Kyiv: Off-site power to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces for nearly four years, is being restored after a monthlong outage, officials said Thursday.
Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said the damaged 750-kilovolt Dniprovska transmission line linking the Russian-occupied plant to Ukraine’s grid has been repaired, while work continues on the Ferosplavna 330-kilovolt backup line that runs through Russian-held areas.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the repairs to Europe’s largest nuclear power station were carried out under a local ceasefire. It described the return of off-site power as “a key step for nuclear safety.”
Russian and Ukrainian forces established special ceasefire zones for repairs to be safely carried out — a rare case of cooperation between both sides.
“Both sides engaged constructively with the IAEA to enable the complex repair plan to proceed,” Grossi said in a statement.
Grynchuk said Ukrainian energy workers have repaired the plant’s power lines 42 times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. During that period, the facility lost external power and had to rely on emergency diesel generators on 10 occasions.