(Bloomberg) — The United Nations nuclear watchdog is expanding its oversight in Ukraine to include high-voltage grids critical to maintaining safety at nuclear power plants that generate most of the country’s electricity.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision followed a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi in Kiev on Tuesday. It also comes as Russia has stepped up its attacks, including a massive assault last week on energy infrastructure.
Earlier this week, the supervisory board of grid operator Ukrenergo fired the company’s CEO after a report on the security of high-voltage installations against Russian attacks.
Read: Two members of Ukrenergo’s supervisory board resign over CEO dismissal
Zelenskiy’s government asked if the IAEA could also look at “critical substations in the country that are under pressure or under attack, in the sense that they are also connected to the nuclear power plants,” Grossi told reporters. “We think this is relevant and we are going to make an assessment of the situation in some of these substations.”
Unlike other energy sources such as coal, gas or renewables, nuclear power plants require a constant flow of electricity to keep their safety systems operational. Without this supply, the fuel in the core of a reactor risks overheating, raising the specter of a meltdown.
Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent months, knocking out key thermal power plants and transmission hubs. Those attacks have had a knock-on effect on the three nuclear power plants still under Ukrainian control west of the Dnieper River.
“The increased vulnerability of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is deeply concerning for the nuclear safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, as we saw last week when several reactors stopped operating due to damage to energy infrastructure elsewhere in the country,” Grossi said in a separate statement Tuesday evening.
During his stay in Ukraine, Grossi said he will lead an IAEA monitoring team that will visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
–With assistance from Olesia Safronova.
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