The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russia, has now resumed electricity supplies to Ukraine on Friday after one of its six reactors was reconnected to the Ukrainian grid, state nuclear company Energoatom said.
Reuters reports:
More than 18,000 people in 72 settlements in Zaporizhzhia region were without electricity as of Friday due to damage caused to powers lines, the regional administration said, without specifying which lines it was talking about.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said Russian shelling had sparked fires on Thursday in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the reactor complex from the power grid. Russia’s defence ministry blamed Ukraine, saying its forces had destroyed the Ukrainian gun responsible.
Workers at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine have been hailed as “heroes” after Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was disconnected from the country’s power grid for the first time in its history. Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear agency, has now said one of the two working reactors had been reconnected to the grid.
The plant employee, who has not been named, said:
Yesterday there was no electricity, no water, nothing. But everything is already ok, the men [operational staff] at the NPP [Nuclear Power Plant] are just smarties and heroes.
They added that with “shelling around the station and the city, smoke from fires, dust from the ash dump of a thermal power plant”, that the “situation sometimes looks like the end of the world” at the plant.
A group of lawmakers from Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) are calling for peace negotiations with Russia and for a ceasefire to be reached in Ukraine as soon as possible.
In a letter entitled “The guns must be silent!” seen by Der Spiegel, the group representing the pacifist left-wing of the SPD urged for a diplomatic offensive to end the war in Ukraine quickly.
They called for a new attempt at a “modus vivendi”, in which conflicting parties agree to coexist in peace, arguing that such a relationship “must be found with the Russian government based on the acknowledgment of realities that one does not like, which rules out a further escalation of the war”.
The group propose China act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, oppose rearmament plans and warned against the delivery of heavy military equipment to Ukraine, citing the danger of nuclear war.
The letter reads:
With every delivery of weapons, it is important to carefully weigh up and consider where the ‘red line’ lies, which could be perceived as entering the war and provoke corresponding reactions.
A destroyed house following a Russian missile strike in Chaplyne, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian
A Ukrainian train damaged by a Russian missile strike in Chaplyne, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images © Provided by The Guardian