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The UN nuclear watchdog seeks a local truce to restore power to the Zaporizhzhia plant

By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 14 October 2025

VIENNA (AP) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog is pushing Ukraine and Russia to agree to local ceasefires so that external power can be restored to Ukraine´s huge nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, two diplomats familiar with the plan told The Associated Press.

The plant is in an area under Russian control since early in Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.

It has been operating on diesel generators since Sept. 23 when its last remaining external power line was severed in attacks that each side blamed on the other. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear plant, Europe’s biggest.

The agency is proposing to restore external power to the plant in two phases, according to a European diplomat briefed on the proposal by the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. A Russian diplomat confirmed some aspects of the plan.

Both diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the confidential negotiations publicly.

During the first phase, a 1.5-kilometer-radius (1-mile-radius) ceasefire zone would be established to allow repair of the Dniprovska 750-kilovolt line, the main power line to the plant that has been damaged in an area under Russian control.

During the second phase, a second such ceasefire zone would be established to repair the Ferosplavna-1 330-kilovolt backup line, which is in area under Ukraine’s control.

IAEA experts would be on hand to monitor the repairs, which originally were proposed for a 7-day period from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, according to the European diplomat and confidential documents seen by the AP.

However, although the Ukrainian side has given necessary guarantees of safe passage for repair crews, Russia did not give such guarantees in time for the work to start under that timetable, according to the European diplomat.

The Russian diplomat, on the other hand, said that preparations for the repairs are under way and that they can start very soon.

The IAEA declined to comment on the timing, saying only that Grossi was engaging “intensively with both sides” to enable the reconnection of power and to “help prevent a nuclear accident.”

Grossi held talks with both Ukraine and Russia last month. He met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Sept. 29 at the Warsaw Security Forum, following meetings in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 25 and Rosatom Director General Alexei Likhachev on Sept. 26.

The IAEA warned that if diesel generators fail, “it could lead to a complete blackout and possibly causing an accident with the fuel melting and a potential radiation release into the environment, if power could not be restored in time.”

The latest blackout is the tenth time that the Zaporizhzhia plant has lost all external power, and is by far the longest since the start of the war. The 330-kilovolt backup line was lost in May, and the main line was disconnected on Sept. 23.

The plant is close to the front line and has been occupied by Russia since March 2022. Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for shelling close to the plant……. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-15188795/The-UN-nuclear-watchdog-seeks-local-truce-restore-power-Zaporizhzhia-plant.html

October 17, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

After robbing EU taxpayers, Zelensky uses blackmail to get inside the Bloc

He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process.

The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe

Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London.

Since the United States-led NATO proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, the European Union has doled out $216 billion in aid to Ukraine. That’s equivalent to €186 billion, according to the EU’s latest official count. The true figure is likely to be even more.

The United States has given a similar amount to Ukraine. All paid for by taxpayers.

That’s about $400 billion total in three years, with the EU promising more over the next few years.

To put this in perspective, the EU aid to Ukraine is multiples more than all of the 27 member nations have received – combined – from the bloc’s collective budget and administration. According to Euronews reporting, some of the biggest recipients of EU subsidies each year are Germany (€14 bn), France (€16.5 bn), and Poland (€14 bn). Some of the smaller recipient countries are Austria, Denmark, and Ireland (around €2 bn).

That means Ukraine has received heaps more than all of the EU members combined.

Get your head around that. Ukraine, which is not a member of the European Union, is receiving manifold what actual member states are receiving. And you wonder why people in France are angrily taking to the streets because their shambolic government wants to cut pensions and other social welfare services to save money. Elsewhere, European governments are collapsing from unsustainable debt. And, at the same time, European citizens are constantly being lectured that their states need to spend more and more money on the NATO alliance, even to the insulting point of having to accept the cutting of social benefits and public services

Ukraine and its corrupt Kiev regime of NeoNazis has bled Europe dry. The so-called president, Vladimir Zelensky (who canceled elections last year, so he’s not really a legitimate president), is reported to be funneling €50 million a month to overseas funds for his retirement while his wife goes luxury shopping in New York and Paris. Other members of the regime, like former prime minister and now “defense” minister Denys Shmyhal, are also reportedly up to their eyes in corruption, siphoning off billions in the military aid that Western taxpayers have paid for.

This week, Zelensky took his brassneckery to new levels – if that’s possible. He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process. The EU has granted Ukraine (and Moldova) a fast-track path to membership, but, to its credit, Hungary has objected to this.

In June, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cast a veto on continuing access talks for Ukraine. According to EU rules, there must be unanimity among member nations for the approval of new members. Orbán said Ukraine is not eligible because of the current war against Russia. “We would be importing a war,” he said.

Also, Budapest objects to Ukrainian language laws that discriminate against a Hungarian minority in the western Zakarpattia region of Ukraine. (The Russian language has been banned, too, in public offices.)

A referendum held in Hungary in June recorded that 95 percent of voters were against Ukraine becoming a member of the EU.

Zelensky is pushing ahead regardless, with his peevish wheedling. In a joint press conference in Kiev on Monday, with the indulgence of the Dutch PM at his side, Zelensky said: “Ukraine will be in the European Union, with or without Orbán, because it is the choice of the Ukrainian people.”

The little dictator flaunted his insufferable presumptuousness by hinting that the European Union would change its rules to bypass Hungary’s veto – all just to accommodate his scrounging regime. “Changing the procedure is called finding a way without Hungary,” he said. And in a further arrogant dismissal of democratic process, Zelensky asserted that the Hungarian people support his EU ambitions, contradicting the referendum back in June.

Orbán responded firmly by telling Zelensky he could not blackmail his way into the European Union.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó added a dose of reality by stating: “The decision on which country is ready to join the European Union and which can join the EU will not be made by the president of Ukraine, but by the European Union itself, where such decisions require unanimity.”

