Latest news with #GreenpeaceUkraine
Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Satellite images suggest a Russian plan to restart seized Ukrainian nuclear plant
Based on the location and direction of the work, Greenpeace said the project aimed to link the new power lines to a large substation near Mariupol that was connected to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, about 140 miles farther west. Advertisement 'Putin's plan for restarting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant depends on securing new electricity transmission lines — this is the first physical evidence of those plans,' Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine, said in an interview. Moscow's exact plans remain unclear. There are questions about whether it seeks to run the plant in a postwar Ukraine or to do so while fighting is still underway. In either case, experts note, Russia would need to build several more lines to connect the Zaporizhzhia plant to its own grid, a process that would take time. Advertisement Olga Kosharna, an independent Ukrainian nuclear expert, said linking the plant to its own grid has been a longtime goal for Moscow, as expressed in official statements throughout the war. It would be the first time a warring nation seized another country's nuclear facility and then used it for its own energy needs. And it would go against recent efforts by the Trump administration to discuss the fate of the plant as part of possible peace talks. President Donald Trump has expressed interest in the United States taking control of Ukrainian nuclear plants, citing safety concerns and their economic potential. Last month, the White House presented a peace plan to Kyiv and its allies calling for Russia to return the plant to Ukraine, but under US management. Under that plan, the facility would supply electricity to Ukraine and Russia. Russia has flatly rejected the idea, with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov telling CBS News that the Zaporizhzhia plant was being run by Russian nuclear giant Rosatom and that he did not think 'any change is conceivable.' Rosatom and Russia's energy ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the building of new power lines. The recent power line construction suggests that Russia is not aiming just to hold onto the plant but also wants to harness it to power its own grid. Built during the Soviet era, the Zaporizhzhia facility is Europe's largest nuclear power complex. Its six reactors can generate up to six gigawatts of electricity — enough to power all of Portugal — and they supplied nearly a quarter of Ukraine's electricity before the war began in 2022. Advertisement The plant sits in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, dangerously close to the front lines, making safe operation impossible. All six reactors were gradually shut down after Russia seized the site, with the last one closing in 2023. Russia has signaled its intent to power it back up, at one point citing 2024 as the target year to bring it online. 'Everyone is living with the dream of restarting the plant,' Rosatom's director-general, Alexei Likhachev, said last week, according to Russian news agency Interfax. A plan had been developed to return the Zaporizhzhia facility to full capacity, he said. One of the main challenges to restarting the plant, Likhachev noted, was the need to 'replace the power grid.' Indeed, of the four 750-kilovolt lines that once connected the plant to Ukraine's grid, two pass through Ukrainian-held territory. The other two, on Russian-occupied land, have been damaged by the fighting, and only one may have been repaired, according to Kosharna, the nuclear expert. That leaves Russia without enough lines to fully tap the plant's generation capacity. 'They need to build more of them,' Burnie, of Greenpeace, said. Burnie said one possible goal for Moscow was to eventually connect the Zaporizhzhia plant to the power grid in Russia's Rostov region, which borders occupied areas of eastern Ukraine. Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace show new power lines being built across fields near Mariupol, as well as the distinctive triangular shape of transmission towers. The latest imagery, from May 11 to May 22, shows these lines expanding east of the village of Shevchenko, about 7 miles from a substation linked to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Advertisement Restarting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant would carry significant risks, energy experts say. After more than three years of war, critical equipment remains unreplaced, and many experienced Ukrainian staff members have fled. The 2023 destruction of a nearby dam on the Dnieper River, probably by Russia, also deprived the plant of the main water source needed to cool its reactors and its spent fuel rods. Herman Galushchenko, Ukraine's energy minister, said in a statement that 'any attempts by Russian representatives to restart power units could lead to unpredictable consequences.' This article originally appeared in
Voice of America
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Voice of America
Russia pins nuclear threat on Ukraine after militarizing atomic power station
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi warned of an uptick in attacks on the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine during a visit to Moscow on Feb. 7. Grossi said that Russia's systematic attack on Ukraine' energy infrastructure, which Amnesty International said may amount to war crimes, further risk nuclear catastrophe in other parts of the country. On Feb. 11, however, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, called out the IAEA for not placing the potential of a nuclear crisis squarely on Ukraine's shoulders. "Ukraine remains the only source of security threats to the ZNPP as it routinely targets the nuclear facility and its critical infrastructure, as well as the satellite city of Energodar, home to ZNPP employees and their families, and even attacked a convoy [facilitating the rotation of] IAEA inspectors in December 2024," Polyansky said. Those claims are false. Russia's occupation and placement of military assets on the grounds of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, along with systematic attacks on Ukraine's power grid, lay at the heart of the brewing nuclear crisis. Russia has bulked up its efforts to use the nuclear facility as a military launch pad, Britain's McKenzie Intelligence Services commissioned by Greenpeace Ukraine reported in December 2024. Satellite intelligence published in that report revealed the firing positions of Russian Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS) near the facility. The report also revealed Russia's construction of military trenches and fortifications at the ZNPP cooling pond. Earlier analysis from McKenzie Intelligence Services published in July 2024 found that apart from digging over a kilometer of trenches, Russian forces were also constructing fortifications that could be used for the deployment of heavy military firepower. Greenpeace Ukraine said that Russia's militarization of the cooling pond area could signal Russia's plans to restart the six reactors at the facility, which were taken offline in 2022. "The Russian armed forces continue to militarize Europe's largest nuclear power plant, violating nuclear safety standards by building over 1,000 meters of trenches and fortifications on its cooling pond. Firing heavy MLRS from near the ZNPP endangers Ukrainian lives and communities and also increases nuclear risks. Russia's occupation of the ZNPP must be ended," Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine, said in December. While visiting an electricity distribution substation in Ukraine last week, Grossi warned that attacks on Ukraine's power grid could spark a nuclear accident by disrupting the energy supply. That sentiment was echoed by independent United Nations experts who warned in November 2024, that repeated Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's electricity system have "led to further significant damage to electric substations that are essential to the operation of Ukraine's nuclear power plants." A special report from the IAEA published in September 2024 reached similar conclusions. "Recent attacks underscored the risks to supply from Ukraine's other nuclear plants, as damage to nearby substations can prevent these plants feeding the grid or endanger the backup supply that keeps the reactors safe," the report said. The IAEA said that Russia's occupation of nearly half of Ukraine's power generation capacity, including the ZNPP, and systematic attacks on the power grid in non-occupied territory had "left Ukraine with only around one-third of its pre-war capacity." Meantime, Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of attacking the ZNPP and nearby settlements and infrastructure. That also includes the Dec. 10 attack on a convoy of IAEA inspectors traveling on a road near the nuclear power plant, which Russia's Polyansky pinned on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in turn said it was Russia that deliberately targeted the IAEA vehicle. While Polyansky accused Ukraine of carrying out drone attacks on the nearby city of Energodar, Grossi said it was impossible to determine who was launching those strikes based on the available evidence. On Feb. 11, Ukraine's Ministry of Energy also alleged that Russian shelling damaged one of the two power lines supplying the ZNPP.
