Russian assaults on Ukraine’s electrical substations may lower energy to nuclear crops, growing dangers of meltdown.
Printed On 30 Jan 2026
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has held a particular session on Ukraine amid rising fears that Russian attacks on its power amenities may set off a nuclear accident.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA), mentioned firstly of Friday’s extraordinary board assembly in Vienna that the struggle in Ukraine posed “the world’s greatest menace to nuclear security”.
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The assembly was held as an IAEA skilled mission performed a weeks-long inspection of 10 electrical substations that Grossi described as “essential to nuclear security”.
Though nuclear energy crops generate energy themselves, they depend on an uninterrupted provide of exterior energy from electrical substations to take care of reactor cooling.
Ukraine has 4 nuclear energy crops, three of them beneath Kyiv’s management, with the fourth and largest in Zaporizhzhia occupied by Russian forces because the early days of their full-scale invasion in 2022.
Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused one another of risking a nuclear disaster by attacking the Zaporizhzhia web site.
The plant’s six reactors have been shut down because the occupation, however the web site nonetheless wants electrical energy to take care of its cooling and safety programs.
Earlier this month, Russia and Ukraine paused native hostilities to permit repairs on the final remaining backup energy line supplying the plant, which was broken by army exercise in January.
Ukraine can be residence to the previous Chornobyl plant, the location of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986. The positioning’s protecting defend containing radioactive materials was broken final yr in a drone strike allegedly carried out by Russia.
Standing of power ceasefire unclear
The four-hour IAEA assembly, which aimed to extend strain on Russia, was known as on the request of the Netherlands, with the assist of no less than 11 different international locations.
Russia’s “ongoing and every day” assaults in opposition to Ukraine’s power infrastructure in current weeks have brought about vital injury, Netherlands’ Ambassador Peter Potman advised the board.
“Not solely does this depart tens of millions of Ukrainians within the chilly and darkish throughout a really harsh winter, however it is usually … bringing the prospect of a nuclear accident to the very precipice of changing into a actuality,” he mentioned.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Yuriy Vitrenko, mentioned it was “excessive time” for the IAEA to “shine an extra highlight on the menace to nuclear security and safety in Europe” attributable to Russia’s “systematic and deliberate” assaults.
Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov dismissed the board’s gathering as “completely politically motivated”, including there was “no actual want to carry such a gathering right this moment”.
The standing of a present weeklong moratorium on assaults focusing on power infrastructure is at present unclear.
United States President Donald Trump mentioned Thursday that Russia had agreed to his request to not assault Ukraine’s power infrastructure for every week.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had performed strikes on power targets from Thursday night time onwards.
Nonetheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later recommended the pause in assaults would finish on Sunday.
