MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Ukraine has set up a threat to nuclear security having intentionally cut off a power line of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, when two of its reactors were switched to the hot shutdown mode, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company, said on Thursday.
"What they have done carries with it a very obvious and very serious threat to nuclear safety, because defueling nuclear reactors on diesel generators contradicts all existing regulations and standards. It's very dangerous… They simply switched off the electricity power line," he said in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya-24 television station.
"Most likely it was them switching off the power line, but this is a preliminary version. Yes, we are speaking here about what we call a cutout switch," he added.
Karchaa said on Wednesday that the fifth and sixth reactors of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant had been transferred from a cold shutdown state to what specialists call hot shutdown, which means that the power plant did not generate electricity, but provided thermal power.
In early October, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement that the Zaporozhye NPP’s personnel had informed the organization's experts about their plans to restart one of the six power units.
The Zaporozhye nuclear plant is the largest in Europe and has a capacity of about 6,000 MW. It used to generate a quarter of all electric power in Ukraine. The Zaporozhye station consists of six power units and since 1996 it has operated as a detached unit of the Energoatom national nuclear power generating company controlled by Kiev.
In March 2022, the Zaporozhye NPP was placed under the Russian army’s control.