(Reuters) – Operators running maintenance at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant switched off two reactors, the plant’s Moscow-based control said, on the front-line, on Tuesday.
The largest nuclear power plant in Europe was seized by Russian forces in March 2022. Ukraine and Russia blame each other for explosions near the station and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was trying to establish a safety mechanism to prevent accidents.
One of these six reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), must be kept in a thermal reactor to produce the steam needed for nuclear safety, including the processing of explosive liquid waste in storage tanks.
“In order to carry out a planned technical inspection of the equipment of the power unit No. 5, the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant decided to transfer to a ‘cold shutdown,’ the government,” the management said on the Telegram channel.
“And in order to provide steam for the needs of the station itself, the reactor plant of power unit No. 4 was switched to a state of ‘burning shutdown’.”
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The IAEA said in a statement on Monday that plant managers had informed the agency about the changes.
“Some units remain closed,” the IAEA said in a statement.
Moscow says the plant will eventually be connected to Russia’s power grid. None of the plant’s six reactors was producing electricity. Ukraine vowed to take back the plant and all the land in Ukraine now occupied by Moscow.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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