MELITOPOL, April 5. /TASS/. Ukraine continues its attempts to trigger a nuclear disaster by shelling the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Renat Karchaa, advisor to the CEO of Russian state nuclear power corporation Rosenergoatom, told Channel One television.

ZNPP officials said on April 4 that the 330kV reserve power supply line feeding the facility had disconnected and efforts were underway to determine the cause. Later, Ukrainian Telegram channels started spreading fake news stories that the incident had been caused by Russian shelling attacks.

"That’s nonsense, <...> try to prove just once that the lines are breaking down because of Russian shelling. It’s not true. Second, when one of the lines breaks down, there is a reserve one. Third, electricity is also produced by diesel generators. However, the thing to note is that the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is not operating at its full capacity at the moment; its units have been switched to either cold or hot shutdown mode," Karchaa noted.

He stressed that it was Ukrainian troops that have kept on shelling the ZNPP premises. "It was them that tried to trigger a nuclear disaster and continue these attempts to this day. <...> Fake news like this is also terrorism; it’s informational terrorism. The goal of these acts of terrorism is to intimidate people, spread panic and, so to speak, offset the failures that Ukraine and the entire collective West are now facing along the line of engagement," Karchaa pointed out.

Situation at ZNPP

All units of the Zaporozhye NPP were shut down in September 2022. Five of them were switched to cold shutdown mode and one to hot shutdown mode. The facility’s equipment is being maintained in compliance with the relevant regulations, with radiation safety rules being strictly observed.

The six-reactor, six-gigawatt Zaporozhye NPP, located in the city of Energodar, is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russian forces took control of the facility in late February 2022. Since then, the Ukrainian army has periodically shelled both residential areas in Energodar and the premises of the power plant using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).