KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Europe’s largest nuclear power plant relied Thursday on emergency diesel turbines to operate its safety systems after the external force source to Ukraine’s power grid was disrupted again, Ukrainian and U. N. officials said.
The fighting in Ukraine has continuously broken the lines of force and substations that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant needs to operate its protection systems, forcing personnel to resort to backup turbines to cool its six reactors until overall strength is restored. All six reactors were shut down. The turbines have enough fuel for the plant in southeastern Ukraine for just 15 days, nuclear power company Energoatom said.
“The countdown has begun,” Energoatom said, noting that it has limited opportunities to “keep the ZNPP in mode. “
The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency showed the transfer to backup diesel turbines and said it underscores “the incredibly precarious nuclear safety and security. “
Rafael Grossi, the U. N. nuclear watchdog, said relying on diesel turbines “is obviously a sustainable way to operate a primary nuclear facility” and suggested that a coverage zone be established around the plant.
Russia and Ukraine traded war rights for bombing and around the plant. Energoatom said Thursday that Russian bombing destroyed the last two high-voltage transmission lines powering the Zaporizhzhia plant. Russia gave another narrative, blaming Ukraine.
Russia’s Tass news firm quoted an official from Russia’s nuclear operator, Rosenergoatom, as saying Ukraine had cut off the two lines of force and denied that Russian bombing of the lines of force caused the problems. He said the move hurt the town of Energodar, where the staff of the live, heating factory.
Russian forces have occupied the factory since the beginning of the war. It is in the Zaporizhzhia region, one of the 4 regions that Russia has illegally annexed. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to move the nuclear plant to Russian ownership, Ukrainian personnel will continue to operate the plant.
Energoatom claimed Russian officials were looking to connect the power plant to the Russian power grid so it can supply electricity to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and Ukraine’s Donbass region, annexed through Putin.
The death toll from past battles became evident on Thursday, when Ukrainian authorities said 868 civilian bodies, 24 more children, had been recovered in liberated spaces in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions. National police chief Oleksii Serhieiev also told reporters that 34 torture sites were discovered after the withdrawal of Russian troops from those spaces, as well as from the Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
Elsewhere on the front, Russia used drones, missiles and heavy artillery to target Ukrainian cities, killing six civilians and wounding 16, according to the president’s office. water.
Further east, in the Donetsk region, fighting continued in the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where the government said people were under constant bombardment and living without electricity or heating. In the northeast, 3 Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s largest city, Kharkiv.
Across the Dnieper from the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the city of Nikopol was also shelled again, damaging residential buildings, a fuel station and several businesses, Zelenskyy’s workplace said on Thursday.
In a rare trail of an imaginable withdrawal that Ukrainians have treated with skepticism, a Moscow-appointed official in the occupied southern region of Kherson said it is “very likely” Russian troops will cross the Dnieper, far from the town of Kherson. Kirill Stremousov also told Russian state television that all Ukrainian attacks had been repulsed.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from the town of Kherson in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian government dumped its country’s flag from Kherson’s administrative building on Thursday, a week after the regional government left.
Southern Ukrainian army spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk said the removal of the flag could simply be a provocation “and we are not rushing to rejoice. “He also said on Ukrainian television that some Russian servicemen disguised themselves as civilians.
Claims in none of the aspects can be independently verified.
On the humanitarian front, seven ships carrying 290,000 tons of agricultural products left Ukrainian seaports for Asia and Europe, a day after Russia resumed its participation in a program allowing the export of Ukrainian grain. Putin said Moscow had obtained assurances that Ukraine would use humanitarian corridors. to attack Russian forces.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko denied that Kyiv had made new commitments or used the grain room for military purposes.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia’s resolution meant the grain deal would be extended after it expired on Nov. 19.
Russia suspended its participation in the deal last weekend, bringing to light an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. In Ukraine, the Russians mishandled their own weapons.
In Coinscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert to protest what he said was the assistance of British instructors in the Oct. 29 drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. Bronnert had no comment after the meeting.
Under the grain deal, Russia allowed fertilizer and grain exports to resume, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday he had not noticed any progress in this regard.
Since the agreement was concluded in July, 430 ships have exported 10 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products to Africa, Asia and Europe. Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry said export volumes in October “could have been 30 to 40 percent higher if Russia had not artificially blocked inspections. “”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the 10 million tonne mark and all parties to renew the grain deal.
“I’m not optimistic, I’m not pessimistic. I am determined,” Guterres told reporters in New York, adding that it is about removing barriers to Russian food and fertilizer exports.
The two sides announced the prisoner swap on Thursday, bringing the total to 214 army personnel.
Elsewhere, a Ukrainian army officer said Russia was Belarusian territory to launch drone strikes. Hromov said Iranian drones were flying in Ukraine from a military base in the Belarusian town of Luninets, a hundred kilometers (62 miles) north of the border.
Meanwhile, the United Nations nuclear agency said on Thursday that its inspections had uncovered no evidence of Russia’s baseless claims that Ukraine planned to detonate radioactive “dirty bombs” after examining 3 sites in Ukraine. Western nations have called Moscow’s claims “false transparencies. “
Zelenskky, in his evening speech, said the inspectors had shown that “we have transparent and irrefutable evidence that no one in Ukraine has created or is creating ‘filthy bombs. ‘And the only thing that is dirty in our region now are the leaders of those in Moscow.
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Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations and Frank Jordans reported from Berlin.
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