Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant loses all external power again: U.N.

Ukraine's biggest nuclear plant has lost all external power needed for vital safety systems for the second time in five days, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said.

Ukraine’s biggest nuclear plant, which is surrounded by Russian troops, has lost all external power needed for vital safety systems for the second time in five days, the head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday, calling it a “deeply worrying development.”

The warning from International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi came amid a flurry of developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s military command said its forces recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region, and Russia’s main domestic security agency said eight people had been arrested in connection with the weekend Crimea bridge blast.

Grossi, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, said IAEA monitors at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant _ Europe’s largest nuclear power facility – reported the interruption in external power, and said backup diesel generators were keeping nuclear safety and security equipment operational.

“This repeated loss of #ZNPP’s off-site power is a deeply worrying development and it underlines the urgent need for a nuclear safety & security protection zone around the site,” Grossi tweeted.

Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom said on the Telegram social media platform that a Russian missile attack on the substation “Dniprovska” in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region to the north was damaged, leading to the shutdown of a key communication line to the plant _ prompting the diesel generators to turn on automatically.

Last month, Energoatom chief Petro Kotin told The Associated Press in an interview that in general, the Zaporizhzhia plant had enough fuel to run the diesel generators for just 10 days. He said those generators were “the station’s last defense before a radiation accident.”

The growing concerns about the nuclear plant come amid an upsurge in fighting in southern Ukraine and a barrage of Russian strikes across the country in recent days.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said Russian shelling had left at least 14 people dead in the Zaporizhzhia region and the Donetsk region to the east over the last day. At least 34 people were injured in five regions, he wrote on Telegram.