KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian workers at Europe’s largest nuclear-power plant reconnected two of its reactors to the grid on Friday after an outage that capped weeks of brinkmanship with Russia and heightened concerns of a nuclear accident.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear agency, are poised to make an emergency visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, next week after a breakthrough in talks over access to the reactor complex, said people involved in the negotiations.
Officials in Kyiv and Moscow traded blame for Thursday’s outage at the nuclear plant that disconnected the 37-year-old facility from Ukraine’s electricity grid for the first time and threatened to leave much of the country’s south without electricity.
In statements on Friday, Ukraine’s atomic energy regulator, Energoatom, said two of the power units that were stopped on Thursday had been reconnected to the grid and capacity was being added.
The 6.7-gigawattplant, which produced one-fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before the war, had been receiving power through a repaired line from the Ukrainian energy system, heightening global anxiety over the fate of the first nuclear-power plant to be occupied during a conflict.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Friday against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war in Ukraine during a visit to Algeria. “War in any case must not undermine the nuclear safety of the country, the region and all of us,” he said. “Civil nuclear power must be fully protected.” He has been among the Western leaders pushing for an immediate inspection of the plant by the IAEA and met the regulator’s director general, Rafael Grossi, in Paris on Thursday to discuss when and how an inspection could take place. Mr. Grossi has said a visit was imminent after shuttle diplomacy between Istanbul, Paris and Vienna to meet Russian and Ukrainian officials.
The 6.7-gigawattplant, which produced one-fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before the war, had been receiving power through a repaired line from the Ukrainian energy system, heightening global anxiety over the fate of the first nuclear-power plant to be occupied during a conflict.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Friday against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war in Ukraine during a visit to Algeria. “War in any case must not undermine the nuclear safety of the country, the region and all of us,” he said. “Civil nuclear power must be fully protected.” He has been among the Western leaders pushing for an immediate inspection of the plant by the IAEA and met the regulator’s director general, Rafael Grossi, in Paris on Thursday to discuss when and how an inspection could take place. Mr. Grossi has said a visit was imminent after shuttle diplomacy between Istanbul, Paris and Vienna to meet Russian and Ukrainian officials.
Repeated shelling of the complex in recent weeks has also damaged laboratory and chemical facilities at the Zaporizhzhia station. Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the strikes, trading opposing narratives about a plant that Russia has largely closed off from the world since its capture.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that Russian shelling had damaged the plant’s last working line and backup diesel generators needed to be activated. “Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster,” he said.
Russian-installed officials in the nearby city of Enerhodar accused Ukrainian troops of damaging the power lines and cutting the plant from the grid. On Friday, Alexander Volga, the city’s Russian-installed head, said the plant was functioning normally and that “there are no failures,” according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Energoatom previously said fires started by Russian troops at a nearby coal mine damaged a power line.
Russian troops seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power station in the early days of the invasion, but Ukrainian technicians are still operating it. Dozens of missiles and rockets have struck the surrounding area in recent weeks after Russia began moving heavy weaponry there.
The IAEA has expressed alarm over the situation and has sought access to the facility.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said following a recent call with Mr. Macron that U.N. officials would be granted permission to visit and inspect the plant. An adviser to Ukraine’s energy minister said Friday that the logistics of a planned visit to the plant by the IAEA next week were under discussion.
“Despite the fact that the Russians agreed that the mission will go through the territory of Ukraine, they are artificially now creating all the conditions so that the mission does not reach the object,” Lana Zerkal told a radio station.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in Zaporizhzhia, told TASS on Friday that the Russian-installed government is ready to welcome the IAEA mission, but that the route of the planned visit isn’t being disclosed for security reasons. He said that several options were under consideration.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko reiterated calls for the demilitarization of the plant, saying it was “the only way for Europe to sleep peacefully and not be afraid of nuclear clouds in its sky.”
Tensions around the plant have increased as both Ukraine and Russia have struggled to make meaningful gains on the battlefield after six months of combat that has depleted their forces.
Mr. Putin on Thursday signed a decree to increase the size of his country’s military by 137,000 soldiers starting in 2023, in what some analysts said was a sign the country was preparing for a longer campaign in Ukraine.
After claiming full control of the eastern Luhansk region in July, Russian forces have made little progress in neighboring Donetsk. Russia’s military shelled Slovyansk twice on Friday, according to Vadym Liakh, the head of the city’s military administration.
Russia has blamed Ukrainian insurgents for killing several Russian-installed officials in Russian-held areas of Ukraine, as Ukraine tries to chip away at Russia’s grip and retake territory. On Friday, the Russian-installed deputy head of traffic police in the port city of Berdyansk, Alexander Kolesnikov, was killed by a Ukrainian-placed improvised explosive device, Russian-installed officials said. Kyiv hasn’t commented on the killings.