In a further comment, Szijjártó nailed it by saying that Zelensky is “completely detached from reality.” The Hungarian diplomat also reminded that the Kiev regime is blowing up energy infrastructure and jeopardizing the EU members’ vital interests.

Last month, Ukrainian forces exploded the Druzhba oil pipeline from Russia, cutting off energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. The Zelensky regime carried out the sabotage as retribution for Budapest’s opposition to Ukraine’s EU application. This is what Orbán was no doubt referring to when he slammed Zelensky this week for using blackmail.

So, there you have it. A corrupt, unelected, Neo-Nazi regime headed up by a Jewish scam-artist who plays piano with his penis while wearing women’s high heels is using terrorist tactics to attack the vital interests of EU members, and is now telling those members that they won’t have a vote in the EU processes, because the regime has decided it will become a member of the bloc. You could not make it up. This, too, after robbing the taxpayers of the bloc of €186 billion to wage a war against Russia – a war that has killed 1.5 million Ukrainian soldiers – which could spiral out of control into a nuclear Third World War.

If this is the kind of ruination that this regime can inflict while not being a member of the EU, one can only imagine the hellscape it will bring after becoming a member……..

 the real culprits in this obscene farce are the American and European elites who have fomented the war against Russia. Together, they have weaned and pampered the Kiev regime with largesse and indulgence, paid for by the taxpayers. The U.S.-EU transatlantic ruling class has cultivated the regime of corruption and war since the 2014 CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president. The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe and is now destroying the semblance of democracy within Europe. (It’s not clear what Trump’s position in all of this is, but he probably doesn’t count anyway.)

The Western imperialist ruling class is so obsessed with its scheme for  “strategic defeat” of Russia (and China) and for global domination that it is willing to cultivate any scumbag regime it can make use of for its goals, no matter how much that violates international law and its own professed democratic principles.

Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London. They are all detached from reality. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/10/after-robbing-eu-taxpayers-zelensky-uses-blackmail-to-get-inside-the-bloc/

October 13, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Grossi says progress made on restoring Zaporizhzhia power

Friday, 10 October 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/grossi-says-progress-made-on-restoring-zaporizhzhia-power

The two sides in the war have “engaged in a constructive way” with the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose director general says “a process has been set in motion” to help restore external power to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: “Following intensive consultations, the process leading to the re-establishment of off-site power – through the Dniprovska and Ferosplavna-1 lines – has started. While it will still take some time before the grid connection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has been restored, the two sides have engaged with us in a constructive way to achieve this important objective for the sake of nuclear safety and security. No one stands to gain from a further deterioration in this regard.”

External power was lost by the plant – which is on the frontline of Ukrainian and Russian troops – on 23 September, and it has since been relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators for the power required for essential safety functions, including powering cooling pumps.

Before the war, there were 10 different external power lines to the plant, but that number has fallen since the start of the war in February 2022. Five months ago its last 330 kV backup power line was disconnected, leaving no supply when the sole operational 750 kV power line source was cut.

Both sides blame the damage on military activities and have said that the military situation has stopped them from being able to repair the damage. Grossi has had frequent contact with both sides as part of efforts to find a way forward.

The IAEA’s latest update says: “The focus has been on creating the necessary security conditions for repairs to be carried out on the damaged sections of the 750 kV Dniprovska and the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1 power lines, located on opposite sides of the frontline near the ZNPP.”

It is the tenth time that the plant has lost external power, although on previous occasions it was for a matter of hours rather than the current case of weeks. Seven emergency diesel generators are operating, with 13 on standby.

The IAEA team at the plant report that there has been no temperature increase within the coolant in the reactors or the used fuel pools and radiation levels at the site remain normal. They do continue to hear military action, including on Tuesday evening when they heard “five explosions one after the other, occurring close to the site and shaking windows in their building”.

The six-unit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. All its units are shut down.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine has just generated another cash sink for Western taxpayers

In the meantime, Canadian cash for weapons, “for Ukraine,” is sure pumping up the integrated US/Canada military-industrial complex, which seems to be the go-to Western strategy for boosting their GDP these days

The office of the “Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine” has been created for Canada’s ex-deputy prime minister

Rachel Marsden, a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English. 4 Oct 25

Last month, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, was dropkicked from newish Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet. He did her a massive favor. Because now she doesn’t have to pretend to represent Canada anymore while following her true passion: representing Ukraine.

Freeland has a new role: “Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” officially speaking. The first question that came to mind when hearing this was, “When does she finally get to move to Kiev, already?” Imagine my disappointment to learn that she doesn’t.

Well, actually, my first question was, “Is Ukraine under reconstruction now? Did I slip into a coma and miss the bomb show wrapping up?” Nope, the conflict is still raging. But I guess it makes it sound like she’s going to be keeping a careful watch over the money that Carney has “pledged” to Ukraine – perhaps in the same way that people “pledged” to pay me a dollar per lap for my childhood swim-a-thons, then bailed when I came back to collect after competing 500 laps. I guess time will tell. Canadian taxpayers can only pray that will be the case, and that Carney is just virtue signaling Canadian cash for Ukraine and not actually sending any there, in the same way that the jokers running the EU make a big stink about the evils of Russian energy while importing it on the down-low through third countries.

In the meantime, Canadian cash for weapons, “for Ukraine,” is sure pumping up the integrated US/Canada military-industrial complex, which seems to be the go-to Western strategy for boosting their GDP these days amid their tanking economies.

Another question: Will Freeland use her experience in blocking Canadian bank accounts as Trudeau’s finance minister during the Covid-era Freedom Convoy anti-mandate protests to block shady cash flowing to Ukraine? I’m guessing not, if only because those Canadian bank accounts were blocked under the ultimately false pretext (as determined by Canadian intelligence) that foreign cash was funding interference with Canadian government decisions. In Ukraine’s case, that foreign cash is considered a plus because it’s coming from the West. Seems like she’d be more likely to tackle anything that got in its way.

Anyway, Freeland has just used her new Canadian taxpayer-funded role to plead Ukraine’s case in the pages of the Financial Times.

