Kyiv | Ukraine’s state operator Energoatom said the last working reactor at Ukraine’s nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, the largest in Europe and occupied by Russian forces, was cut off the grid on Monday.
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“Reactor No. 6 has been shut down and disconnected from the grid,” Energoatom said on Telegram, citing a fire that “broke out due to the bombing” and damaged a power line connecting this unit to the Ukrainian grid.
This reactor was the only one operating out of the six units of this plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose experts are at the site, had already announced on Saturday the closure of reactor No. 5, due to damage to a power line following a bombing.
The other four reactors in Zaporizhia have been cut off for weeks.
This latest incident follows a visit on Friday by a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the plant, which has been at the center of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow for months and whose site has been bombed several times, raising fears of a nuclear disaster. For several weeks, the Russians and the Ukrainians accused each other of these bombings.
Led by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, most of the mission left the factory on the same day. In a separate statement, Energoatum said that of the six experts who remained at the site, four departed Monday morning while another two should be there permanently.
With six reactors with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts each, this plant fell into the hands of Russian forces in March, shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
