9JUN

Rosatom Turns on IAEA as ZNPP Hits Day 60

3 min read

11:54UTC

Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev accused the IAEA Secretariat on Sunday 17 May of ignoring Ukrainian strikes on Zaporizhzhia, just as the plant approached 60 days running on its single remaining backup external power line.

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Key takeaway

Likhachev attacked the one asset Grossi cannot replace: the neutral-broker credibility the ZNPP repair track depends on.

Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev issued a statement on 17 May accusing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog) Secretariat of 'effectively ignoring daily Ukrainian attacks' on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP, the largest nuclear plant in Europe and under Russian occupation since March 2022)⁠¹. On Saturday 23 May the plant passes day 60 running on its single remaining backup external power line, Ferosplavna-1, since the main feeder Dniprovska went down on 24 March.

IAEA Update 349, published 7 May, recorded a drone strike on the External Radiation Control Laboratory on 3 May that destroyed the meteorological equipment used for real-time nuclear emergency monitoring⁠². Director General Rafael Grossi said the agency 'cannot afford for the next damage to occur on essential nuclear safety equipment' and is still negotiating a sixth local ceasefire for repairs.

Likhachev's intervention attacks the asset Grossi cannot replace. IAEA's leverage at ZNPP runs through Grossi's personal credibility as a neutral broker; once the host state's nuclear corporation publicly accuses the watchdog of bias, that broker role narrows fast. The Rosatom posture also runs in parallel to Rostekhnadzor's 10-year ZNPP operating certificates issued earlier in the year, which together signal Moscow will not return administrative control of the plant under any negotiated outcome.

Three total power-loss events have been recorded at the site since March. The plant has been in cold shutdown since September 2022; the consequence of any further line loss is bounded by emergency diesel runs, none of which has yet exceeded 90 minutes. A fourth total power loss with diesel failure would push the plant into uncharted territory in under two hours. Day 60 lands on Saturday 23 May with no sixth repair ceasefire agreed and the diplomatic track on the wrong end of a Rosatom broadside.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine is the largest in Europe. Russia has occupied it since March 2022. The plant is shut down but still needs electricity to cool its fuel and run safety systems. For 60 days it has been running on a single backup power line, like a hospital on a generator. The international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has been trying to broker a ceasefire around the plant so repairs can be made. On 17 May, the head of Russia's state nuclear company publicly accused the IAEA of ignoring Ukrainian drone attacks on the plant. That accusation undermines the IAEA's ability to act as a neutral referee. A fourth total power cut, combined with backup generator failure, would leave the fuel pools without cooling within two hours. Neither the IAEA, Rosatom, nor Ukraine's pre-war operator has published a publicly agreed emergency protocol for that scenario at ZNPP's scale.

What could happen next?

Risk
Likhachev's intervention narrows Grossi's ability to broker a sixth repair ceasefire by making any IAEA-endorsed agreement look like political capitulation to Russian framing for non-Western Board members.
Risk
A fourth total power-loss event at ZNPP with diesel failure would require cooling by emergency means within two hours; the plant has no operational protocol for that scenario that has been publicly agreed between IAEA and either occupying or pre-war Ukrainian operators.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Austria

Austria

Primary parallel: The 1986 Chernobyl disaster established the precedent that a state operating a nuclear plant under emergency conditions will delay, minimise, and dispute external monitoring. The Soviet Union initially denied the scale of the Chernobyl event for 36 hours and then resisted IAEA inspection for weeks.

Rosatom's attack on IAEA neutrality is structurally equivalent: not outright denial of the risk, but active narrowing of the monitoring institution's authority before an incident occurs rather than after.

Counter-parallel: The Three Mile Island incident in 1979 showed that nuclear-plant emergencies can be managed through transparent information-sharing with international bodies without escalating to a safety crisis. At Three Mile Island, the plant kept external power throughout and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had unrestricted site access within hours of the initial event. ZNPP has had neither since March 2022, which makes that precedent inapplicable as a reassurance rather than a model.