She wrote that “the fact is that we need Ukraine to save us,” presumably from the other side of the world, in Ottawa. She then goes on to qualify some murky, contentious drone activity around the Ukraine–EU border as “recent incursions into Central and even Western Europe.” At least I think that’s what she’s referring to. Unless I somehow missed the Russian tanks rolling down the Champs-Élysées. She doesn’t specify. But no matter. All the better, apparently, to argue that these incidents “show NATO needs Ukraine as a shield against Russia.”

Sounds like what Vladimir Zelensky was saying just the other day. The Ukrainian leader was going off about an incident last month of some alleged 90 drones over Ukraine, which he said were heading for Poland. He said that if only 20 of them actually ended up there, it was only because Kiev shot the rest down. The implication? That Ukraine was saving Poland. Trump was asked about it at the time and didn’t exactly praise Zelensky as Poland’s savior. He basically shrugged, saying, look, whatever – could have just been accidental.

Freeland also cited Trump’s tongue-in-cheek remarks from the other week when he rapped on social media about how Ukraine was winning on the battlefield against Russia and probably could even conquer Russian territory. He then offered to sell the Europeans all the American weapons they wanted in that endeavor. What part of Trump’s wishing them “good luck” did Freeland not understand as a commentary on Trump being keen to profit off the EU’s delusions, as long as Washington doesn’t have to get its hands dirty? She grasped none of it, apparently. Because she wrote in the FT that “US President Donald Trump got it right at the UN last week: Ukraine is a winner, and Ukraine can win.”

Freeland literally had just written of Ukraine in the same piece, a bit further up, that “we have assumed it would lose, at least without extraordinary effort from us.” Really? Your whole posse in Canada has been saying otherwise for years. “Ukraine will win and Canada will be there until the end,” said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, in early 2023, when she was defense minister.

So now we’ve gone from “Ukraine will win” to “Ukraine will only win if we do everything except pull the trigger” to “we need Ukraine because NATO is so weak.” Yeah, so weak that NATO is actually contemplating blasting Temu-grade drones out of the sky with F-16s, as the Romanian defense minister suggested during a recent Warsaw Security Forum panel.

Freeland adds that the West can learn from Ukraine about “how to fight a 21st-century war, and how to invent, manufacture and then keep reinventing the weapons we need for this new way of war in real time.” Look out, folks! Freeland has just discovered guerrilla warfare – but apparently not the double-edged sword it represents.

It’s all good when Ukrainian Nazis are getting schooled by NATO forces to fight Russia, and when they then graduate to fulfilling Freeland’s fantasy of pretending to teach NATO how to do guerrilla warfare – as though it’s a matter of NATO lacking ability and not just guerrilla warfare being way too cheap for NATO to justify washing tax cash into defense coffers.

What could possibly go wrong with letting Ukraine play asymmetric warfare “teacher” to justify the West turning it into a giant weapons toy box? It’s not like there haven’t been reports lately of Latin American drug cartels getting their drone training in Ukraine to use back home. We’re talking about Mexican and Colombian gangsters, according to Defense News, one of the leading military publications. Just your average start-up, really.

Freeland then proceeds to cheerlead the idea recently promoted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of straight-up stealing €140 billion in European-held Russian assets as a “loan” for Ukraine. Ukraine apparently just pays it back once Russia admits fault and writes a check, huh? In other words: never.

It’s one thing for Freeland to justify her new role by bloviating and virtue-signaling in the Western press. It’s another to make taxpayers foot the bill for it when her real job should be to end this war as quickly as possible through diplomacy so some legitimate reconstruction business can be done in Ukraine’s interests that doesn’t just involve perpetuating a taxpayer-funded racket.

October 10, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Not surprising: Biden hid report on Ukraine scandal, docs reveal

 07 Oct 2025 , https://www.sott.net/article/502251-Not-surprising-Biden-hid-report-on-Ukraine-scandal-docs-reveal

Joe Biden asked the CIA to cover up a report about his family’s alleged corrupt business activities in Ukraine while he was serving as US vice president in 2015, according to declassified agency documents.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe published the mostly redacted records on Tuesday.

One of the documents was a government email sent to the agency and dated February 10, 2016.

“Good morning, I just spoke with Vice President / National Security Adviser and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated. Thanks for understanding,” it said.

The sender’s name was redacted, leaving just the title PDB Briefer. The Presidential Daily Brief is a top secret document for daily distribution to the US president and a small number of top level approved officials.

The report in question said that Ukrainian officials in the administration of then President Pyotr Poroshenko “expressed bewilderment and disappointment” at Biden’s December 2015 visit.

These officials viewed the alleged ties of the US Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the US Government towards matters of corruption and political power.

Biden’s convicted felon son, Hunter, held a lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings during his father’s vice presidential term.

The elder Biden has publicly admitted to pressuring Kiev into firing a prosecutor general who was investigating the company in 2016. However, he denied ever taking bribes or having knowledge of Hunter’s foreign business affairs.

In December of last year, Biden signed a broad pardon for his son, u-turning on prior promises not to do so. The pardon shields Hunter from any prosecution for crimes committed between 2014 and 2024.

Rampant corruption in Ukraine has led US officials to voice concerns over potential embezzlement of aid. Recent opinion polls say the majority of Ukrainians see the problem as getting worse.

October 10, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Putin’s UnPeaceful Atom

atomic reactors provide “weapons for the enemy,” serving as pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction.

No atomic reactor anywhere can credibly claim to be immune

The fragility of instrumentation, operational, cooling, spent fuel storage and other vital systems have been amply demonstrated

Karl Grossman – Harvey Wasserman, October 6, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/06/putins-unpeaceful-atom/

Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin last week eagerly confirmed that all “Peaceful Atom” nuclear power plants are fair game for military destruction and that the ensuing apocalyptic fall-out is not really his concern.

