Overview
- The IAEA said on Aug 29 that the Russian‑occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been without off‑site power for more than a week and is operating on emergency diesel generators.
- The plant has roughly ten days of diesel on site and has not had deliveries to its off‑site storage for about six months, though limited diesel was brought from another location on Aug 26 and 27.
- IAEA officials said the power cut followed military activity on the northern bank of the Dnipro River and that three drone incidents that week injured two plant employees and further disrupted operations.
- The agency is seeking a local ceasefire to allow technicians to repair damaged electrical lines and to secure further fuel and equipment, and it has maintained a permanent presence at the site since September 2022.
- Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors have been shut down since 2022 but still require continuous cooling, so a prolonged loss of external power or generator failure could damage fuel and pose wider safety and humanitarian risks, with Kyiv calling recent outages the 27th blackout since 2022.