KYIV—Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeast Ukraine are preparing to connect to Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, and are damaging it by reorienting its electricity production, Ukrainian operator Energoatom warned Tuesday.
It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and was occupied by Russia early in its invasion. Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for attacks on the plant last week.
“The Russian military present at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are implementing the program of (Russian operator) Rosatom aimed at connecting the plant to the Crimean electricity grid,” Energoatom president Petro Kotin told Ukrainian television.
“To do this, you must first damage the power lines of the plant connected to the Ukrainian energy system. From August 7 to 9, the Russians have already damaged three power lines. At the moment, the plant is operating with only one production line, which is an extremely dangerous way of working,” he added.
“When the last production line is disconnected, the plant will be powered by generators running on diesel. Everything will then depend on their reliability and fuel stocks,” Kotin warned.
Located not far from the Crimean peninsula, the plant has six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors, capable of supplying power for four million homes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday raised the specter of nuclear disaster after strikes on the plant, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that any attack on a nuclear plant would be “suicidal.”
“I hope that those attacks will end, and at the same time I hope that the IAEA will be able to access the plant,” he said Monday.
Recent fighting around the plant has prompted the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to warn of the “very real risk of a nuclear disaster”.
Moscow insisted Tuesday that major blasts at a key military airbase on the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula were caused by exploding ammunition rather than Ukrainian fire.
Dramatic amateur footage shared on social media appeared to show panicked holidaymakers fleeing a Crimean beach with young children, as ballooning clouds of grey smoke rose over the horizon.
The blasts rocked the Saki airfield on the 167th day of Moscow’s invasion.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and has used the region as a staging ground for its attacks on Ukraine, but it has rarely been a target for Ukrainian forces.
The Russian defense ministry said “several aviation munitions detonated” at the base in an incident the head of the region said had left one person dead.
Local health officials earlier said five people, including one child, had been injured.
The defense ministry said it was looking to establish the reason for the explosions but indicated the airfield was not targeted in an attack.
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv.
Ukraine’s army, which for months pleaded for long-range artillery from Western allies, has been hitting targets deeper in Russian-held territory since some started arriving in recent weeks.
Kyiv has also taken credit for several acts of sabotage inside Russian-held territory.
Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in the wake of massive nationwide street demonstrations that led to the ouster of a Kremlin-friendly president.
Those protests precipitated fighting between the army and Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which would lay the groundwork for Moscow’s full-scale assault on February 24 this year.
The invasion has left thousands dead, forced millions in Ukraine from their homes, and littered the country with land mines.
On Tuesday, the United States announced that it will provide $89 million for demining efforts in Ukraine.
“Russia’s unlawful and unprovoked further invasion of Ukraine has littered massive swaths of the country with landmines, unexploded ordnance, and improvised explosive devices,” the State Department said in a statement.
“These explosive hazards block access to fertile farmland, delay reconstruction efforts, prevent displaced communities from returning to their homes, and continue to kill and maim innocent Ukrainian civilians,” it said.
Mandatory evacuations
The Russian invasion has led to a deep rupture in economic ties between Moscow and the West.
In response to sanctions for the invasion, Russia has squeezed gas supplies to Europe.
It announced on Tuesday that its oil deliveries through Ukraine had been halted.
Transneft, the Russian pipeline operator, said the Ukrainian side had stopped flows because it was “not receiving funds for these services”.
The Ukrainian side did not comment.
One of the impacted countries, Slovakia, confirmed flows had been halted for several days, and a spokesman for Bratislava refinery Slovnaft cited “technical problems at the bank level in connection with the payment of transit fees from the Russian side”.
The Kremlin lashed out after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview that Europe should close its borders to Russians in response to the war.
The Ukrainian leader told The Washington Post that current Western sanctions against Moscow were too weak, in a call that has been echoed by Russia’s neighbors Estonia and Finland.
“The irrationality of thinking in this case is off the charts,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
On the frontlines, Ukraine said Russia was pursuing a campaign of bombardment of the east of the country that has left much of the industrial Donbas region in ruins.
Kyiv said Tuesday it had transported at least 3,000 people out of the battle-scarred eastern region of Donetsk since it ordered evacuations ahead of winter.
The Ukrainian authorities are asking people to leave the area, as they do not expect to be able to provide it with heat during the cold winter months.
The presidency earlier said that three people had been killed and 19 more wounded in Russian shelling across the Donetsk region on Monday.
The head of the central region of Dnipro, meanwhile, said that 11 medical facilities had relocated there from the battle-torn Kharkiv and Lugansk regions further east.
“Those facilities transferred over 100 pieces of equipment and 10 ambulances,” Dnipro regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
“The hospitals are restarting work. They are mostly receiving displaced people.”