The other day, the UN said that the Kremlin is using the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant as a springboard for waging war. And now, in support of this thesis, information has appeared that the Russian side has developed a detailed plan to disconnect Europe's largest nuclear power plant from the Ukrainian power grid, despite the high risks of disaster due to the failure of cooling systems. Petr Kotin, an expert in the field of operational testing at world nuclear power plants and the head of Energoatom, tells about this in an interview with The Guardian..

“They presented [the plan] to the [workers] factory, and the factory [workers] presented it to us. The prerequisite for this plan was severe damage to all lines connecting the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant to the Ukrainian system,” Kotin said..

He fears that the Russian military is now attacking those ties to make the emergency scenario a reality.. Both Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of shelling the station. Threats to nuclear safety at the plant include terror against workers left under pressure from Russian troops.

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Kotin is also concerned about the risk of fire from vehicles packed in the turbine halls, which are located next to the two still operating reactors.. According to sources at the station, there are 14 trucks in one workshop and at least six in another..

“If there was a fire in the engine room, you don’t even have the ability to put it out or eliminate the consequences of this fire, because your fire brigades cannot get there, because any entrance is blocked by trucks that are just “packed” tightly there,” he said..

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One was beaten to death and another was so wounded it took him three months to recover.. According to Kotin, more than 200 people were detained in total..

According to him, the station's electrical connections are already in a critical situation: three of the four main lines connecting it to the Ukrainian network were cut off during the war, and two of the three backup lines connecting it to the traditional power plant are also not working..

Catastrophic failure as a result of failure of the reactor cooling process.

The Russian plan to turn it off completely would raise the risk of a catastrophic failure, leaving it dependent on a single source of electricity to cool its reactors.. “You can’t immediately switch from one system to another, you have to… shut down everything on one side and then start switching from the other side,” he said..

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When transitioning between grid systems, the power plant will only depend on a backup diesel generator, with no additional options if it does not come out.. After 90 minutes without electricity, the reactors reach a dangerous temperature.

" “If you don’t provide cooling within an hour and a half, then you will already have a melt.”.

Russia seized control of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in March, but it is still run by Ukrainian plant workers. Anxiety has been growing in recent weeks over Russian control of the facility and pressure on Moscow to allow UN inspectors to visit.

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The other day, the Office of the President of Ukraine also called on the IAEA to inspect the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, a plant that has been “under the control of Russian madmen” for almost half a year..