Russia seized the plant at the start of the war and turned it into a military station, cramming trucks into turbine rooms and placing them under overpasses and pipes. He ignored widespread international calls for the demilitarization of the region, amid warnings that damage to the site’s infrastructure and strains on staff have increased the risk of a nuclear accident at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. On Saturday, Ukrainian nuclear power company Energoatom said Russian forces had repeatedly bombed the site and as a result it was operating “at the risk of breaching radioactivity and fire safety standards” by midday. “As a result of periodic bombings, the station’s infrastructure has been damaged, there are risks of hydrogen leakage and release of radioactive substances, and the risk of fire is high,” the company said on Telegram. Ukrainian authorities have distributed iodine tablets to residents of areas near the plant, which can help protect the body in the event of a radiation leak. Russia’s Defense Ministry responded to the Ukrainian statement by claiming that Ukraine had fired 17 shells at the site. He said some had landed in fuel storage areas. Earlier this week, shelling fires outside the plant’s perimeter knocked out power lines to the plant, disconnecting it from Ukraine’s grid for the first time in nearly 40 years of operation. The outage puts the reactors’ cooling systems, which run on electricity, at risk. A backup line to a nearby coal-fired plant kept electricity flowing to the plant, but if that went down, the plant would rely on diesel generators for power. If these fail, engineers have only 90 minutes to prevent dangerous overheating. It was reconnected on Friday, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned in his last night speech that “the situation remains precarious and dangerous”. “Any repetition[ofThursday’seventsthatisanydisconnectionofthestationfromthegridoranyactionsbyRussiathatcouldcausetheshutdownofthereactorswillagainputthestationonestepawayfromdisaster”[τωνγεγονότωντηςΠέμπτηςδηλαδήοποιαδήποτεαποσύνδεσητουσταθμούαπότοδίκτυοήοποιεσδήποτεενέργειεςαπότηΡωσίαπουθαμπορούσανναπροκαλέσουντοκλείσιμοτωναντιδραστήρωνθαθέσεικαιπάλιτονσταθμόέναβήμαμακριάαπότηνκαταστροφή»[Thursday’seventsieanydisconnectionofthestationfromthegridoranyactionsbyRussiathatcouldtriggertheshutdownofthereactorswillonceagainputthestationonestepawayfromdisaster” There are fears that Russia wants to disconnect the plant from Ukraine’s grid and connect it to the Russian grid via Crimea, possibly using the pretext of an outage like Thursday’s. Energoatom head Petro Kotin said Russian engineers had already drawn up a detailed technical plan for the transfer and presented it to his Ukrainian counterparts at the plant. The UN’s atomic energy agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is trying to negotiate access to the plant for an urgent inspection mission “to help stabilize the nuclear safety and security situation there.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Kotin told the Guardian that a visit could take place before the end of the month, but Ukraine’s Energy Minister Lana Zerkal told a local radio station that she was not convinced Russia was negotiating in good faith. “They artificially create all the conditions so that the mission does not reach the point,” he said. Also on Saturday, Russia published a decree making it easier for Ukrainian citizens to stay in the country. They will not need work permits and can have unlimited residency. Moscow says 3.6 million Ukrainian citizens have moved to Russia since its forces invaded Ukraine, in a war it officially calls a “special operation”. Almost half of them may have moved against their will. The US State Department estimated in July that Russian authorities “interrogated, arrested and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes in Russia.” Agencies contributed to this story
