In the meantime, there has been a power outage in parts of southern Ukraine occupied by Russia in the area around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. According to the Ukrainian atomic energy agency Energoatom, that was AKW completely disconnected from the power grid for the first time in its history. “Today the city is completely without electricity and water as a result of enemy shelling,” Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov, who fled to the Ukrainian-controlled part of the country, told the Telegram news service on Thursday. A good hour later, Orlow informed about the gradual restoration of the power supply in the small town. According to the Russian news agency RIA, the security systems were activated after the power failure.
The occupation authorities deployed by Russia in the Zaporizhia Oblast also announced that electricity was restored to the city of Melitopol after an interruption of around an hour and a half. There was a fire and a short circuit on high-voltage lines, it said. No specific information was given about the causes. In the neighboring Kherson region, too, the occupation authorities reported the power failure without giving any reason and announced that the power supply would soon be restored.
For weeks, Russia and Ukraine have been accusing each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which the Russians captured in early March. The information provided by both sides is often not independently verifiable. The state-owned Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Enerhoatom has repeatedly accused the Russian occupiers of preparing to connect the areas to the Russian power grid. The shelling of high-voltage lines is a diversionary tactic to first de-energize the occupied areas and then gradually synchronize them with the Russian grid.