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IAEA Brokers Local Ceasefire for Repairs at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant

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The International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday said it has brokered a localized ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia for the repair and restoration of off-site power to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant near the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar.

This has enabled the start of repair work on the 330 kilovolt Ferosplavna-1 power line north of the Dnipro River on Saturday. The work by Ukrainian technicians under IAEA supervision, will last a few days, the IAEA said in a statement on Saturday.

Repairs on the damaged power line are needed to restore reliable external power supply to the plant which remains highly reliant on emergency diesel generators amid low supplies of the fuel, it said, citing IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.

On Aug. 20, ZNPP lost its only remaining off-site power line connection after military activity north of the Dnipro River, the 26th such outage during the conflict between the two countries. The facility has been shut since September 2022 with volumes of decay heat falling, reducing its cooling needs over time.

"As a result, in the event of a complete station blackout, it would take considerably longer before nuclear fuel could be damaged or potentially melt. Nevertheless, such a scenario must be prevented, and the current situation needs to be addressed as soon as possible through the restoration of off-site power or continued supplies of diesel fuel," the statement said.

It is the seventh local ceasefire brokered by Grossi to allow essential repairs and help prevent a nuclear accident, the statement said.

Meanwhile, combat close to other nuclear sites in Ukraine continues inside of their monitoring areas.

In the past seven days, the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant detected 28 nearby drones, including a few within about three kilometers of the site, the Chornobyl plant reported 17 drones, while the Rivne NPP observed three drones, the IAEA said.

A drone was also reported about 6km from the Khmelnytskyy NPP site.

One nuclear power plant reported two incidents of losing off-site power line due to military activity. The first outage, which forced a reactor to reduce power, was ended within one day, the second incident led to disconnection of one reactor unit from the grid, the statement said.

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