First Deputy Minister of Energy Artem Nekrasov warned on Thursday that Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) will soon have been operating on backup diesel generators for its tenth day in a row – “significantly” increasing the NPP’s risk of failure.
Nekrasov’s comments were made live on air, according to Ukrinform.
“This mode of operation is unprecedented, as the plant’s design did not foresee long-term functioning of safety systems solely on diesel generators,” the deputy minister said.
The inability of technicians to reach the NPP – which has been controlled by the Russians since the early days of the full-scale war – for routine equipment repairs worsens the danger.
Nekrasov warned that the unprecedented nature of the situation means that there is “no reliable data” about how long the NPP can continue to operate under these circumstances.
“This significantly increases the risk of failure of these diesel generators and, accordingly, creates a threat of the cooling system shutting down,” Nekrasov said.
On Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky described the situation at Zaporizhzhia as a “threat to absolutely everyone.”
Russia blames the damage to the plant on an attack by Ukraine.
Russian strikes on the southern region of Zaphorizhzhia have increased in recent days. In the early hours of Sept. 28, missiles wounded at least 27 people, including 3 children.