Ukraine accuses Russia of deliberately severing external link to Zaporizhzhia plant

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(Reuters) -Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Russia on Sunday of deliberately severing the external power line to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in order to link the plant to Moscow’s power grid.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Moscow was attempting to test a reconnection to Russia’s grid.

Ukraine has long feared that Moscow would try to redirect the plant’s output to its grid. But Russian officials have denied any intention of trying to restart the plant, seized by Moscow’s forces in the early weeks of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The plant produces no electricity at the moment, but has been without an external electricity source for nearly three weeks. Officials have relied on emergency diesel generators to secure the power needed to keep the fuel cool inside the facility and guard against a meltdown.

“Russia intentionally broke the plant’s connection with the Ukrainian grid in order to forcefully test reconnection with the Russian grid,” Sybiha wrote on X in English. He denounced the “attempted theft of a peaceful Ukrainian nuclear facility”.

“Moscow tries to fool the IAEA and the whole technical and diplomatic community by pretending that the problem is caused by anyone other than itself,” Sybiha said.

Each side has accused the other of shelling that caused the line outage.

The IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said last week that the process of re-establishing the external link was underway and has repeatedly called on both sides to refrain from actions that compromise nuclear safety.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, that it was not in Russia’s interests to restore security at the plant. He said the IAEA needed to establish “a clearer, more honest position”.

There was no immediate Russian reaction to the Ukrainian allegations.

Last week, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying there were no grounds to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for now in the absence of an external power source. Before that report, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom was quoted as saying it was preparing to restart the plant.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by David Gregorio)