Updated Oct 16

Nuclear Safety at the Front

Europe’s largest nuclear plant still has one outside power line and emergency generators whose fuel has not been replenished since March. On October 15 a local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA, the eighth of the war, began so that a damaged backup transformer near the neighbouring thermal plant could be repaired, making that last line more reliable. The second main line, Dniprovska, was repaired in June but remains out because of later damage. Rafael Grossi again asked for diesel to be raised before winter, ‘when the situation may become acute’.

Drone activity around Ukraine’s other sites rose. The plants reported 134 drones around Chornobyl and 121 around South Ukraine in the week to October 16, against 52 and 22 a week earlier; on October 9 agency staff watched a drone hit woodland two kilometres from Chornobyl. No one has been named for any of it.

Ukraine’s foreign minister says the IAEA will send missions to 19 substations that keep the country’s nuclear plants safely connected, the agency’s largest such deployment; the agency has not yet described them. The G7 pledged €260 million toward repairing Chornobyl’s New Safe Confinement, which the EBRD says needs at least €500 million by 2030.

New Oct 17

The whole story4 chapters

The state of it — as of October 16, 2026

1 of 10

outside power lines still feeding Zaporizhzhia, of the ten it had before the war

times the plant has lost all outside power since June

diesel deliveries for its emergency generators since March

Today

Oct 15, 2026

An Eighth Ceasefire Begins, to Repair the Backup Behind the Last Line

A local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA, the eighth of the war, began on the morning of October 15 so that a damaged backup transformer near the Zaporizhzhia thermal plant could be repaired. The work is meant to make the nuclear plant’s connection to its only remaining outside line, Ferosplavna-1 at 330 kV, more reliable. Its completion has not been reported. The plant’s other main line, Dniprovska at 750 kV, was repaired in June under an earlier ceasefire but is still out of service because of later damage to the line and earlier damage to its substation.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)Anadolu AgencyUNN

Oct 15, 2026

The G7 Pledges €260 Million Toward Chornobyl’s Damaged Shield

The EBRD said on October 15 that the G7 had pledged €260 million to repair the New Safe Confinement over Chornobyl’s destroyed reactor, punctured by a drone strike in February 2025. The bank puts the repair at no less than €500 million and says it must be finished by 2030 to limit corrosion of the steel structure; it will seek more money at a donor conference in Paris on November 9.

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TVP World

Earlier this month

Oct 13, 2026

Kyiv Says the IAEA Will Send Monitors to 19 Grid Substations

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said after meeting Rafael Grossi in Warsaw that the IAEA would send missions to 19 electrical substations critical to the safe operation of Ukraine’s nuclear plants, ‘the IAEA’s largest deployment of its kind to date’. The account is Kyiv’s; no start date, duration or staffing was given, and the agency’s own update of October 16 does not describe the missions. A former head of Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, Hryhoriy Plachkov, called the decision misguided because Russians work at the agency.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of UkraineRBC-UkraineNV (Novoye Vremya)

Oct 9, 2026

Seven Months Without a Diesel Delivery

“No diesel deliveries have occurred since March,” the IAEA said on October 9, three weeks after Grossi asked for an urgent one. Attempts to resupply have been hampered by military activity, which the agency attributes to no one, while routine generator testing keeps drawing down what is left. It gave no figure for what remains, calling the reserves “depleted”. Grossi said the volume on site must be raised “prior to winter, when the situation may become acute”. The plant still has one outside power line, and has lost all outside power ten times since June.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Oct 9, 2026

A Drone Comes Down Two Kilometres From Chornobyl

IAEA staff at Chornobyl watched a drone descend near the site on October 9; it struck woodland about two kilometres away and started a fire that firefighters brought under control. In the week to October 16 the plants reported detecting 134 drones around Chornobyl, 121 around South Ukraine, 31 around Khmelnytskyy and one around Rivne — against 52 and 22 at the first two a week earlier — and 194 air-raid alerts across the sites. Agency teams at Khmelnytskyy and Rivne took shelter several times. The IAEA named no one, saying the risk exists ‘regardless of whether nuclear facilities are deliberately targeted’.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Oct 5, 2026