As Reuters reported, “Putin on Thursday warned Ukraine that it was playing a dangerous game by striking the area near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and suggested that Moscow could retaliate against nuclear plants controlled by Ukraine.”

The six-reactor Zaporizhzhia complex is, noted Reuters “Europe’s largest [and] has been cut off from external power for more than a week and is being cooled by emergency diesel generators.”

Zaporizhzhia was captured by Russian forces in the early days of the 2022 invasion.

The global crisis it now embodies was foreseen 45 years ago by Bennett Ramberg, in his book “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril.”

Ramberg holds a Ph.D. in international relations and a law degree. He’s been an analyst or consultant to the Nuclear Control Institute, Global Green, Committee to Bridge the Gap and the U.S. Senate and U.S. State Department. He now directs the Global Security Seminar. Published by the University of California Press, his book and a new edition out last year are beyond chilling.

And its grave warnings are playing out in recent years and today.

According to the U.S. government’s 9/11 Commission, the Indian Point nuclear reactors, 25 miles north of New York City, were potential targets considered for the September 11 attacks. Between 1984 and 1987, Iraq bombed Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant six times. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force bombed three nuclear reactors in Iraq. It gets worse.

As an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists put it last year, “small modular reactors, floating nuclear plants, and microreactors….these emerging technologies elevate concerns that wartime attacks could expose warfighters and civilians to nuclear fallout….Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has already set a dangerous precedent that could sway the course of future wars.”

William Alberque, former director of strategy, technology and arms control of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote in a piece on the website of the London-headquartered organization in 2023 that amidst “The wartime weaponization of nuclear power stations,” the “risks of a nuclear disaster remain high at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as Russia continues to threaten the health and safety of the entire region through its reckless behaviour.”

In the war on Ukraine, he adds, “a nuclear weapon state has decided that nuclear power reactors are legitimate targets and tools of coercion in war.”

Thus, atomic reactors provide “weapons for the enemy,” serving as pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction.

Amidst yet another billionaire-hyped push for a “Nuclear Renaissance,” atomic power—including large, small, and fusion reactors—has again faltered due to runaway costs and devastating construction delays. All reactors heat the planet at 300 degrees Centigrade, emit radioactive carbon 14, and can’t match flexible demand.

Most importantly, huge breakthroughs in renewables and battery efficiency have made them cheaper, safer, cleaner, faster-to-build, and more flexible, job-producing and reliable than both fossil fuels and atomic energy. In short, they have priced out fossil/nukes. More than 90% of the world’s new energy capacity is now Solartopian, comprised of carbon/heat and waste-free renewables, battery backup-up units and increased efficiency.

But the Ukraine war has now underscored yet another “Peaceful Atom” pitfall known for decades—the threat of a rogue nation turning atomic reactors into weapons of apocalyptic mass terror and destruction.

More than 400 commercial nuclear power plants are now licensed worldwide. There are 94 in the US. The destruction of just one, at Diablo Canyon, California, could send lethal fallout pouring across the entire continental United States, while first turning Los Angeles into a radioactive wasteland.

Putin has not estimated precisely how much radioactive fallout might result from blowing up an atomic reactor. But the war in Ukraine has made it clear that it could be done with a single drone costing less than $1,000.

Putin has asked just one question about such an attack: who will stop me?

The answer could be apocalyptic: no reactor, large or small, is anywhere immune.

When Putin sent troops pouring through Belarus into northern Ukraine in 2022, they quickly assaulted the smoldering remains at Chernobyl, which infamously exploded in 1986. The seething core of Unit Four has been covered with a $2 billion sarcophagus funded by downwind European nations.

The original explosion irradiated much of Europe. Airborne clouds were detected twice passing over the U.S., killing birds in California and irradiating milk in New England.

In “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences,” lead author Dr. Alexey Yablokov, (environmental advisor to Russian Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin) drew from 5,000 documents. These included health data, radiological surveys, scientific reports, and more. The conclusion was that as of 2004, as a result of Chernobyl’s fall-out, some 985,000 people had died, mainly of cancer. In the two decades since yet more thousands have been stricken.

In 2022, Putin’s invading troops seemed bound to repeat history. They terrorized and tortured Ukrainian technicians tasked to safeguard Chernobyl’s melted core against another explosion.

Tragically, the Russian soldiers camped in nearby woods, exposing themselves to heavily contaminated dust and soil.

On February 14, 2025, a Russian drone severely damaged Chernobyl’s sarcophagus. Had it hit the melted core, another global-scale radiation release could have again contaminated much of the Earth.

Putin has denied responsibility for that attack. However, he has seized the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia. As at Chernobyl, his troops terrorized, tortured and terminated vital Ukrainian staffers, seriously endangering on-going plant safety.

Zaporizhzhia’s reactors are allegedly shut. But cooling water and backup/off-site power vital to keeping the cores and fuel pools from exploding are tenuous at best. Random munitions and at least one drone have hit the plant.

By cutting transmission lines into Ukraine while running one toward Russia, Putin may soon become Earth’s first autocrat to “steal” an atomic power plant.

He’s further threatened to turn any reactor he wants into a de facto weapon of mass radioactive destruction, saving himself the trouble and expense of a Bombs and missiles.

No atomic reactor anywhere can credibly claim to be immune. The fragility of instrumentation, operational, cooling, spent fuel storage and other vital systems have been amply demonstrated at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Chalk River, Fermi, Three Mile Island, Windscale, INEL, Santa Susanna, Khyshtym, and countless other stricken atomic facilities.

Chernobyl has shown the range and killing power of resultant fallout. Japan’s Fukushima, which exploded on March 11, 2011, has since spewed 100 times more radioactive cesium than did the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its heavily irradiated liquid wastes are still pouring into the Pacific.

Though vehemently denied by the nuclear industry, the death toll from radiation releases at the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown continues to rise.

Meanwhile Ukraine deploys drones to decimate Putin’s oil and gas infrastructure, utterly ravaging Russia’s refineries, storage tanks, pipelines and more.

