Ukrainian forces operating behind enemy lines derailed Russia’s hopes of reconnecting the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station before Vladimir Putin’s birthday earlier this month, sources have claimed.
Ukrainian sources told The Guardian that they believed Russia was trying to bring power back to the plant in time for the president’s birthday on 7 October, after it lost external power in late September.
Europe’s largest power station, which has been in Russian control since early in the invasion, was forced to operate on diesel backup generators after its last remaining external power line was severed on 23 September. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other.
But efforts to revive the plant were reportedly thwarted by Ukrainian guerrilla fighters attacking substations behind enemy lines and damaging a new connection linking it to the Russian grid via Mariupol on 6 October.
Officials said on Thursday that power to the site had finally been restored - and only by linking the plant to external power from Ukraine.
Ukrainian energy minister Svitlana Grynchuk said that the damaged transmission line linking the plant to Ukraine’s grid had been repaired, but work was continuing on the backup line running through Russian-held areas.
Ukrainian sources told The Guardian that Russia had little choice but to repair the line running into Ukrainian territory after the attacks earlier this month.
Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, had warned that the backup generators were only built to run for a limited time, and could not sustain the plant’s needs over a prolonged period. A shutdown could result in a loss of control over the site’s nuclear safety systems.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor in the region, said on Putin’s birthday that there had been power cuts across “all settlements” in the area, blaming enemy drone attacks.
Ukraine had criticised attacks near the power station on 6 October, blaming them on Russia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that a local ceasefire finally agreed by Russian and Ukrainian forces had allowed some repairs to be made this month.
“Both sides engaged constructively with the IAEA to enable the complex repair plan to proceed,” Rafael Grossi, the agency’s director general, said in a statement.
The site, once capable of powering four million homes, had lost external power nine times before the incident in September.