A Drone Attack Inside the Fence, and Inspectors Kept Waiting Two Days

Shortly after midnight on October 5 a drone attack was reported on a laboratory building and a radioactive-waste processing building inside the plant’s protected area, about 200 metres from reactor units 4 and 5. No casualties or radiation release were reported. The IAEA team asked to inspect and was given limited access more than 48 hours later. It saw broken windows, many already covered, a 40-centimetre patch of damaged pavement, and drone debris that had been placed on display. Its conclusion was narrow: nearby buildings had sustained physical damage. It did not say what hit them or who launched it. The plant also reported that a delivery driver bringing supplies was killed by a drone on October 4. Grossi said inspectors must have “prompt, unfettered access” to the sites of reported attacks.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 30, 2026

A Drone Strike 100 Metres From Kyiv’s Research Reactor

The IAEA was informed on September 30 of a drone strike on the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv, 100 metres from a building housing a research reactor and spent fuel. Nothing radioactive was released. On September 23 air strikes damaged the Kyiv premises of Energoatom, reportedly with casualties among staff; none targeted a nuclear facility, the agency said. Chornobyl reported 71, 83 and then 52 drones in the three weeks to October 9, and South Ukraine 30, 27 and 22. No operating reactor was reported cutting output or losing a line. The agency attributed none of the strikes.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 27, 2026

Drones Hit the Transformers Behind the Last Line, and an Eighth Ceasefire Is Sought

The IAEA was informed that drones struck the Zaporizhzhia thermal power plant, beside the nuclear site, on September 19, 20 and 27, damaging transformers it called “of vital importance” to the nuclear plant’s outside power. An attack on September 22 reportedly disabled an off-site radiation monitoring station. All of it reached the agency as reports, and it named no attacker. Grossi began negotiating a local ceasefire to repair the 330 kV switchyard, which would be the eighth of the war. By October 9 it had not been agreed. No new loss of outside power was reported in that time.

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X (self-published post)The Kyiv IndependentInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 25, 2026

Only Four Generators Will Now Start on Their Own

To save diesel, the plant changed how its emergency generators respond to a loss of outside power: four would start automatically and the rest would have to be connected by hand, where previously every available unit started itself. Two of the twenty were out for maintenance. The IAEA reported the change without saying its team had verified it. Grossi called the saving necessary and said the reduced availability “deviates from normal practice”. A week later the plant was considering cutting the automatic standby further. Diesel-fired heating and waste processing are expected to add to demand over winter.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 17, 2026

Power Restored, Reserves Gone

Ten days after the line came back, the plant’s emergency diesel generators have ‘depleted almost all of their fuel supplies’, and the off-site diesel store is reportedly empty, with resupply difficult because of the fighting around it. Before the repair the plant had run down to little more than a week of diesel, cut from four generators to two, and was running cooling pumps only intermittently. The generators are what stands between six reactors and their spent-fuel pools and a station blackout the next time the single line fails — and it has failed ten times since June. Grossi has asked for an urgent delivery. None had been reported by September 17.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 17, 2026

Drones Over the Other Four Sites, Three Times as Many in a Week

Detections around Ukraine’s other nuclear sites rose sharply between consecutive IAEA reporting weeks. To September 11: Chornobyl 15, South Ukraine 13, Rivne 3, Khmelnytskyy 2. To September 17: Chornobyl 48, South Ukraine 35 — some within 1.5 kilometres of the site — Khmelnytskyy 13, Rivne 8. The IAEA team at Khmelnytskyy sheltered twice over the weekend after air-raid alarms. Both weeks are counted by the same body on the same basis, so the jump is a like-for-like comparison rather than a change in what is being counted.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 17, 2026

