Kiiv, Ukraine (AP)-the Zaporizhzia nuclear power plant occupied by Russia of Ukraine entered its fifth day in operation in emergency generators on Saturday, which caused growing security concerns.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, announced a weapons agreement of $ 90 billion with the United States and criticized Hungary for carrying out “dangerous” intelligence drones activities on Ukraine.
The external power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, has been reduced for more than four days in a record interruption in the installation of six reactors in the first line of the war, Greenpeace Ukraine warned on Saturday.
Emergency diesel generators are being used to feed cooling and safety systems after the final electricity line was cut on Tuesday, according to the UN Nuclear Control Agency. Rafael Grossi, general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, but the external energy source was not restored.
The core of the reactor and the nuclear fuel used must be cooled to prevent overheating and trigger dangerous crises such as those that occurred in 2011, when an earthquake and a tsunami hit Fukushima’s plant in Japan. The UN atomic control agency has repeatedly warned about the possibility of a radiation catastrophe such as Chernobyl, about 480 kilometers (300 miles) to the northwest, where a reactor exploded in 1986.
Ukrainian officials confirmed the seriousness of the situation. The Minister of Energy, Svitlana Hrynchuk, told Associated Press that “the plant remains in the off mode, which is a significant violation of the conditions for its normal operation,” marking the tenth incident of this type from the large -scale invasion of Russia in February 2022. The cause, he said, was another flambling of the Russians, which damaged the only line of power transmission that the plant of the urban energy system.
The Russian -controlled telegram channel for the plant said on Saturday that “sufficient diesel fuel reserves are available on the site to guarantee the long -term autonomous operation of the generators.”
A radiation and nuclear energy specialist in Greenpeace Ukraine, Jan Vande Putte, said that “emergency diesel generators are considered the last defense line, used only in extreme circumstances.”
“These are, without a doubt, the most serious and important events since the beginning of the occupation of the ZNPP by Russia in March 2022,” he said.
The images suggest that Russia can be trying to restart a reactor
Putte said they were the “deliberate actions” of Russia that led to the disconnection of the plant from the Ukraine external energy network. He warned that the development advanced the “long data target” of the Rosatom nuclear company of Rosatom to “connect with the electricity grid illegally in the regions of Zaporizhia and Donetsk and restart the nuclear reactor.”
The new satellite analysis of Greenpeace Ukraine suggests that Russia can be positioning to restart at least one reactor despite high -risk war conditions. The environmental group said that Russian engineers are building 125 miles (201 kilometers) of electric lines that connect substations in the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol, with a construction from December 2024.
According to Greenpeace’s analysis, Russia has also completed the construction of a new water supply system for the plant’s cooling pond and deliberately damaged an electric line of 750 kilowol that had connected the installation with the Ukraine electricity network.
Associated Press could not independently verify the analysis of Greenpeace Ukraine.
The plant has been retained by Russia since Moscow’s invasion in 2022. Its six reactors are still fed with uranium, although they are in a cold -cut call, which means that nuclear reactions have stopped. However, the plant is based on external electricity to maintain its fresh reactor and feed other security systems. That external power has been cut several times in the war, which forces the plant to trust diesel generators on the site.
The city of Zaporizhzhia, about 440 kilometers (275 miles) southeast of kyiv, is in the hands of Ukraine and attacks around the plant have occurred, since the front line is close. The OIEA revolves the staff through the installation to verify the safety of the plant and offer their experience.
Zelenskyy addresses the weapons agreement and regional tensions
Zelenskyy detailed Saturday at a press conference in kyiv which called a “mega agreement” for the purchases of weapons of the United States, with technical meetings that begin at the end of September. The $ 90 billion package includes both the main weapons agreement and a separate “drone agreement” for Ukrainian manufacturing drones that the US will buy directly.
“We discussed and agreed the main points with the president (Trump). Now we are going to practical implementation,” said Zelenskyy, adding that Ukraine had provided detailed specifications of his military needs to the United States, including requests for long -range weapons systems.
Zelenskyy also criticized the activity of Hungarian drones about Ukraine, saying that Ukrainian intelligence tracked at least one drone. “I think they are doing very dangerous things: very dangerous things, first of all for themselves,” said Zelenskyy.
He said that intelligence services had documented the drone movement with photos and electronic monitoring, although he did not elaborate what “Hungarian intelligence is studying in the territory of Ukraine.”
Publishing on Facebook on Friday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the Ukrainian president “lost his head” and was “watching things.”
Hungary, directed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has maintained close links with Russia and has criticized military aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy also revealed that an Israeli patriotic air defense system has been operating in Ukraine during the past month, and two additional patriotic systems are expected to arrive in autumn.
“The Israeli System (Patriot) is operating in Ukraine. A month has been operating for a month,” said providing more details about air defense implementations. The Israel Ministry of Defense refused to comment.
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Associated Press Elise Morton writer in London contributed to this report.
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Follow the AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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