With his own drones, Putin has made clear he can target any reactor anywhere.

Safe, clean, green renewable energy technology now accounts for more than 90% of the world’s new energy production. No war monger can destroy a city by blowing up a solar panel or tearing down a wind turbine.

Yet Ukraine itself has four reactors on order, offering Putin still more pre-deployed weapons of radioactive mass destruction.

Likewise, California’s “anti-Trump” Governor Gavin Newsom keeps running uninsured, hyper-expensive nukes at Diablo Canyon that Putin could drone-hit tomorrow, forever bankrupting California, turning Los Angeles and the downwind nation into a permanent radioactive wasteland.

Deep in the bowels of the Kremlin, the nuclear Stalin is laughing.

Karl Grossman is the author of “Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power.” He is the host of the nationally broadcast TV program “Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman” (www.envirovideo.com)

Harvey “Sluggo” Wasserman wrote “Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth,” and co-wrote (with Norman Solomon, Bob Alvarez & Eleanor Waters) “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation. His Green Grassroots Election Protection is aired via Zoom (www.grassrootsep.org) on most Mondays at 5 p.m. ET.

Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History. He helped coin the phrase “No Nukes.” He co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition at www.electionprotection2024.org  Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman (www.envirovideo.com)

October 8, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Is Russia’s Putin gambling with the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear stations?

Russia and Ukraine have traded blame, accusing one another of imperilling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Aljazeera, By Mansur Mirovalev, 6 Oct 2025

Kyiv, Ukraine – On October 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukrainian attacks had destroyed a high-voltage transmission line between the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine and Kyiv-controlled areas.

Days earlier, Ukraine’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russian shelling had cut the plant off from the electricity network.

The mammoth, six-reactor plant – Europe’s largest and known in Ukraine as the ZAES – sits less than 10km (6.2 miles) south of the front line. It has been shut since 2022, generating none of the electricity that once provided up to a fifth of Ukraine’s needs.

But dozens of Moscow-deployed engineers have frantically tried to restart it – so far unsuccessfully. Ukraine has long feared that Russia is trying to connect the power grid and quench a thirst for energy in Crimea and other occupied areas.

Putin purported that the alleged Ukrainian strikes caused a blackout at the plant and that it had to be fuelled by diesel generators.

The latest blackout at the plant is the longest wartime outage of power.

“On the [Ukrainian] side, people should understand that if they play so dangerously, they have an operating nuclear power station on their side,” Putin told a forum in St Petersburg.

‘The radioactivity is so powerful’

In fact, apart from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine has three operating power stations – as well as the shutdown Chornobyl facility, the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

“And what prevents us from mirroring [Ukraine’s alleged actions] in response? Let them think about it,” Putin said.

His threat had apparently already been fulfilled a day earlier. Ukraine accused Russia of shelling that damaged the power supply to the colossal protective “sarcophagus” over the Chornobyl station’s Reactor Four that exploded in 1986.

Both the Chornobyl station and the plant in Zaporizhzhia need electricity for their safety systems and, most importantly, for the uninterrupted circulation of water that cools nuclear fuel.

The fuel, thousands of uranium rods that keep emitting heat, are too radioactive to be taken anywhere else.

In Chornobyl, the fuel is spent and submerged in cooling ponds or “dry-stored” in ventilated, secured facilities.

But at the Zaporizhzhia site, the rods are still inside the reactors – and are newer, hotter, and made in the United States…………………………………………………………………………………

The biggest problem is Russia’s failure to hook the plant to the energy grid of occupied regions as Ukrainian forces pin-pointedly destroy the transmission lines Russia is building – along with fuel depots and thermal power stations, he said.

“The Russians are restoring them any way they can, but Ukrainian forces very much prevent the restoration,” the engineer quipped.

Bellona, a Norway-based nuclear monitor, said on October 2 that a “greater danger lies in Moscow’s potential use of the crisis to justify reconnecting the plant to its own grid – portraying itself as the saviour preventing a nuclear disaster”.

Should Moscow do that, the step would only “worsen [the] strategic situation, give Moscow additional leverage, and bring a potential restart closer – a move that, amid ongoing fighting, would itself sharply increase the risk of a nuclear accident,” it said.

Analysts pointed to a deal proposed by US President Donald Trump in March to transfer the plant to US management as a possible solution.

Ukrainian strikes “will go on until Russia makes a peace deal that also includes US control over the ZAES and its operation”, Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s University of Bremen, told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, in recent weeks, blackouts in Crimea have become unpredictable and distressing, a Crimea local told Al Jazeera…………..

Russia understands that improved power supply is a prerequisite for its efforts to restore occupied Ukrainian regions and conquer more Ukrainian land, said an observer.

Moscow needs the plant to “cover the growing [energy] consumption in the region, considering not just occupied Crimea, but also the occupied areas [above the Sea of] Azov. And also within the context of Russia’s plan to occupy part of the Zaporizhia region,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera.

Greenpeace said that its detailed analysis of high-resolution satellite images taken after what Putin alleged were Ukrainian strikes showed that he was bluffing.

“There is no evidence of any military strikes in the area surrounding the pylons and network of power lines in this part of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the international environmentalist group said on October 1.

The images showed that the power towers remained in position and there were no craters left by explosions around the lines, it said.

Greenpeace concluded that the blackout at the plant is “a deliberate act of sabotage by Russia” whose aim is to “permanently disconnect the plant from the Ukraine grid and connect the nuclear plant to the grid occupied by Russia”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/6/is-russias-putin-gambling-with-the-safety-of-ukraines-nuclear-stations

October 8, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuclear disaster fears as expert highlights ‘fragile’ Zaporizhzhia power plant system

Europe’s largest nuclear plant is on the brink of disaster if total power loss is achieved, with experts saying that it is a fragile situation that needs monitoring

 Ciaran McGrath and Zesha Saleem, 04 Oct 2025, https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/nuclear-disaster-fears-expert-highlights-36013152

A nuclear plant faces the risk of meltdown from it’s longest blackout since 2022, with experts cautioning about a single power line’s dangerous vulnerability. Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant lost its last connection to the external grid on September 23.

