Ukraine fears the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant could run out of water to cool its reactors by the end of the summer after Russian forces released water from a reservoir that supplies the plant, Reuters reported.

Ihor Syrota, CEO of Ukrhydroenergo, a state-owned enterprise that manages hydroelectric power plants, told Reuters that there is no immediate threat to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant seized by Russian forces.

But he expressed concern about what would happen if water levels in the Kakhov reservoir on the Dnipro River, which supplies the plant and millions of people in southern Ukraine, including Russian-occupied Crimea, fall further.

The Russians have left the floodgates open and the cooling water is flowing

According to him, the level has decreased due to the fact that the Russian troops, who control the reservoir, as well as the Kakhovka HPP and the dam, are releasing water through the sluice gates.

Nuclear power plants need water to cool the reactors and prevent the meltdown of the nuclear zone. Sirota said Zaporizhzhia still needs water to cool the reactors, even though they are shut down.

“The problem (with the lack of cooling water) could occur in the summer, at the end of the summer,” Sirota said in an interview, adding that the reservoir could be empty in a few days if all the floodgates are open.

“I hope that we will not find ourselves in this situation. I hope that we will release soon,” he said, referring to the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake the occupied territory.

State nuclear power company Energoatom said last month that the water level in the reservoir is normally 16 meters but had fallen to 13.8 meters, and a drop to 12.8 meters would be an emergency and 12 meters a critical situation.

Orphan said the level has risen since then due to snowmelt

“They (the Russians) are evacuating a certain volume, and we have raised the level to 14.30 meters from 13.50-13.60 meters. But the gates (dams) are still open,” Sirota said.

The head of the IAEA, Raphael Grossi, will visit the Zaporizhzhia plant to assess the situation

The Russian troops, which occupied part of Ukraine, did not comment on the level of water cooling. The Russian news agency RIA reported that the Russian military is repairing one of the six hydro generators at the Kakhovskaya HPP.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant accounted for about 20 percent of Ukraine’s national energy production before the Russian invasion in February 2022, but it has not produced electricity since September, when the last of its six reactors was decommissioned.

Representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been deployed to the station since September, and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi will visit it this week to assess the situation there.

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of bombing the territory of the plant, which is located near the front line. The IAEA wants to create a safety zone around nuclear power plants to reduce the risk of a nuclear accident, nearly four decades after the Chernobyl disaster.

Russia and Ukraine also accused each other last year of plans to blow up the Kakhovka dam, which would trigger devastating flooding across a large area.

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