NGO employees work at the site of a recent shelling. The UN is “outraged” by the scale of new Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure Peace and Security
UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown today expressed her outrage at the scale of today’s attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Residents of Kharkov, Krivoy Rog, Zaporozhye and other settlements were left without electricity and water.
“The widespread impact of today’s attacks on critical civilian infrastructure is exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation for millions of people in Ukraine,” Brown said in a statement. “These attacks have also claimed lives and damaged homes and schools, adding to the suffering of the population.”
She recalled that international humanitarian law provides for the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure and must be respected.
Without light – 1.5 million people
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine expressed concern in connection with the “large-scale coordinated attack by the Russian Federation on energy infrastructure across Ukraine,” which left more than 1.5 million people without electricity in Kharkov, Dnipro, Zaporozhye, Poltava, Odessa, Donetsk, Sumy and Kirovograd, and disrupted water supplies in some areas.
“This morning’s attack is the largest single-day attack in more than a year aimed directly at Ukraine’s vital energy and water infrastructure, with potentially devastating consequences for civilians countries,” said Danielle Bell, who heads the UN Monitoring Mission.
Rescue operations continue throughout the country. The territory of Ukraine was attacked by several types of missiles and drones. In four regions, five deaths and 25 injuries were recorded, including at least two employees of energy facilities. The largest dam in Ukraine, located in the city of Zaporozhye, was also damaged, but not destroyed. One power line feeding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is temporarily de-energized.
The strikes on energy facilities came a day after the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was hit by a massive missile attack that injured civilians. Yesterday’s attack, which involved more than 30 missiles, was one of the largest attacks on Kyiv in recent months.
The Monitoring Mission warned that the destabilization of energy infrastructure throughout country would have a huge impact on the civilian population and could deprive people of essential services.
Situation at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) today lost contact with the last remaining main power line for almost five hours. This was announced by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi. on the other bank of the Dnieper. Since no physical damage was found to the line, it was reconnected. Over the past two years, the Zaporozhye NPP has repeatedly lost electricity due to military events occurring at various distances from the site.
While the line was unavailable, the Zaporozhye NPP continued to receive external electricity needed for reactor cooling and other critical functions, from the only remaining backup power line, which itself was only restored in mid-March after more than three weeks of outage. All 20 emergency diesel generators remain available on standby in the event of a complete loss of external power supply. Before the war, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant had access to ten external power lines – four 750 kV lines and six 330 kV lines.