Ukraine at OSCE stresses need to immediately regain control of Zaporizhzhia NPP

This was stated by Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to international organizations in Vienna, Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, who spoke at the regular meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on Thursday.

"The Russian invaders also keep reminding how incompetent their occupation administration could be dangerous for the entire region and the world. One of the examples is the 90-minute power outage occurred at the reactor unit 6, forcing it to rely on an emergency diesel generator. Also, the leak of borated water from the first to the secondary cooling circuit of one of the unit’s steam generators was detected," he said.

The Ukrainian ambassador emphasized that such actions, among other things, lead to the degradation of equipment, thus “increasing risks of a nuclear incident”.

"This is a stark reminder of why the IAEA resolutions must be unconditionally implemented by Russia, and full control over the plant must be returned to the Ukrainian authorities without delay," Tsymbaliuk said.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on November 16 the reports came that as a result of ZNPP’s power unit 5 being put into a "hot" state, in violation of the terms of the license of the State Nuclear Regulation and the requirements set by Energoatom, an incident occurred involving the leak of borated water from the first circuit of the reactor to the second one. At the same time, despite the existing violations, the plant’s management installed by the invasion force was in no hurry to put the unit into "cold shutdown", using the steam generated by power unit 5 for central heating and covering the ZNPP’s own needs.

Only on November 21 was it confirmed that power unit 5 was put into "cold shutdown".