IAEA warns of rising power outages at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a new warning about the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, which has been under Russian control since March 2022. Since the invasion, the plant has experienced 24 external power supply losses, with half of those occurring in the last four months.

A brief outage was recorded on Tuesday, with the cause not yet clarified. Because the six reactors are shut down, the station still relies on external electricity to run essential cooling and safety systems, using diesel generators as backup. Plant staff report frequent military activity and explosions near the site. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi described the trend as “extremely concerning and clearly unsustainable” and called for “maximum military restraint.” Moscow and Kyiv continue to blame each other for the risk of a nuclear accident.