Zelenskyy: Zaporizhzhia NPP has been operating on backup generators for seven days, one of them has already broken down

The occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP. Photo: AP

The Zaporizhzhia NPP has been in an emergency situation for seven days: due to Russian shelling, the plant is disconnected from the power grid and runs on diesel generators.

This was announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his evening address

«This is the seventh day of the emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — and it has never happened before, by the way. The situation is critical. Due to Russian shelling, the plant is disconnected from the power supply and the grid. The generators and the plant are not designed for this and have never operated in this mode for so long,» he said.

The President also stressed that according to preliminary information, one of the backup generators has already failed.

«And we already have information that one of the generators is out of order. It is the Russians who, through shelling, prevent the repair of power lines to the station and the restoration of basic security,» Volodymyr Zelenskyy added.

Earlier, the SNRIU reported that the occupied ZNPP had been cut off from the power grid for six days, which posed a risk of an accident.