Dangerous

 source Le Monde, AFP, 8/27/2022

From the Zaporijia power plant: the Ukrainian operator warns against a risk of " discharge of fine radioactive substances"

Energoatom, the Ukrainian operator of  nuclear power plants, claims that the Russians bombed the site several times and that "the plant's infrastructure was damaged". Moscow shifts responsibility for the bombing to Kyiv.

Satellite image of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant on August 24, 2022, showing smoke at the perimeter of the plant. PLANET LABS PBC/AP

The Zaporijia nuclear power plant remains at the heart of concerns. The Ukrainian operator Energoatom announced on Saturday August 27 that the plant cold be connected to the electricity grid, but the presence of Russian military equipment on the site still constituted a major danger.

Russian troops shelled the site “repeatedly over the past day ,” Ukraine's national carrier said. "As a result of periodic bombardments, the plant's infrastructure has been damaged and there are risks of hydrogen leakage and spraying of radioactive substances ," she said, noting as well "a high risk of fire” .

Between Thursday and Friday, the plant and its six reactors of 1,000 megawatts each were "totally disconnected" from the national grid due to damage to the power lines, according to Kiev. Energoatom finally announced that “one of the reactors shut down the day before” had been “reconnected to the electricity grid” on Friday. It “produces electricity for the needs of Ukraine” and “an increase in [its] power is in progress ,” the company said.

Kyiv and Moscow continue to blame each other for the bombardments near the complex, near the town of Enerhodar, on the Dnieper River, and thus putting the plant in danger. Russia has thus accused Ukraine of having fired seventeen shells on the enclosure of the power plant during the last twenty-four hours. “Four fell on the roof of the building (…) where 168 American nuclear fuel assemblies from the WestingHouse firm are located ,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Shells also reportedly crashed 30 meters from a used fuel depot and near another containing “fresh fuel” .

According to the Russian army, the Ukrainian army fires from the outskirts of the town of Marhanets, which faces the plant, on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, still controlled by Kyiv. According to the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Valentyn Reznitchenko, the Russians, conversely, sent from the Zaporijia power station Grad missiles and artillery shells on the towns of Nikopol and Marhanets.

Deeming the situation "dangerous" , the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Friday urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to send a mission tosite as soon as possible, deploring that the Russian troops "are pushing permanently towards a worst-case scenario” . The UN has called for a cessation of all military activity in the surrounding area while, faced with a "very real risk of nuclear disaster" , the IAEA is demanding access to it.

IAEA experts are expected there "next week" , according to the adviser to the Ukrainian energy minister, Lana Zerkal, who accused the Russians of "artificially creating obstacles" to this mission, which Moscow denies . The Agency, for its part, has not confirmed any date forits mission.