leaks while natural gas continues to flow through the pipeline.
Russian energy company Gazprom announced on Friday that the supply of natural gas to the west via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will be extended indefinitely as a turbine oil leak needs to be repaired. The move sent gas prices in Europe soaring and hammered global stock markets.
high energy prices And possible shortages in Western Europe this winter have sounded alarm bells among governments, especially those in the European Union.French President Emmanuel Macron called on Monday 10% cut in his country’s energy use in the coming weeks and months to avoid the risk of rationing and cuts this winter.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, fighting continues. At least four civilians have been killed and seven others injured in fresh Russian shelling in several areas of Ukraine, the president’s office said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had shelled much of southern and eastern Ukraine, including Zelenodolsk, Nikopol, Chernihiv and the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
Ukrainian news reports said Russian rockets destroyed an oil depot in the Krivoy Rog region, producing a large amount of smoke.
Russian authorities in the occupied Kherson region said earlier on Monday that they had suspended local referendums on whether the region should officially become part of Russia for security reasons, as strikes in Ukraine increased in the occupied Kherson region. plan.
But by the afternoon, officials had changed their minds and said the vote would go ahead as planned, although a date had yet to be set.
In the eastern city of Sloviansk, Ukrainian Red Cross workers on Monday cleared debris from the second rocket attack in a week. No one was injured in either attack, said Taras Logginov, head of the agency’s rapid response unit. He blamed the Russian military and called the attack a war crime.
In a row of apartment blocks across the road, the few residents who didn’t evacuate used sawn plywood to seal shattered windows.
Henadii Sydorenko rests on the porch of his apartment building. He said he was unsure whether to stay or leave, torn between the responsibility of caring for three apartments whose owners had already evacuated and the growing fear of the now frequent shelling.
“It’s scary,” the 57-year-old said of the shelling. “I’m losing my mind bit by bit.”
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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