Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was occupied by the Russian army in March, but is still operated by the Ukrainian state-owned company Energoatom and its workforce. Ukraine and the US accuse Russia of using the nuclear power plant as a protective shield. Russia rejects this.
At the Energoatom took one of the six reactors off the grid on Friday, after a high-voltage line important for the operation was damaged by artillery fire. Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for the shelling and accused each other of risking a nuclear disaster. According to Energoatom, no radioactivity escaped.
Energoatom and the IAEA, which reports to the United Nations (UN), have repeatedly complained that the operational safety of Zaporizhia has been impaired by military action. The IAEA’s access to remote surveillance systems had been interrupted several times. In 1986, in the days of the Soviet Union, the most serious catastrophe to date occurred at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.