Spoils of war? Despite protests, Russia connecting Zaporizhzhia plant to its grid

Ukraine has protested to the International Atomic Energy Agency about Russia’s building power lines from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to Russia’s main power grid, a Kyiv official told a Ukrainian news agency.

Yuri Vitrenko, the permanent representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, told the news outlet Wednesday that Kyiv sent a “verbal note” to the International Atomic Energy Agency saying “such actions by Russia are a gross violation of international law and an encroachment on the sovereignty of Ukraine.”

“All nuclear facilities on the territory of Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia NPP, fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine,” Vitrenko said, adding that Russia apparently intends to disconnect the plant from Ukraine’s energy system. “Any commissioning of Zaporizhzhia NPP without the express permission of the Ukrainian nuclear regulator is illegal and poses an immediate and unacceptable threat to nuclear safety.”

A Tuesday report by Greenpeace Ukraine – a European environmentalist organization that has criticized IAEA for its neutrality on ownership of Zaporizhzhia – said it used satellite analysis to identify Russian construction of a high voltage powerline in the temporary Zaporizhzhia Oblast, or region, and Donetsk Oblast in Ukraine. The imagery shows construction from February to May 2025.

“This is some of the first hard evidence of Russia moving ahead with its dangerous and illegal plans for restarting Ukraine and Europe’s largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia,” a nuclear specialist said in the report. “But the plant is the sole property of Ukraine and this further step towards a potentially disastrous operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactors must be condemned.”

On Thursday, an IAEA official told Reuters that there is “no indication” that Russia is preparing to restart the plant “now.”

“The plant lost its main source of cooling water, so the whole system cannot work as it was originally designed,” the IAEA official said. “The consumption of water is orders of magnitude higher (when the plant is operating) compared to cold shutdown. We don’t see any easy, quick fix for it.”