The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, in response to the statements made by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on September 2, 2025, emphasizes that Russia, by seizing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is creating critically dangerous conditions for its operation and is using the facility as a tool of warfare, UNN reports with reference to the Ministry of Energy.
The station is currently under an out-of-design threat – that is, a regime that was not foreseen either constructively or procedurally. The consequences of such operation cannot be properly assessed due to the constant military seizure of this nuclear facility. Since the establishment of military control over the Zaporizhzhia NPP, Russia has allowed systemic, critically dangerous deformations in the technical functioning of this nuclear facility.
This refers not only to the destruction of the main water supply source for reactor cooling as a result of the Kakhovka dam explosion, but also to multiple disconnections of the station from the Ukrainian energy system, which have already led to a complete blackout of the facility nine times – a state that is a direct prerequisite for a nuclear accident, energy experts emphasize.
The conditions under which the ZNPP has been kept for a long time in a cold shutdown mode, under the supervision of unauthorized unidentified persons and without access for the legitimate Ukrainian operator, are fundamentally incompatible with the basic nuclear safety standards for a facility of this scale
The experts add that "in this context, the public statements of the President of the Russian Federation on September 2, 2025, about the introduction of new, unknown systems of management and control over the station, should be regarded as evidence of an attempt to use the ZNPP as a military tool in the further conduct of the war against Ukraine."
These actions pose a direct threat to the nuclear safety of the station, and therefore - of Europe. We call on international partners for an immediate reaction, particularly within the framework of the September session of the IAEA General Conference, where these threats must be clearly assessed and recognized at the international level
Recall
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has received additional information about a dam built to provide cooling water for systems needed to keep the reactor units at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in a cold shutdown state. However, the Russian invaders did not provide the IAEA team of specialists with access to the newly created dam.