This makes it the 10th outage since the war began, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since Friday, the plant’s six reactors were inactive as it remained in a cold shutdown, but it still needs regular electricity to keep cooling systems on for spent nuclear fuel.

The scenario was described as “clearly not sustainable in terms of nuclear safety” by AEA Director General Rafael Grossi during talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials this week.

Nickolas Roth of the Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank highlighted the fragility of the plant’s power infrastructure.

He told Express.co.uk : “For much of this year, the site has relied on a single functioning transmission line instead of multiple redundant connections.

“That creates a single point of failure: if that one line goes down, the plant loses the electricity needed to keep cooling and safety systems operating.”

The shutdown has been due to fighting near the location, with Ukraine accusing Russian forces of shelling the last remaining 750 kV power line. On Wednesday, a Greenpeace satellite investigation uncovered no major damage to the line, fuelling speculation of sabotage.

Moscow denied the claims. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described them as “stupid” and emphasised that Russia would not target a facility under its control. ZNPP is Europe’s largest nuclear plant, and was captured by Russian forces in March 2022 and formally annexed by Moscow following disputed referendums later that year.

While it doesn’t generate electricity, it holds tons of spent fuel that must remain submerged in water to prevent overheating.

Mr Roth explained the risks involved if there was a total power loss. He said: “A complete loss of power could lead to fuel overheating if cooling systems fail.”

He added that governments need to “develop plans to ensure the continuity of nuclear security operations during major crises,” including regular exercises practicing extended external threats.

Ukrainian nuclear safety official Dmytro Gumeniuk said: “The fact that it is running on diesel generators already represents a risk. Even if they are refuelled, this is still not a typical situation. Generators can fail, and they must be constantly monitored.”

Under Russian occupation, IAEA access to ZNPP has been restricted, which makes oversight difficult to achieve. The expert added that commitment to IAEA’s five principles on nuclear safety is important.

He said: “The plant should not be used to store or base heavy weapons or military personnel that could be employed for attacks. Off-site power must not be put at risk, and every effort should be made to ensure its availability and security at all times.

“First and foremost, Ukrainian reactor operators must be able to manage the plant without fearing for their lives and the lives of their families. They need safe working conditions and clear lines of communication with their national regulator.”

October 6, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Right-wing Czech politician who promised to cut aid to Ukraine takes lead in parliamentary election .

 04 Oct 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/502181-Right-wing-Czech-politician-who-promised-to-cut-aid-to-Ukraine-takes-lead-in-parliamentary-election

The right-wing party of agriculture billionaire Andrej Babis, branded ‘Czech Trump’ by local media, has taken the lead in his country’s parliamentary election.

Partial results were released by the Czech Statistical Office several hours after the polls closed across the central European country of 11 million earlier on Saturday.

With ballots from 20% of voting districts counted, Babis’ opposition ANO (Yes) party was ahead with 39.7% of the vote, followed by the Spolu (Together) group led by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala with 19.1%, the agency said.

Babis has been campaigning on a promise to stop Czech military assistance to Kiev, unlike Fiala, who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The 71-year-old, who served as prime minister between 2017 and 2021, has been particularly critical of Prague’s ammunition initiative for Kiev, calling it “overpriced” and insisting that it should be handled by NATO.

He has spoken out against Ukraine’s membership in the EU, as well as Brussels’ handling of immigration and the Green Deal.

The Western media has warned ahead of the vote that with Hungary and Slovakia already refusing to provide military aid to Kiev and advocating for a diplomatic end to the conflict, Babis’ victory in the Czech Republic could tip Central Europe even further away from Brussels on Ukraine and other key issues.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Leah McGrath Goodman, Tony Blair and issues on torture (with added radiation)

Image

Published by arclight2011- date 15 Sep 2012 -nuclear-news.net

[…]

Accusations: Despite the mockery of the film Borat, leaked U.S. cables suggest the country was undemocratic and used torture in detention

Other dignitaries at the meeting included former Italian Prime Minister and ex-EU Commission President

Romano Prodi. Mr Mittal’s employees in Kazakhstan have accused him of ‘slave labour’ conditions after a series of coal mining accidents between 2004 and 2007 which led to 91 deaths.

[…]

Last week a senior adviser to the Kazakh president said that Mr Blair had opened an office in the capital.Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said: ‘A large working group is here and, to my knowledge, it has already opened Tony Blair’s permanent office in Astana.’

It was reported last week that Mr Blair had secured an £8 million deal to clean up the image of Kazakhstan.

[…]

Mr Blair also visited Kazakhstan in 2008, and in 2003 Lord Levy went there to help UK firms win contracts.

[…]

Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_aVZrR5NI&feature=player_detailpage#t=749s

And as well as protecting the guilty child sex/torturers/murderers of the island of Jersey I believe that they are also protecting the tax dodgers from any association.. its just good PR!

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair was reportedly involved in helping to keep alive the world’s biggest takeover by Jersey-incorporated commodities trader Glencore of mining company Xstrata.

11/September/2012

[…]

Mr Blair was said to have attended a meeting at Claridge’s Hotel in London towards the end of last week which led to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund supporting a final revised bid from Glencore for its shareholding. Continue reading →

October 4, 2025 Posted by | 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES, Belarus, civil liberties, depleted uranium, environment, Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, Kazakhstan, marketing, politics international, Reference archives, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Ukraine, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Power fully restored to Chernobyl site

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that power was restored on Thursday morning to the New Safe Confinement at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant after 16 hours, following damage to a nearby substation. Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the loss of power to the Chernobyl site “once again underlines risks to nuclear safety during the military conflict”.

