A Ukrainian minister has said Russia must urgently observe a temporary ceasefire to allow repairs on a power line to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – warning radiation could be leaked if an electricity outage continues.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “reserve diesel generators have a 48-hour capacity” to power the facility.
On Twitter, he added: “After that, cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent.”
The decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant is the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in April 1986.
The Ukrainian authorities said with emergency generators currently supplying back-up power, the outage could put systems for cooling nuclear material at risk.
The cause of the damage to the power line serving Chernobyl was not immediately clear, but it comes amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The site has been under the control of Russian troops since last week.
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Ukrainian grid operator Ukrenerho said that, according to the national nuclear regulator, all Chernobyl facilities are without power and the diesel generators have fuel for 48 hours.
Without power the “parameters of nuclear and radiation safety” cannot be controlled, it said.
