Ministry: Power line supplying Chornobyl power station shut down due to damage in Belarus

The 330 kV power line that supplies the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant was shut down due to damage that occurred on the territory of Belarus, Ukraine's Energy Ministry said on Aug. 15.

Over the past day, the main power lines of Ukraine's state-owned energy operator Ukrenergo have been shut down three times, the ministry said.

In Lviv Oblast, almost 290,000 residents were left without electricity for a short time due to a blackout of a 330 kV line. The reasons for the incident are being clarified, the ministry said.

As a result of Russian missile strikes against Lviv overnight, three 0.4 kV power lines were also damaged, disconnecting around 100 residents, the report added.

An overhead power line in Kyiv Oblast was also shut down due to a fallen tree, and a 220 kV substation in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast was turned off because of equipment damage, the ministry reported.

The Chornobyl power station was a site of a major nuclear disaster in 1986. The radiation leakage caused by the accident led to the creation of a restricted area known as the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. The plant is currently undergoing decommissioning.

The station was briefly occupied by Russian forces in the spring of 2022 during Russia's push toward Kyiv. Belarus claimed that during the Russian occupation, the Belarusian energy system was supplying electricity to the Chornobyl station.

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