UKRAINE: After Russian shelling destroyed the last high-voltage power cables in Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor was cut off from the nation’s grid, according to officials.
Wednesday’s shelling damaged the final remaining high-voltage wires that connected the plant to the Ukrainian grid, and Moscow desired to connect the plant to the Russian grid, Energoatom said.
Russia targets Ukraine’s infrastructure
Energoatom, a nuclear energy firm in Ukraine, had earlier issued a warning that attempts by Russia to disconnect the Zaporizhzhia reactor from the grid put its cooling systems at risk of catastrophic failure.
As per Energoatom, the fuel needed to run the generators at the power plant is only available for 15 days. Blocks 5 and 6 of the plant are being put into a cold state, the statement stated.
Despite being shut down for weeks, the plant’s six reactors still need a constant supply of energy to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent a meltdown.
An important official in Moscow claimed that Russian special forces had stopped the Ukrainians from attacking the plant.
One of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, Nikolai Patrushev, is the secretary of the Russian Security Council. He also stated that Ukrainian forces “continue to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with Western weapons, which could lead to a global catastrophe.”
In addition to shelling the nuclear plant, Russian strikes were also reportedly made in the northeastern cities of Sumy and Kharkiv as well as in the central Ukrainian town of Kriviy Rih throughout the night. The eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions were experiencing intense warfare.
The general staff of Ukraine stated that “the enemy is trying to keep the temporarily captured territories, concentrating its efforts on restraining the actions of the defence forces in certain areas.”
The plant, which supplied around a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity prior to Russia’s incursion on February 24, has frequently had to run on backup generators since it was taken over by Russian soldiers not long after the war started.
The shelling at the location, which caused damage to buildings and raised the possibility of a nuclear disaster, has been attributed by Russia and Ukraine to each other.
The establishment of a protection zone to stop further shelling is being pushed for by the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
As part of what it refers to as its “special military operation,” Russia has admitted to hitting infrastructure to weaken the Ukrainian military and eliminate what it sees as a possible danger to its security.
In turn, citizens in Ukraine have recently had to deal with power outages and diminished water supplies—problems that are only likely to get worse over the upcoming winter.
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