Tag: Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

  • Ukraine war: Russian air strikes cut power at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

    Ukraine war: Russian air strikes cut power at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

    At least six people have been killed and power at Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been lost after Russia launched missiles across Ukraine.

    The attacks hit cities from Kharkiv in the north to Odesa in the south and Zhytomyr in the west.

    Buildings and infrastructure were hit in Kharkiv and Odesa, with power blackouts in several areas. Attacks on the capital Kyiv are also reported.

    Ukraine said Russia fired 81 missiles, in what is the biggest strike in weeks.

    The military claimed it successfully shot down 34 cruise missiles and four of the eight Iranian-made Shahed drones fired.

    In western Ukraine, at least five people were killed in Lviv after a rocket hit their home, the region’s governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram.

    One person has died and two others were injured following drone and missile strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to governor Serhii Lysak.

    Nuclear energy operator Energoatom said a strike at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is Europe’s largest, meant the “last link” between the facility and the Ukrainian power system was cut off.

    Russia-installed officials in the Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said the halt in electricity supplies to the power station from Ukrainian-held territory was “a provocation”.

    In Kyiv, emergency services are at the scenes of blasts in western and southern districts of the capital where the mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said explosions had taken place.

    Mr Klitschko said cars were burning in the courtyard of one residential building and he urged people to stay in shelters. Much of the city has been left without electricity, with four in 10 people without power, he added.

    A mass missile attack struck an energy facility in the port city of Odesa, triggering power cuts, its governor Maksym Marchenko said. Residential areas were also hit but no casualties were reported, he added.

    “About 15” strikes hit Kharkiv city and region, with “critical infrastructure facilities” and a residential building targeted, regional administration chief Oleg Synegubov said.

    People react at the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv
    Image caption,People gathered outside a residential building in Kyiv following the strikes

    Other regions hit include Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west, and Dnipro and Poltava in the centre of the country.

    The attacks mark the biggest day of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine since the end of January, when 11 people died after dozens of buildings were struck in several regions.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion just over a year ago. Since then tens of thousands of combatants and civilians have been killed or injured and millions of Ukrainians became refugees.

    The US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, suggested on Wednesday that President Putin might be planning to drag out the war for years but that Russia was not strong enough to launch major new offensives this year.

    She said the war in Ukraine had become a “grinding attritional war in which neither side has a definitive military advantage”.

    “We do not foresee the Russian military recovering enough this year to make major territorial gains, but Putin most likely calculates the time works in his favour, and that prolonging the war including with potential pauses in the fighting may be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing Russia’s strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years,” she said.

    A man checks a damaged car at the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv
    Image caption,The aftermath of missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv

    Ms Haines said Russia might turn to defending the territories it now occupies, adding that it would need additional “mandatory mobilization and third-party ammunition sources” to sustain even its level of operations in Ukraine.

    Ukraine’s military says it has pushed back intense Russian attacks on the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut despite Russian forces claiming to have taken control of its eastern half.

    Moscow has been trying to take Bakhmut for months, as both sides suffer heavy losses in a grinding war of attrition.

    “The enemy continued its attacks and has shown no sign of a let-up in storming the city of Bakhmut,” the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said. “Our defenders repelled attacks on Bakhmut and on surrounding communities.”

    Between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut since it began last summer, Western officials say. The figures cannot be verified independently.

    Source: BBC

  • IAEA director en route to Ukraine’s capital

    Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is currently travelling to Kyiv after discussions with Russian authorities on establishing a protection zone around the Ukrainian nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian occupation.

    In a statement on Twitter, Mr Grossi said he had agreed with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he would come back to Kyiv and work around the nuclear power plant continued.

    Earlier today, a Russian-installed official said the safety zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was not possible until the frontline was at least 100 km (62 miles) away.

    “As of today, I think that it is extremely unsafe,” Yevgeny Balitsky told state television.

    He also warned that it would not be possible to quickly relaunch the plant, amid fears shelling could further compromise its safety.

    “It’s not a toy, you can’t just turn it on and off like a switch. There are runaway processes, there’s cooling, and so forth,” Mr Balitsky added.

    The IAEA has been pushing for a demilitarised security zone around the plant, Europe’s Largest, which remains close to the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

    Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the plant and the facilities around it, risking a nuclear accident.

     

     

  • Ukraine war: Power is restored at major nuclear reactor in Zaporizhzhia

    International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA,) the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reports that Ukraine’s massive Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility has resumed power supply from the national grid.

    Power lines connected to the plant were destroyed by shelling in the region.

    The plant’s six reactors are all in a state of cold shutdown, but it still needs outside electricity to keep them cool and prevent a meltdown.

    The situation at the plant, which is seized by Russian forces, has reportedly improved but is still unstable, according to the IAEA.

    At the beginning of the month, a group of nuclear experts from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) travelled to Zaporizhzhia, the biggest nuclear facility in Europe.