63 Vote to Hand the Plant Back to Ukraine; 46 Abstain

The IAEA’s General Conference adopted a resolution on nuclear safety in Ukraine on September 17 by roll call: 63 in favour, 6 against, 46 abstaining. It calls for “all unauthorized military and other unauthorized personnel” to leave Zaporizhzhia and for the plant’s return to Ukrainian control, and calls on Russia by name to give the agency’s team unrestricted, timely access until then. It attributes no attack to anyone: strikes on the power infrastructure feeding nuclear plants are called a direct threat to nuclear safety, with no attacker named. Ukraine’s foreign minister announced the 63 votes without the abstentions.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)X (self-published post)

Sep 17, 2026

Satellite Images Show No Craters Where Russia Reported Ukrainian Shelling

Greenpeace Ukraine and McKenzie Intelligence Services published an analysis of five Airbus satellite images, taken between October 2025 and June 2026, of the 330 kV switchyard that feeds the plant’s last power line. They found the yard damaged but without artillery craters, and say damage Russia blamed on a Ukrainian drone strike on June 4 was visible in earlier imagery. Greenpeace concludes that Russia is sabotaging the lines itself. That goes beyond the images, which show an absence of evidence for Moscow’s account, not who did the damage. Greenpeace campaigns against Rosatom, and no independent body has ruled.

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GreenpeaceUkrainska Pravda

This quarter

Sep 13, 2026

Ukraine attacked trucks carrying diesel to the Zaporizhzhia plant on September 11 in “a series of combined strikes”. “The strikes hit very close to the perimeter of the station’s site. Two servicemen were killed, and a large number of Russian soldiers were injured, some seriously. They were all involved in supporting this purely civilian mission.”

— Alexey Likhachev

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The Moscow TimesInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 9, 2026

Four Attacks Around the Plant, and Still No One Named

The IAEA team at Zaporizhzhia was told of attacks in Enerhodar on September 6 that injured nine people and killed one, and on September 9 of attacks on a civilian vehicle outside the plant’s training centre and on the centre itself — the reported timing matching explosions and drones the team heard for itself. On September 10 it heard sustained gunfire at close range. Grossi told the Board that an August drone explosion at a bus stop used by plant staff caused twenty casualties including one death. For none of these has any determination of responsibility been published, and neither party’s attribution is recorded.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 7, 2026

The Line Comes Back On, After Nineteen Days

Zaporizhzhia’s sole remaining external power line, the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1, was reconnected on the evening of September 7, ending the plant’s twenty-sixth loss of off-site power since 2022 and nineteen days running its cooling pumps on emergency diesel. Demining and repair ran from September 5 to 7 under a seventh IAEA-brokered local ceasefire, and an IAEA field team watched the work. The line was still carrying power on September 17. The plant’s other line, the 750 kV Dniprovska, remains unavailable despite repairs completed in June, because the substation it runs through is too badly damaged. Before the war the plant had ten lines. It now has one.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 7, 2026

The frequent interruptions to the plant’s two power lines, leading to its reliance on emergency diesel generators, pose serious risks. They violate both the Seven Indispensable Pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict and the Five Concrete Principles for protecting the ZNPP.

— Rafael Mariano Grossi True

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 5, 2026

The Grid War Reaches Ukraine's Working Reactors

Military activity cut an off-site power line at one of Ukraine's operating nuclear plants over the weekend of 29-30 August, forcing a reactor unit to reduce output; the line was recovered within a day and the unit returned to full power on 31 August. The same plant then lost a second line, disconnecting a reactor from the grid. The IAEA did not name it. Drone activity around Ukraine's other sites rose sharply: 28 near the South Ukraine plant, some within three kilometres, 17 at Chornobyl, three at Rivne, and one six kilometres from Khmelnytskyy, where the agency's team took shelter.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 5, 2026

A Seventh Ceasefire, and a Repair Crew at the Broken Line

Both sides agreed to a localized ceasefire around the 330-kilovolt Ferosplavna-1 line north of the Dnipro, and on 5 September, once the area had been demined, Ukrainian technicians began repairing it under IAEA monitoring. The work is expected to take a few days, and until it is finished the plant still has no grid connection. It is the seventh ceasefire Rafael Grossi has brokered during the war to allow repairs, and he said both sides engaged constructively. The 20 August failure was the twenty-sixth loss of off-site power since the invasion.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Sep 5, 2026

