The Director General of NNEGC "Energoatom" Petro Kotin stated that the restart of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian occupation since the spring of 2022, is extremely dangerous for Russia. This is reported by The Guardian, writes UNN.
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The future of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the largest in Europe, is an important aspect of any negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine, the publication writes. Captured by Russia in the spring of 2022 and closed for security reasons a few months later, it remains on the front line of the conflict, the publication points out.
Russia has stated that it intends to keep the plant and restart it, without specifying exactly when. Oleksiy Likhachev, head of the Russian nuclear energy operator Rosatom, said in February that it would be restarted when "military and political conditions allow it."
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has expressed interest in taking control of the station, although such a possibility is considered quite unlikely, the publication writes.
Kotin said that Energoatom is ready to resume operation of the plant, but this requires the withdrawal of Russian troops, as well as demining and demilitarization of the territory.
According to him, such a restart by Ukraine will take "from two months to two years" under the conditions of "absence of any threats from the military", while the Russian restart during the war "will be impossible, even for one unit."
Kotin said that the six reactors can be put into operation only after the completion of 27 safety programs agreed with the Ukrainian nuclear regulator, including testing of nuclear fuel in the reactor cores, since its "design life" has exceeded six years.
This raises the question of whether Russia will be able to resume operation of the plant after a ceasefire without exposing itself to significant risk, the publication points out. The company was already dangerous, Kotin said, given that it was used as a "military base with military equipment", and there "was probably also some kind of weapons and explosives present."
As noted, Russia has acknowledged that it has installed mines between the inner and outer perimeters of the plant "to deter potential Ukrainian saboteurs," while IAEA inspectors have reported that armed troops and military personnel are present at the facility.
Kotin said that "an attempt to restore the station by Russia will almost certainly not be accepted or supported by Ukraine." According to him, "it will be necessary to reconnect three additional 750 kV high-voltage lines to connect to the station."
A nuclear reactor requires a significant amount of energy to operate on a daily basis, and three of the four high-voltage lines were laid from territories now occupied by Russia. "They destroyed the lines themselves," Kotin said, and then Russia discovered that engineers could not restore them as the war continues.
Let us remind you
Earlier, UNN wrote that Energoatom reported that the spread of rumors about the launch of the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP is an attempt to legitimize the presence of the Russian administration at the plant.