World Nuclear News 2nd Oct 202, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/power-fully-restored-to-chernobyl-site

October 4, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Danger déjà vu

  by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/10/01/danger-deja-vu/

With offsite power cut, peril returns to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in war-torn Ukraine, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

We have been here before, nine times. External power provided by the grid has been lost, backup diesel generators have been called into duty, and Ukraine and the rest of the world has held its collective breath, hoping we are not about to witness another major nuclear disaster.

This is once again the situation at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in southeast Ukraine, where for the tenth time external power has been lost. By September 30, that blackout had lasted seven days, the longest such stretch since the plant was first occupied by Russian forces on March 4, 2022, ten days after Russia invaded Ukraine and provoked a war that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

Alarm is especially high at the Zaporizhzhia site given its size — the largest nuclear power plant in Europe — and enormous radioactive waste inventory of more than 2,000 metric tons. The plant has been embroiled in some of the worst of the fighting and has already suffered previous damage.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s other nine reactors at three other sites are by no means immune to the dangers of being caught up in an indefinite war zone. In late September, a drone detonated just 875 yards from the perimeter of the South Ukraine three-reactor nuclear power plant. Monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said they observed at least 22 drones close to the facility. 

“Once again, drones are flying far too close to nuclear power plants, putting nuclear safety at risk,” wrote the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Grossi in a September 25 statement after the drone incident. “Fortunately, last night’s incident did not result in any damage to the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant itself. Next time we may not be so lucky.” The IAEA nevertheless continues ardently to promote the use and expansion of nuclear power around the world.

Currently, all six reactors at Zaporizhzhia are in cold shutdown, which means less cooling is needed, but they are by no means out of danger. However, it is unclear how many members of the trained Ukrainian plant staff remain to operate the facility. According to an alarming new investigative report, Seizing Power, prepared by Truth Hounds and supported by Greenpeace Ukraine, numerous personnel have been abducted from the plant, interned and even tortured.

Cold shutdown means that fissioning in the reactors has stopped and the temperature of the reactor cores is below 200 F with the coolant system at atmospheric pressure. But this does not mean that further cooling is no longer required. 

The fuel inside the reactors remains hot and requires a steady flow of cooling water which is why power is still needed on the site. Failure to achieve this would mean the fuel rods would heat up the water in the core, causing it to boil away, exposing the rods. This could then lead to fires, which in turn could cause hydrogen explosions of the kind we saw at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011. A meltdown is also still possible, although the time it would take to reach such a critical juncture is longer when the reactors are not operating.

The fuel pools, where much of the irradiated fuel is stored, also require continued cooling, although less so than the reactors, and risk the same outcome if cooling stops— a boiling away of the water exposing the rods and leading to a potential fuel pool fire.

The offsite power was being provided by the one still functioning power line into the site. Without it, workers have had to deploy backup diesel generators. There are reportedly 18 of these on site, with seven currently in use. But they cannot provide power indefinitely.

Accessing cooling water has also become more of a challenge. The Kakhovka Dam was destroyed in June 2023 leading to the depletion of the Kakhovka Reservoir, the vital water source for the Zaporizhzhia plant. Indeed, according Seizing Power, “the license to operate the ZNPP was premised on the availability of the Kakhovka Reservoir to supply water to the ZNPP and, in the event of an emergency, to function as a vital heat sink.” Instead, operators have been drilling for groundwater wells on-site in order to keep cooling water flowing into the reactors and the pools.

Of the 2,000 tons of radioactive waste stored on the Zaporizhzhia site, 855 tons are in the fuel pools and the rest in waste fuel casks. There are 200 different radioactive isotopes that could be released in the event of a disaster, an eventuality that could lead to both serious and fatal health consequences for those exposed, as well as longterm contamination of the environment and natural resources. 

Such a release would also have a devastating impact on Ukraine’s economy, given the country’s role as a major agricultural exporter. Known as the “breadbasket of Europe,” Ukraine’s agricultural products account for close to 60 percent of all exports, predominantly grains.

And yet, despite the on-going war, “Ukraine’s agricultural exports reached $24.5 billion in 2024, accounting for 59% of the country’s total exports,” according to January 2025 figures from the Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry.

It is a loss Ukraine cannot afford but we have of course seen this very outcome once before, after the April 26, 1986 Chornobyl explosion and meltdown in Ukraine that left lands in much of the former Soviet Union and parts of Europe permanently radioactively contaminated.

Operating a nuclear power plant safely, even in shutdown mode, can be jeopardized by multiple external factors, but how the workforce functions is also key. Both the Three Mile Island and Chornobyl nuclear disasters were the result of human error. When people are working under duress and especially extreme fear, mistakes become more likely.

That makes the revelations in Seizing Power all the more shocking. Researchers compiled their evidence through firsthand accounts from the residents of Enerhodar, the city where the plant is located and which was also captured on March 4, 2022. After resistance to the occupation failed, the report said, “Repression and violence quickly became systematic, targeting territorial defense volunteers, pro-Ukrainian activists, and ZNPP staff who refused to collaborate, among others.”

At least seven detention centers were established, said the report, where at least 226 Enerhodar residents and ZNPP employees were held captive, “subjected to physical and psychological torture to extract information, force confessions, punish dissent, intimidate, and coerce collaboration. Russian forces deprived detainees of food, water, and medical care, contrary to the provisions of international law. Torture, including beatings, electrocution, sexual violence, mock executions, and threats to family members of detainees, became routine.”

Why would either side gamble with such a lethal liability as the safety of a nuclear power plant, given the potentially drastic outcome whose resulting deadly radioactive plume would know no borders? Russia has accused Ukraine of damaging the power lines near the plant. The Ukrainians have in turn suggested the Russians are using the disabling of the plant as a threat to drive them into submission and cede territory in the east. The Russians have already signaled that they intend to use the plant to supply electricity to Russia once it is safe to restart the reactors.

