ISTANBUL 

Power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine has been restored after a month-long blackout which the UN nuclear watchdog said further raised concerns about the “fragile nuclear safety and security situation” at the facility.

A statement by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s electrical grid following repairs carried out during a local ceasefire negotiated by the agency and observed by the watchdog’s teams on the ground.

Grossi was quoted as saying that the restoration of power supply at the facility marked a “significant positive step” amid the outage, which he said “further stoked concerns about the fragile nuclear safety and security situation at the site.”

“Today is a rare, good day for nuclear safety and security in Ukraine and beyond, although the overall situation of course remains highly precarious,” Grossi further said.

He specified that the 750 kilovolt (kV) Dniprovska power line was fully reconnected to the facility and that the last of the emergency diesel generators powering the plant for the past month was turned off on Thursday afternoon.

Grossi also thanked the technicians on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides for their work in restoring power to the plant in what he described as “very difficult circumstances.”

“There is still much work to do to further reduce the risks of a nuclear accident. The next step is to complete the repairs of the Ferosplavna-1 power line and then to prevent future loss of power event,” he added.

The Russian-installed management at the plant, as well as Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk, confirmed that power supply was restored at the plant earlier Thursday.

The outage, which began on Sept. 23, was the 10th and longest one experienced at the plant since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022. Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of causing the outage.

The situation around Europe’s largest and one of the world’s 10 biggest nuclear power plants remains tense as concerns persist over a possible nuclear disaster involving Moscow and Kyiv, both of which have frequently accused each other of attacks around the facility over the course of this period.

Since Sept. 1, 2022, IAEA personnel have been present at the plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022.