Consensus view: The Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center nuclear-security programme and the Vienna-based Atomic Reporters network both assess Likhachev's 17 May intervention as a deliberate strategy to pre-emptively blame the IAEA if a radiological incident occurs.

By establishing on record that the watchdog 'ignored' Ukrainian attacks, Rosatom removes the IAEA from the role of neutral incident arbiter and positions it as a co-responsible party. Likhachev's statement targets the one asset Grossi cannot replace: the IAEA Secretariat's standing as an actor neither side can credibly accuse of partiality, which is what gets both sides into a repair ceasefire room.

Counter-view: The Russian Academy of Sciences' nuclear-safety institute argues that Likhachev's statement reflects a genuine frustration with IAEA Update 349's framing, which named the meteorological equipment strike but did not attribute it to Ukraine by name.

On this reading, Rosatom is not instrumentalising the IAEA but demanding the same attributional standard applied to Russian actions at ZNPP be applied to Ukrainian ones. Whether or not this reading is credible, it gives Grossi's counterpart an internally consistent argument to take to non-Western IAEA Board members.

Key tension: Whether the IAEA Board of Governors can maintain consensus on the ZNPP resolution language while Russia actively contests the watchdog's neutrality framing.

Sources:IAEA·Mediazona·Eastern Herald

Mentions:Alexei Likhachev →Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant →Rosatom →IAEA →Rafael Grossi →External Radiation Control Laboratory →Ferosplavna-1 →Dniprovska 750 kV line →Rostekhnadzor →Vienna →Ukraine →Zaporizhzhia →Moscow →Russia →Soviet Union →

First Reported In

Update #17 · Istanbul talks, refineries dark, deficit overruns

IAEA· 22 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

ZNPP Day 50: nuclear alert sensors destroyed

ZNPP's 50-day disconnection and ERCL drone strike extended to 60 days with Rosatom's public attack on IAEA

Occurred 13 May 2026

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Russian drone hits Chornobyl fuel building

Rosatom's renewed blame of Ukraine at ZNPP escalates its May 17 public attack on IAEA credibility (ID:3564), deepening the accountability deadlock on nuclear incidents.

Occurred 7 Jun 2026

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This Event

Rosatom Turns on IAEA as ZNPP Hits Day 60

A Russian state attack on the only multilateral safety track at Europe's largest nuclear plant degrades the credibility Grossi needs to broker a sixth repair ceasefire, with the disconnection clock now past two months.

Led to

Drone hits ZNPP reactor-6 turbine hall

Prior ZNPP incidents targeted switchyards and power feeders; the reactor-6 turbine building strike is an escalation of the targeting pattern.

Occurred 30 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

South Korean foreign ministry

Seoul said on 20 October it will withdraw some Kyiv embassy staff, citing no constructive steps from Kyiv since it recalled its ambassador over the disclosure of two North Korean prisoners. A chargé d'affaires and consular staff stay, and Seoul says its aid continues.

Alexander Lukashenko

Lukashenko said on 22 October that talks with the US show progress despite problems, which he said were highlighted with the exchange of political prisoners for the lifting of sanctions. He said Minsk keeps its promises and wants the US to deliver its side in full.

Moldovan government (Daniella Misail-Nichitin)

Moldova has pulled its border guards and customs officers from four crossings on Ukrainian soil after Russian strikes near the border. Interior Minister Daniella Misail-Nichitin said Chisinau is weighing moving Ukrainian checkpoints onto Moldovan territory.

Péter Magyar

Magyar told RTL that Ukrainian maize may cross Hungary in sealed trains bound for Western Europe. He set one condition: the cargo must only transit the country.

Donald Tusk

Tusk said Warsaw would seek an explanation from Kyiv for the drone's route across Poland. He said Poland allows no operations over its territory without its explicit consent.

Mindaugas Sinkevičius

Lithuania's prime minister said the Ukrainian drone that exploded in Pasvalys district on 18 October carried explosives and entered from Poland through the Schengen zone. Earlier drones over Lithuania had come from Belarus, not through allied airspace.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.