Ukraine: Zaporizhia nuclear power plant back on the grid

And there was light again. After a ten-day forced withdrawal, the Zaporijia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was reconnected to the local electricity grid, essential for cooling it, while all its reactors were gradually shut down.

Russia and Ukraine are still fighting over the site, in the hands of Russian troops, but at least the plant is not solely dependent on backup generators. On the 207th day of the war, the bombings did not spare the power stations, like that of Mikolaiv, thermal this time. Fighting is raging in the south and east of the country, while kyiv is still waging a counter-offensive which has recovered several thousand square kilometers so far.

Enough to ensure its cooling, for the moment. The Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporijjia, still occupied by the Russian army, was reconnected on Saturday September 17 to the country's electricity grid, according to agents of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) present on the spot. The site had been deprived of electricity, then all the reactors had been turned off. "The repaired 750 kilovolt (kv) line supplies Europe's largest nuclear power plant (...) with the electricity needed to provide reactor cooling and other safety functions", announced the International Agency. of atomic energy in a press release.

Since it had been disconnected from the network, the plant, the issue of clashes between Russians and Ukrainians in recent weeks, relied only on a backup generator to ensure its cooling. With this reconnection, Zaporizhia has one more security, to avoid overheating. Because even when stopped, reactors need energy to cool.

At least this one isn't nuclear. A thermal power plant would have been "bombarded by the Russian invaders" this Saturday morning in Mikolaiv, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region (east), on Telegram, indicating that Ukrainian firefighters were fighting the fire and that the bombardment had led to drinking water cuts. "The occupiers are deliberately targeting infrastructure in the area to try to inflict as much damage as possible, first and foremost on the civilian population," he charged. He had previously reported two civilians killed and 11 injured in the past 24 hours by Russian fire.

As Ukrainian troops wage a counteroffensive in the east and south, the United States fears the intensity of the war will escalate as Putin slips away. In the neighboring region of Dnipropetrovsk, "the Russians fired all night on the Nikopol district with Grad (multiple rocket launchers) and heavy artillery", local governor Valentin Reznichenko said, indicating that he did not There were no casualties but significant material damage.

In Kupyansk, recaptured last week by Ukrainian forces, clashes continue with the Russian army entrenched on the east side of the Oskil river, AFP journalists noted. According to a statement from the Ukrainian General Staff, "the enemy carried out during the day four missile strikes and 15 air strikes, as well as more than 20 multiple rocket launcher strikes on civilian and military sites in Ukraine. ". Finally, in Izioum, the discovery of 450 tombs continues to scandalize. According to Ukraine, the evidence of torture is mounting.

US President Joe Biden for his part once again warned his Russian counterpart against the use of chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine. "It would change the course of the war, as never since the Second World War (...) Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it", urged Mr. Biden on CBS, promising a "substantial response " of the United States if this step were to be taken. Putin regularly warns that he could escalate the war, even strike NATO member countries that are flooding Ukraine with weapons to fuel the counter-offensive.

Is the Indian Prime Minister in the process of moving away from an ally who has become an embarrassment? On Friday, for his first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin since the start of the war in Ukraine, Narendra Modi indicated to "his Excellency “, that the time was “not for war”. These few words, spoken at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where the Chinese president was also present, transcribe a very recent, and relative, malaise on the part of one of the main allies of Moscow.

India has so far refrained from explicitly condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A relative unease, since Modi refuses to use oil as a means of pressure against Putin, while India has become one of Moscow's main customers since the start of the conflict. Vladimir Putin, for his part, assured that he wanted to end the conflict in Ukraine "as quickly as possible", while saying that he understood India's "concerns" on this subject.