That the war in Ukraine (and others elsewhere) must end, is stating the obvious. Human suffering around the world is already too great and entirely avoidable. Wars involving nuclear power plants ramp up the risks monumentally. But those dangers are also ever present, given nuclear power is inherently dangerous both on good days and bad.

As we watch ever greater militarization occurring here in the United States, with war declared by the White House on our own cities and “the enemy within”; with the abrupt and unlawful detentions and deportations of workers; and with the reckless determination to keep not only our aging nuclear fleet in operation but also to revive already closed and dangerously decrepit reactors; we, too, are one wrong move away from experiencing a nuclear disaster.

October 3, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

IAEA Races to Restore Power at Besieged Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant

Oil Price, By RFE/RL staff – Oct 01, 2025, 

  • Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been disconnected from the grid for over a week and is running on emergency diesel generators, one of which has already failed.
  • Ukrainian President Zelenskyy warned of a “threat to everyone” as shelling prevents the repair of damaged power lines.
  • IAEA head Rafael Grossi is mediating between Ukraine and Russia to restore offsite power, stressing that prolonged reliance on generators is unsustainable.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/IAEA-Races-to-Restore-Power-at-Besieged-Zaporizhzhya-Nuclear-Plant.html

October 3, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

IAEA issues fresh warning over drones near nuclear plants

26 September 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/iaea-report-drones-downed-close-to-south-ukraine-nuclear-power-plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said drones flew within a few hundred metres of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, underlining the continued risks to nuclear safety from the on-going war. Meanwhile Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant continues to have to rely on emergency diesel generators after a loss of off-site power.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts stationed at the three-unit South Ukraine nuclear power plant were told that 22 unmanned aerial vehicles were observed on Wednesday night and Thursday morning within its monitoring zone, “some coming as close as half a kilometre from the site”, the agency said.

“From their accommodation near the plant, IAEA team members heard gunfire and explosions around 01:00 am local time and today (Thursday) they visited the location where one of the drones had come down, observing a crater measuring four square metres at the surface and with a depth of around one metre,” the agency’s statement said.

“Once again drones are flying far too close to nuclear power plants, putting nuclear safety at risk. Fortunately, last night’s incident did not result in any damage to the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant itself. Next time we may not be so lucky. I continue to urge both sides to show maximum military restraint around all important nuclear facilities,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

“For more than three and a half years, the IAEA has been doing everything in its power to help prevent a nuclear accident during this devastating war. We will only be able to say that our mission was successful if the war ends without a serious nuclear accident. Our indispensable work is far from finished.”

Meanwhile Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been without external power for more than 48 hours and has been relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators. The IAEA said “the plant said it has the necessary spare parts and personnel to repair the line once the military situation permits. Ukraine has informed the Agency that it is also prepared to repair damages to a backup power line, when the military situation permits”.

Following the loss of off-site power all 18 available emergency generators started operating, with the number reduced to those required to provide power to the site – seven – helping to preserve the diesel fuel. The IAEA has been told previously that 20 days’ worth of fuel was stored at the site.

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022 and is on the frontline of Russian and Ukrainian forces.

September 29, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | 1 Comment

Safety fears as external power to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant still out after three days

Guardian, 27 Sept 25 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/27/safety-fears-as-external-power-to-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-still-out-after-three-days

Ukrainian officials among those concerned Russia is manufacturing crisis to keep hold of frontline plant

External power to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been cut for more than three days, a record outage that has prompted safety concerns over the six-reactor site on the frontline of the Ukraine war.

Emergency generators are being used to power cooling and safety systems after the final power line into the plant was cut on the Russian side at 4.56pm on Tuesday and there is no immediate sign that the line will be reconnected.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), described the situation as “deeply concerning” on Wednesday and met Vladimir Putin on Thursday but the situation has continued.

Western experts and Ukrainian officials fear the Kremlin is manufacturing a crisis to consolidate its grip over the plant, which is Europe’s largest, and that Russia is taking high-risk steps to turn on at least one reactor despite the wartime conditions.

“Russia is using the nuclear power station as a bargaining chip,” said one Ukrainian government official, while a specialist at Greenpeace said the Russian occupation had entered “a new critical and potentially catastrophic phase”.

Stress tests by European regulators after the 2011 Japanese reactor disaster at Fukushima indicated that a nuclear plant should be able to operate without external power for 72 hours. Going beyond that time limit is untried, Ukrainian sources said.

Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in March 2022 and its reactors, once capable of powering 4m homes, were put into cold shutdown for safety.

Ukraine regards the nuclear plant as its own but the plant has cropped up in negotiations between Donald Trump and Putin. Trump has tried to suggest the US should to take control, while the Kremlin has said it wants to restart all the reactors and connect them to the Russian grid – a task considered feasible only during peacetime.

External power has been lost at Zaporizhzhia nine times before. On each occasion the damage was done in Ukrainian-held territory by Russian forces striking energy infrastructure across the Dnipro. The final 750-kilovolt electricity line had run across the river, with Ukraine willing to supply energy to maintain safety.

On Tuesday the line was damaged on the Russian side, about a mile from the plant. The plant’s Russian operators said repair efforts were “complicated by ongoing shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces”, though Ukraine says it never fires at or around the plant, arguing it would be unacceptably risky.

The IAEA said it had been told by the Russian operators that there was enough diesel to power the generators for 20 days without fuel resupply. But Grossi said loss of external power “increases the likelihood of a nuclear accident”.

Seven out of 18 available generators are powering cooling on site but if they were to fail, Ukrainian sources said, there would be a risk that the nuclear fuel in the six reactors would heat uncontrollably over a period of weeks, leading to a meltdown.

An accelerated version of this scenario happened at Fukushima because the reactors had just been operating. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan and the hot reactors on the site were automatically shut down in response. Emergency generators continued to pump cooling water around the reactor but these were knocked out by a tsunami that followed minutes later. Three nuclear cores at the plant melted down within three days, though the fuel remained contained. Nobody was killed [?] but more than 100,000 were evacuated.

September 27, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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