Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant cut off from Ukraine grid for first time

Nearby fires interfere with power lines connecting to nuclear plant

The Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was disconnected from the national grid temporarily on Thursday after fires disrupted power lines, an event which raises the risk of a catastrophic failure of the cooling systems and meltdown.

There has been increasing international concern over the status of what is the largest such plant in Europe. It has been occupied by Russian troops since the early days of the invasion, although it is still operated by Ukrainian technicians. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused the other side of shelling the site.

Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said fires broke out in the ash pits of a coal power station near the site's reactor complex and interfered with lines linking the plant to the grid.

“As a result, the station's two working power units were disconnected from the network,” Energoatom said in a statement. “Thus, the actions of the invaders caused a complete disconnection.”

The state company said that it was the first such disconnect in the near-four decade operation of the site. During the outage, the plant still received supplies of electricity from one remaining backup line connecting the plant to the nearby conventional power plant.

There were three of these lines before the war, but two have been cut. If all external connections go down, diesel-fuelled generators would be the last line before engineers would have to try and head-off dangerous overheating.

The electricity supply to the plant was restored later in the day, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog.

“Ukraine told the IAEA that the ZNPP at least twice lost connection to the power line during the day but that it was currently up again,” it said in a statement, adding that information on the direct cause of the outage was not immediately available.

Speaking in his Thursday evening address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that the world narrowly avoided a nuclear disaster.

He said: “If our station staff had not reacted after the blackout, then we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of a radiation accident. Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster.”

IAEA officials should be given access to the site within days, he said, “before the occupiers take the situation to the point of no return.”

The UN nuclear watchdog has so far been unable to visit the site, but its boss, Rafael Grossi, said on Thursday that encouraging talks with Russia and Ukraine meant that an inspection was “very, very close”.

It comes as Vladimir Putin signed off a decree that will beef up his army with 137,000 extra personnel next year, following serious losses in the first six months of his war against Ukraine.

Although exact casualty figures are disputed and Moscow remains silent on the issue, the US estimates that more than 80,000 Russian troops have been injured or killed since the invasion was launched on 24 February.

Reports suggest that the Kremlin has tried to plug the gap with private military contractors, volunteers and even prisoners who have been offered an amnesty in exchange for their service.

Mr Putin also ordered the drafting of 134,500 conscripts between the ages of 18 and 27 this spring. Now, he has signed a decree to further expand his country’s armed forces. This means the Russian army will stand at more than 2 million from January, including 1,150,628 service personnel.

It is not yet known whether the new positions will be filled by conscripts or volunteers, or a mixture of the two.

Russia’s decision to enlarge its military comes as Western politicians say Moscow’s offensives in eastern Ukraine have slowed.

Speaking on Wednesday, Ben Wallace, the British defence secretary, said the Kremlin was in a “very fragile” position, as its advance could be measured “in metres per week, not miles”.

This picture was supported by an analysis from the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which found that Russia had lost an area the size of Denmark since retreating from northern Ukraine earlier in the war.

Over the last 39 days, Russia has captured territory the size of Andorra in eastern Ukraine. These gains are the equivalent of 1 per cent of the area they withdrew from, the ISW said.

The day before the Russian president announced the personnel increase, Mr Zelensky struck a defiant tone on Ukrainian Independence Day.

“We don’t care what army you have, we only care about our land. We will fight for it until the end,” he said, adding that Ukraine will not make “any concession or compromise” with Russia.

Later that day, Mr Zelensky, who had predicted that Russia would carry out “repugnant” attacks on Ukrainian Independence Day, announced that dozens of civilians had been killed by a Russian airstrike in the small town of Chaplyne.

A Russian strike destroyed houses in Chaplyne (AP)

The death toll from Wednesday’s missile strike has now risen to 25, with several children among the dead, according to Kyiv. The Kremlin has admitted carrying out the attack, but claimed it targeted and destroyed Ukrainian arms heading to the frontline.

In the aftermath of the killings, the Ukrainian president said his country would make Russia pay for their crimes.

“Chaplyne is our pain today,” Mr Zelensky said in a late night address on Wednesday. “We will definitely make the occupiers bear responsibility for everything they have done. And we will certainly drive the invaders out of our land.”

The deadly strike was also condemned by world leaders, with US secretary of state Antony Blinken writing that Russia’s targeting of “a train station full of civilians… fits a pattern of atrocities”.

Josep Borell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, expressed the bloc’s horror at the strike, labelling it “another heinous attack by Russia on civilians”.