On the night of June 3, 2026, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant experienced its seventeenth blackout since its seizure by Russian military forces, and the fifth since the beginning of this year.
This is reported by Finway
Causes of the power outage and events timeline
At 23:44 on June 2, the plant lost complete external power due to an emergency shutdown of the “Ferosplavna-1” power line. At that moment, all critically important systems of the Zaporizhzhia NPP were switched to operate on backup diesel generators, which allowed essential processes at the facility to be maintained.
Drone attack as the key cause of the incident
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the cause of the emergency shutdown was a drone attack on the “Nikopol” power substation, located on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the ZNPP. This incident led to the power outage and yet another blackout at the plant.
“On the night of June 3, 2026, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP experienced its 17th blackout since the station was seized by Russian troops and the fifth since the beginning of this year.”
Specialists continue to monitor the situation and assess potential risks to the safety of the nuclear facility, considering the systematic cases of power supply interruptions due to hostilities.