Russia wants to connect Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is one step away from a Fukushima-like tragedy, to its energy system - Energoatom

This was announced by Petro Kotin, the president of Energoatom State Enterprise, on the air of the national telethon on Tuesday.

"Actually, since Thursday, we have had a worsening of the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. At first, it started with the fact that Rosatom personnel handed over a special program to the station to reconnect the ZNPP to Crimea, and the first prerequisite of this program is actually severe damage to the station's communication lines with the Ukrainian power system", Kotin said. 

According to him, this scenario has been implemented in the last three days, when the Russian occupiers damaged three power lines at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Currently, the station operates with one power output line, which is a very dangerous mode of operation of the NPP.

As the head of Energoatom explained, in order to switch the ZNPP to Crimea, the occupiers need to completely de-energize it and the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

"This is exactly what is written in the program, and after all this is de-energized, they will again start supplying the regions from the substation in Dzhankoi, then gradually reach Kakhovka and from it supply the Zaporizhzhia NPP. And after that, the ZNPP will no longer be able to be connected to the Ukrainian energy system - it will remain on the Russian frequency", the source said.

At the same time, the period from the moment of de-energization of the Zaporizhzhia NPP will be the most dangerous for it, Kotin emphasized.

"This is their plan, and they started to implement it. However, the period when the ZNPP is disconnected from the power system is the most dangerous mode for it. Because all 20 diesel generators at the Zaporizhzhia NPP will be turned on, and if there are any failures of this equipment, it will threaten the melting of the active zones of the reactor", the head of Energoatom summarized.

As he added, now the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP is approaching the pre-accident situation at the Japanese Fukushima-1 in 2011.

"At the ZNPP, we are very close to this first stage of Fukushima-1, because there is only one line. As soon as it is disconnected, the station will switch to diesel, and after that everything will depend on the reliability of their work and the sufficiency of the fuel that is available at the ZNPP", Kotin stated.