Ukraine warns Russian strikes on power grid could spark nuclear crisis
Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Moscow’s barrages are also pushing nuclear risks closer to Kyiv’s borders with the European Union
Ukraine’s top energy official warned that further Russian air strikes against the country’s energy grid could trigger an emergency at one of the three operating nuclear power plants still under Kyiv’s control.
Ukraine has thousands of electricity substations. But at stake are 10 crucial nodes linked to nuclear power plants, whose destruction could plunge the country into darkness and provoke a radiological emergency, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.
Russia’s barrages are pushing nuclear risks closer to Ukraine’s borders with the European Union, he add.
“They know exactly what they’re doing,” Galushchenko said on Tuesday from the Ukrainian capital. “It’s not accidental that they are attacking substations critical for nuclear safety.”
Substations maintain stability by regulating high-voltage transmission on power grids. Unlike fossil fuel or renewable plants, nuclear generation needs constant flow of electricity to keep safety systems running. Without it, fuel inside a reactor’s core risks overheating, threatening an uncontrolled, dangerous release of radiation.
Underscoring the nuclear safety risk, the International Atomic Energy Agency last week took the unusual step of expanding its Ukraine monitoring mission to include power substations. IAEA inspectors are typically relegated to accounting for nuclear material, not overseeing sprawling national electricity grids.
“The first mission we expected this week,” Galushchenko said, noting he was present last week in Kyiv when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to expand monitoring. The energy chief said that Kyiv had agreed to an extended IAEA monitoring mission.
