Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant near Enerhodar
(Picture: REUTERS)A Russian missile strike knocked out the power for the second time at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant threatening a global radiation disaster.
The strike caused a blackout for the second time in five days knocking out critical safety systems which need electricity to operate, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator said on Wednesday.
The UN’s atomic energy watchdog reported the last remaining outside line to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was restored about eight hours later.
The war-related interruption nonetheless highlighted “how precarious the situation is” at Europe’s largest nuclear plant, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi said. “We need a protection zone ASAP”, he added.
The nuclear scare came amid a flurry of developments in Russia’s seven and a half month invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s main domestic security agency said eight people were arrested over an explosion on a bridge that links Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
The Ukrainian president’s office said strikes Moscow ordered in retaliation for the bridge attack killed at least 14 people and wounded 34 in the last day. Western officials meeting in Brussels discussed their plans to maintain winter weapon and aid deliveries to Ukraine.
Ukrainian nuclear power operator Energoatom said the Zaporizhzhia plant suffered a “blackout” Wednesday morning when a missile damaged an electrical substation, leading to the emergency shutdown of the plant’s last external power source.
Its back-up diesel generators were left to provide emergency electricity for the plant’s nuclear safety and security functions.
“Basically what we’ve got here is the weaponization of civil nuclear, perhaps for the first time,” Paul Dorfman, a nuclear expert at England’s University of Sussex said. “And in an increasingly unstable world, it’s important to understand this and what this implies for nuclear worldwide.”
It came as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the Standard that Putin is now discovering that Russia is no longer a superpower with his army’s series of failures in Ukraine.
The Cabinet minister also stressed that the international community had to defeat Putin’s invasion to show that wars cannot be won by “shoving millions of people into a meat grinder with no rules, no regard for human lives”.
Following training by the UK and allies, he also argued that now “the basic Ukrainian soldier is better than the basic Russian soldier”, given the scale of losses suffered by Putin’s professional military and the deployment of tens of thousands of poorly-trained troops to the frontline after his 300,000 part-mobilisation.
Asked how he believes the conflict will end, Mr Wallace said: “I don’t know. I mean, superpowers have lost wars before: the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the United States in Vietnam. It’s not unheard of for big powers to have to reconcile a defeat in a neighbouring country, or another country they’ve been engaged in.”
Pressed whether he thought a superpower would lose again, he added: “Well, he’s not a superpower is what he has just discovered. That’s the key.
