KYIV, July 6 – Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) lost all external power for more than three and a half hours on Friday evening, once again highlighting the facility’s vulnerability amid ongoing Russian attacks, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported.

The last remaining 750 kilovolt (kV) power line connecting Europe’s largest nuclear facility was cut at 17:37 local time and restored at 21:11. During the outage, the plant relied on 18 emergency diesel generators to power reactor cooling systems and spent fuel pools, the IAEA said, citing information from Ukraine’s nuclear regulator.

It was the ninth complete loss of off-site power at the Russian-occupied site since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the first such incident since December 2, 2023.

“What was once virtually unimaginable – that a major nuclear power plant would repeatedly lose all of its external power connections – has unfortunately become a common occurrence,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. “Nuclear safety in Ukraine remains very much in danger.”
Grossi added that the IAEA team stationed at the plant will continue monitoring the situation closely.

All six reactors at the ZNPP have been in cold shutdown since 2024 but still require constant cooling. The site lost its last remaining 330 kV backup line on May 7, making it solely dependent on the 750 kV line that failed on Friday. Prior to the war, the plant had ten external power lines.

The blackout coincided with air raid alerts across the region during what the UN described as the largest Russian aerial assault on Ukraine in over three years of war.
In a separate statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned the wave of drone and missile strikes, warning that they again jeopardized nuclear safety at Zaporizhzhia.

“These strikes disrupted the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, once again underlining the ongoing risks to nuclear safety,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.

Guterres reiterated his call for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire, emphasizing that attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure are prohibited under international law. (om/ez)