Ukraine fears risk of Kremlin using nuclear plant as 'bargaining chip'

External power to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant - Europe’s largest - has been cut for more than three days, a record outage that has prompted safety concerns about the six-reactor site on the frontline of the Ukraine war.

- Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor

Emergency generators are being used to power cooling and safety systems after the final power line into the plant was cut on the Russian side at 4.56pm on Tuesday, with no immediate sign that it will be reconnected.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described the situation as “deeply concerning” on Wednesday and met the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Thursday but the outage has continued.

Western experts and Ukrainian officials fear the Kremlin is manufacturing a crisis to consolidate its grip over the plant, and that Russia is taking high-risk steps to turn on at least one reactor despite the wartime conditions.

“Russia is using the nuclear power station as a bargaining chip,” said one Ukrainian government official, while one specialist at Greenpeace warned that the Russian occupation had entered “a new critical and potentially catastrophic phase”.