MELITOPOL, June 11. /TASS/. Fragments of an American howitzer shell have been found in the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant’s (ZNPP) spray cooling pond, according to a post on the ZNPP’s Telegram channel released on Sunday.
"While performing cleanup operations at the ZNPP’s spray cooling ponds aimed at removing the aftermath of last year’s shelling attack on the plant, fragments of a shell fired from an American M777 howitzer were found in one of the ponds of the technical water system," it said.
Water from spray cooling ponds is used in the closed cycle and is meant to cool nuclear waste stored in spent fuel pools and inside the reactors.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on June 7 that the Zaporozhye NPP continued to replenish water reserves for reactor cooling from the Kakhovka reservoir. But water levels there are subsiding following the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant (HPP). If the ZNPP’s cooling water ponds are filled, there will be enough water for several months, the agency said. Meanwhile, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the director general of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company, said that the drop in water levels at the Kakhovka reservoir will not affect ZNPP’s nuclear safety.
The Zaporozhye NPP was extensively shelled by Ukrainian troops in 2022. The intensity of such attacks decreased only this year. However, Ukrainian troops continue to periodically shell the city of Energodar, where the nuclear facility is located.