Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of attacking and endangering safety at the facility. International experts have, throughout the conflict, urged both sides to steer away from military activity close to the ZNPP.
The potential for a nuclear disaster hangs heavy over Ukraine; north of Kyiv lies the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which became the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident when one of the reactors exploded in 1986 in the then-Soviet Union. At least 30 people died in the aftermath of the disaster, with millions more exposed to radiation.
The Zaporizhzhia site has lost access to off-site power a dozen times since February 2022, including in mid-December, according to the IAEA.
“Each instance of loss of external power imposes thermal and operational stress on safety systems, increasing the chance that at some point the on-site backup systems will not perform as designed,” said Vitaly Fedchenko, a senior researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s weapons of mass destruction program. “Each loss of external power and the need to rely on diesel generators should be seen as a safety risk and a near-miss.”
The IAEA “is right to characterize ZNPP’s power situation as fragile and inherently unsafe,” Fedchenko told Newsweek.
All six reactors at the plant were put in cold shutdown in April 2024, although the site stopped generating electricity in September 2022, according to experts. In simple terms, this means all the reactors are off and no chain reactions are happening.
Because of the cold shutdown, the risks of both on-site and off-site power loss are much lower than for a fully operational nuclear power plant like Fukushima, said Fedchenko.
A tsunami triggered by an earthquake hitting Japan in 2011 cut power to the Fukushima plant and stopped the cooling of the reactors, meaning the cores melted and radioactive material escaped.
Experts restored power between the switchyards of the ZNPP and the nearby thermal power plant during what the IAEA termed a local ceasefire. Electricity generated from a power plant heads to a switchyard to be sent out to the grid.
Grossi said Monday “both sides engaged constructively with the IAEA to help strengthen nuclear safety during military conflict,” according to a statement from the watchdog.
The IAEA separately said on Tuesday that the Khmelnytsky and Rivne nuclear power plants, both in western Ukraine, had reduced power after their substations were affected by military attacks. Ukraine currently has three operational nuclear power plants.
“The whole of Europe will live in danger” if Russia retains control of the ZNPP, Ukraine’s Oleksandr Merezhko said.