    The trip followed increasing calls from Ukraine and the international community for a safety inspection following reports of shelling.

    Russia and Ukraine both blamed each other for the shelling of the facility in southeast Ukraine.

    After the IAEA’s first inspection, the agency announced it would maintain a permanent presence in order to monitor the situation.

    Members of the team at the site on Saturday learned that one of the four main external power lines damaged by shelling had been repaired, allowing electricity to be received directly from the national grid, the IAEA tweeted on Saturday.

    Further east in Ukraine, the discovery of mass graves in Izyum has led the European Union presidency to call for an international tribunal for war crimes to be carried out.

    Hundreds of bodies have been discovered buried in a forest at the edge of the city, which recently came under the control of Ukraine after Russian forces retreated.

    Many are said to be civilians, women, and children among them.

    Ukraine says it believes war crimes have been committed.

    “In the 21st Century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” said Jan Lipavsky, foreign minister of the Czech Republic which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

    “We must not overlook it. We stand for the punishment of all war criminals,” he wrote in a tweet. “I call for the speedy establishment of a special international tribunal that will prosecute the crime of aggression.”

    Fighting raged on Saturday in the divided eastern region of Donetsk, which is mostly under the control of Russian-backed separatists.

    The separatist mayor of Donetsk city said four people had been killed by Ukrainian government shelling of a central district while the Donetsk region’s Ukrainian governor accused Russian forces of shelling a thermal power plant in Mykolaivka, disrupting drinking water supplies in the area.

    Ukrainian troops are continuing their counter-offensive in the country’s north-east, after successfully recapturing territory from Russia in recent days, the UK’s defence ministry says. It adds that Russia has established a defensive line protecting one of its main supply routes from Belgorod, near its border with Ukraine.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukrainian counter-offensives would not change Russia’s military plans in the east of Ukraine.

  • Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant: UN nuclear inspectors depart regardless of ‘significant’ risks

    Despite the “severe” dangers of their mission, a group of international experts is headed to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for a scheduled inspection of the facility on Thursday, according to Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    Upon arrival at the plant, the team will start an immediate “assessment of the security and safety situation,” Grossi told reporters, with the ultimate goal of “establishing a continued presence of the IAEA at the plant.”

    The plant is near the front line of the war in southeastern Ukraine and was captured by Russian troops in March. Both sides have accused each other of shelling it.

    “I have been briefed by the Ukrainian regional military commander about the inherent risks but weighing the pros and cons and having come so far, we are not stopping, we are moving now,” Grossi said. “We know that there is a so-called ‘gray zone’ where the last line of Ukrainian defense [ends] and the first line of Russian occupying forces begin; where the risks are significant.
    “At the same time, we consider that we have the minimum conditions to move, accepting that the risks are very high. Still, myself and the team feel we can proceed with this, we have a very important mission to accomplish.”

    It is uncertain how long the IAEA visit will last.

  • Ukraine war: Zelensky warns Russian soldiers at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of using “nuclear blackmail” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest.

    Russia seized the plant in March and has been accused of turning it into a base from where it hits nearby towns.

    Both countries have traded blame for shelling it in recent days, prompting UN warnings of a nuclear disaster.

    Mr Zelensky says any Russian soldier who shoots at or under the cover of the plant will be a “special target”.

    The six-nuclear reactor Zaporizhzhia station is located in the city of Enerhodar, on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River (Dnipro in Ukrainian) in southern Ukraine.

    Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, seizing the plant within days. Moscow has kept Ukrainian personnel to operate the facility.

    The UN has warned that continued hostilities around the station could lead to a nuclear disaster affecting much of Europe.

    Russia has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing at the plant.

    It says it seized control of the plant to prevent leaks of radioactive materials during fighting in the region.

    Map showing Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and Nikopol

    During his video address late on Saturday, Mr Zelensky said Russia had engaged in “constant provocations” by firing on the plant and said forces stationed there had used it as a base to shell the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets – on the other bank of the river.

    This was being done, the president said, to “blackmail our state and the entire free world”. But he stressed that “Russian blackmail only mobilises even more global efforts to confront terror”.

    “Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots under the cover of the plant, must understand that he is becoming a special target for our intelligence, for our special services, for our army,” the president said.

    He added that “every day” of Russia’s occupation of the plant “increases the radiation threat to Europe”.

    Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency also accused Russia of a provocation by parking a Pion self-propelled heavy artillery piece outside a nearby town and painting a Ukrainian flag on it, in an attempt to discredit Kyiv.

    A BBC investigation revealed earlier this week that many of the Ukrainian workers at the site are being kept under armed guard amid harsh conditions.

    On Thursday, foreign minsters from the G7 group of industrial democracies demanded that Russia withdraw from the site immediately.

    Their warning echoed statements from the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which called for an end to “all military activities that endanger nuclear security”.

    UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned that the situation at the plant could “lead to disaster”.

    Source: BBC