Ukrainian officials informed Thursday that due to Russian shelling that damaged the remaining high voltage lines, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has again been disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid again.
State nuclear firm Energoatom said in a statement Thursday that Russian shelling damaged on Wednesday the last two high-voltage power lines connecting the Ukrainian power grid with the Zaporizhzhia NPP, after which the station switched to full blackout mode turning on all 20 diesel generators.
The statement on the Telegram messaging app adds that the current power supply scheme for ZNPP is optimized for its own needs and leaves in operation 9 diesel generators.
Energoatom also said that in the near future, Russia will try to repair and connect ZNPP’s communication lines in the direction of temporarily occupied Crimea and Donbas because Moscow wanted to connect the plant to the Russian grid.
The secretary of the Zaporizhzhia city council, Anatoliy Kurtiev, confirmed in a separate statement that the region is once again experiencing scheduled rolling blackouts as the result of the overnight damage to energy facilities.
Russia, on the other hand, announced that it prevented a Ukrainian terrorist attack on Zaporizhzhia NPP on Wednesday.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement that Russian special services had prevented a “terrorist attack” on the plant that Kyiv forces continue to shell with Western weapons, risking causing a global catastrophe.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Zaporizhzhia NPP – the largest nuclear plant in Europe – has been disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid on several occasions in recent months as a result of Russian shelling.
Situated in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, the plant has been held by Russian forces for the last eight months but is operated by its Ukrainian staff.
Meanwhile, The Kyiv Independent reported that Switzerland has committed to providing $106m for the recovery of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The news outlet says that in order to lighten the impact of the coming winter on Ukrainians, Switzerland’s Federal Council has adopted the Winter Aid Action Plan which implies supplying Ukraine with enough aid to fund the urgent rehabilitation of its energy infrastructure, supplying, among other things, generators, pumps, and water treatment installations.