MELITOPOL, November 18. /TASS/. The risk of a nuclear incident at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) can be eliminated only when Ukraine halts all attacks on the power plant and its infrastructure, including external power supply lines, the plant’s communication director Yevgenia Yashina told TASS.

In the evening of November 14, one of the two high-voltage external power supply lines of the ZNPP, Dneprovskaya, was switched off by an automatic protection device. Power to the facility is currently supplied via the Ferrosplavnaya-1 line. The source of the outage is unknown but located in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Zaporozhye region. The incident happened the same day that Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi held talks in Kaliningrad, paying particular attention to the situation at the ZNPP.

"The crucial condition is the cessation of all Ukrainian attacks on the power plant and its infrastructure. This is the only way to guarantee an uninterrupted functioning of the power lines and eliminate nuclear risks," Yashina said.

This autumn, the power plant experienced the longest blackout when both power lines were switched off. The ZNPP operated solely on reserve diesel generators for 30 days. After the meeting in Kaliningrad, Grossi stated that in the entire history of commercial use of nuclear power plants, none had operated without an external power supply source for so long. Likhachev stressed that the period between September 23 and October 23 was very difficult for the facility.

External power supply to the ZNPP via both high-voltage lines was restored on November 8 through a temporary local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA. Once the restoration was completed, the Ukrainian army immediately resumed shelling of the area where the nuclear plant is located, along with its satellite city Energodar.