Zaporizhzhia Starts Rationing Its Own Cooling to Make the Diesel Last

More than two weeks into the outage, the plant began stretching its fuel by cutting the generators it runs from four to two, and started running its cooling pumps intermittently rather than continuously to hold reactor and spent-fuel-pool temperatures. That reached the IAEA as a report, not an observation: the team was told, and asked for a record of which pumps ran when and for temperatures since power was lost. Grossi called it deeply concerning and warned of a blackout within days — a week earlier he had said roughly ten. With the reactors shut since 2022, far less decay heat means fuel damage would take considerably longer.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Aug 31, 2026

Rosatom has "full control" over the situation at the occupied Zaporizhzhia plant and holds very different estimates from the IAEA for how long it can run without external power.

— Alexey Likhachev

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Institute for the Study of WarWorld Nuclear NewsInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Aug 29, 2026

Europe's Largest Nuclear Plant Runs on Diesel, Ten Days From a Station Blackout

Zaporizhzhia has run entirely on emergency diesel since 20 August, when military activity north of the Dnipro severed the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1 line — the last of the ten off-site lines the plant had before the war. The generators drive the pumps cooling all six reactors and their spent-fuel pools. The IAEA team checked fuel-tank levels on most of the plant’s 20 generators on 24 August; four days later the operator told them about ten days of diesel remained, the regulatory minimum — a figure the plant reported, not one the inspectors computed. Grossi warned of a station blackout in roughly that time. Radiation remains normal.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)World Nuclear NewsAl Jazeera English

Aug 28, 2026

The Real Danger at Zaporizhzhia Is a Fuel Supply Chain That Has Been Broken Since March

A shut-down reactor still has to be cooled, and at Zaporizhzhia the diesel that does it runs through a broken supply chain. The off-site fuel farm feeding the generators has not been resupplied since March; a May delivery was held up by fighting, and IAEA inspectors have been barred from that storage since March 2025. With the plant on generator power, the on-site team watched an emergency transfer of several dozen tonnes of diesel from two nearby locations on 27-28 August, staying present partly to give security assurances. The danger sits in the logistics, not the reactors.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)World Nuclear News

Aug 26, 2026

Three Drones Hit the Cooling Pond, Spent-Fuel Store and Sprinklers at Europe's Largest Nuclear Plant

Three drones struck the Zaporizhzhia site over two days. One hit near the cooling pond on 25 August, injuring two plant workers; the next day a second detonated at the dry spent-fuel storage and a third hit the sprinkler system of the power units. Radiation stayed normal. The IAEA, the only independent monitor inside the fence, did not say who launched them, and no party's responsibility has been established — the same silence that has followed every strike on the plant through the occupation. Grossi called attacks on spent-fuel storage or the cooling pond unacceptable and urged military restraint.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)World Nuclear News

Aug 18, 2026

A Drone Kills a Worker at Europe's Largest Nuclear Plant, Called 'the Worst Event the Plant Has Faced'

Around 6am on 18 August a drone exploded at a bus stop used by staff of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant, causing 16 casualties among staff and subcontractors — one killed and three seriously injured. Its director called it “the worst event the plant has faced”, and Rafael Grossi condemned it, calling on those responsible and “all others aiming at nuclear power plants and/or their staff to put an immediate stop to these unacceptable actions”. Who launched it is unresolved: the IAEA did not attribute it, saying it was not immediately clear whether it was Russian or Ukrainian; Moscow blamed Kyiv.

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The Moscow TimesAl Jazeera English

Aug 18, 2026

Kyiv cynically threatened the IAEA director general, directly stating that it could not guarantee his safety if he entered the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant through Russian territory.

— Maria Zakharova

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Anadolu Agency

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