Europe looks with concern at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, and whose six reactors remain disconnected from the Ukrainian electricity grid, according to the state nuclear company Energoatom.
The situation is “extremely dangerous”, and while Russia is in its facilities the threat of a nuclear incident is “very high”, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. At the moment, as confirmed by the state company, the plant’s own needs are being supplied through a line of the Ukrainian electrical system.
It was on Thursday when some fires in the vicinity of the plant caused a total electrical disconnection of the plant to take place for the first time since 1995. This absolute lack of supply could put the reactors’ cooling systems out of service in the event that the diesel generators did not work properly, which would cause an atomic incident with incalculable consequences. In this case, the Ukrainian workers, who work under the gaze and pressure of the Russians, who took control of the plant in March, were able to stop the catastrophe, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“If the staff of our plant had not reacted after the blackout, we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of a radioactive accident”, declared the Ukrainian leader, since he blamed the Russian bombing for the fires. “Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation that is one step away from a radiation disaster,” he insisted.
While Ukraine insists that the fire was caused by Russian bombing, which set fire to ash pits at a nearby coal-fired power plant, Putin’s supporters blame the Ukrainian armed forces for a fire near the plant. Be that as it may, the truth is that the plant had no electricity for several hours, seriously endangering the normal operation of the plant. The total disconnection of energy caused two of the six reactors that remained in operation to stop as well.
Nuclear experts have warned of the risk of damage to the plant’s spent nuclear fuel pools or reactors. The power outages needed to cool the pools could lead to a disastrous meltdown.
Paul Bracken, a national security expert and professor at the Yale School of Management, said the concern is that artillery shells or missiles could pierce the walls of the reactor and spread radiation over a potentially wide area, in much the same way. to the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident. A failure at the Zaporizhia plant could “kill hundreds or thousands of people, and cause environmental damage to a much wider area reaching as far as Europe,” Bracken said.
“Russian roulette is a good metaphor, because the Russians are spinning the barrel of the revolver, threatening to blow up the brains of the reactor across Europe,” Bracken said.
Zaporizhia has become one more point of tension in this armed conflict, which has been going on for half a year since it began. The area has been the object of several attacks and the international community is concerned about the safety of the plant and the consequences that the facilities may have suffered after the impact of the bombings.
The United Nations wants access to the plant as soon as possible and has called for the area to be demilitarized. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are “very, very close” to being able to visit Zaporizhia, the agency’s director general, Rafael Grossi, said on Thursday.
