Russian assaults on Ukraine’s electrical substations may minimize energy to nuclear crops, growing dangers of meltdown.
Revealed On 30 Jan 2026
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has held a particular session on Ukraine amid rising fears that Russian attacks on its vitality services may set off a nuclear accident.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA), mentioned initially of Friday’s extraordinary board assembly in Vienna that the conflict in Ukraine posed “the world’s greatest risk to nuclear security”.
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The assembly was held as an IAEA knowledgeable mission carried out 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 keep up reactor cooling.
Ukraine has 4 nuclear energy crops, three of them underneath Kyiv’s management, with the fourth and largest in Zaporizhzhia occupied by Russian forces for the reason that 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 for the reason that occupation, however the web site nonetheless wants electrical energy to keep up 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 navy exercise in January.
Ukraine can also be residence to the previous Chornobyl plant, the positioning of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986. The location’s protecting defend containing radioactive materials was broken final 12 months in a drone strike allegedly carried out by Russia.
Standing of vitality ceasefire unclear
The four-hour IAEA assembly, which aimed to extend strain on Russia, was referred to as on the request of the Netherlands, with the help of at the very least 11 different nations.
Russia’s “ongoing and day by day” assaults in opposition to Ukraine’s vitality infrastructure in current weeks have triggered important harm, Netherlands’ Ambassador Peter Potman advised the board.
“Not solely does this go away tens of millions of Ukrainians within the chilly and darkish throughout a really harsh winter, however additionally it is … 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 risk to nuclear security and safety in Europe” brought on by 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 as we speak”.
The standing of a present weeklong moratorium on assaults concentrating on vitality infrastructure is at the moment unclear.
United States President Donald Trump mentioned Thursday that Russia had agreed to his request to not assault Ukraine’s vitality infrastructure for every week.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had carried out strikes on vitality targets from Thursday night time onwards.
Nevertheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later instructed the pause in assaults would finish on Sunday.
