Millions Without Power in West Russia Thanks to Nuke Plant Failure, Record Temps, Kyiv Drone Strikes

Kremlin-appointed officials responsible for electricity deliveries in southwest Russia and Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday were struggling to halt accelerating blackouts and prevent collapse of the regional power grid, as millions of power consumers sat in the dark or sweltered without air conditioners. A punishing trifecta of an emergency shutdown of one of four reactors at one of Russia’s biggest nuclear power stations, record-high temperatures that meteorologists predict will last at least another week, and damage caused by Ukrainian drones targeting transformer stations was responsible for rolling black-outs, emergency shut-downs and other interruptions to service. JOIN US ON TELEGRAM Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Gray-outs and power failures were reported most often in densely-populated cities and districts of Russia’s southwestern Rostov Oblast, and across the border with Ukraine in the Russia-occupied Crimea peninsula and Donetsk region – a land space roughly the size of Poland and home, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to some eight million people. Advertisement Corporate image published by the Russian state atomic energy monopolist Rosatom of four nuclear reactors at the Rostov nuclear power station. One of the four reactors at the facility producing electricity for southwest Russia and Kremlin-occupied regions of east Ukraine went offline on Tuesday. Officials said the emergency shutdown was safe and there was no radiation threat. Other Topics of Interest Exclusive: Former Polish President on Ukraine, Russia, Poland, NATO and the EU (Part 2) Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Poland’s president from 1995-2005, talks about how the West should be dealing with Russia and how the EU and NATO need to adapt to global changes. A Friday statement from DonEnergo, the state-run power company delivering electricity to customers in Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine and southwest Russia said: “due to extreme rises of air temperatures to and above 39 degrees Centigrade the power grid of the joint electrical power systems South is suffering a significant load…making necessary rolling blackouts to power users.” Advertisement The statement said nothing about the nuclear accident at the Rostov nuclear power station, the single largest generator of power for the grid in southwest Russia. Customers would be informed of a return to normal services “later,” the DonEnergo statement said.

According to a July 16 statement by the Russian nuclear power monopoly, Rosatom, one of four reactors at the Rostov atomic energy station was shut down due to a turbine malfunction. Officials said there was no radiation threat and that technicians were investigating the problem. No timeline for repair was announced. Another reactor is offline for long-term maintenance, leaving the station – with a 1.5 Gigawatt capacity responsible for about 75 percent of electricity generated in southwest Russia – at half capacity, corporate officials said on Tuesday. Since the July 16 accident, DonEnergo has reported dozens of electricity delivery failures caused by grid overload in the cities of Rostov, Donetsk, Novocherkassk, Bataisk, Kamensk-Shakhtinskiy, Shakhty, Sal’sk, Novoshakhtinsk, Morozovsk and Gukovo. Advertisement The city Rostov-Na-Donu, home to more than one million residents and capital of Russia’s southwestern Rostov Oblast’ bordering Ukraine appeared to be particularly hard hit, suffering sixteen unplanned blackouts in districts of the city, notwithstanding mandatory halts to electricity deliveries elsewhere, in order to prevent blackouts. Donbasenergo corporate statements on July 16-17 promised a return to normal services in three hours. By July 18-19, DonEnergo corporate messaging had ceased predicting when customers’ lights and appliances might again have power. In Russia-occupied Crimea Evgeniy Gorlov, Kremlin-appointed vice mayor of the regional capital Simferopol, and Mikhail Razvozhaev, Kremlin-appointed mayor of the naval port city Sevastopol, in Wednesday statements said that electricity users services should be back to normal on Friday. That was not the case and power cuts and blackouts were being reported across the peninsula, Kyiv Post review of local chat groups found. In the summer resort city Yalta, on the south coast of the Russia-occupied Crimea peninsula, local news agencies reported street lights and illumination on seaside boardwalks was switched off, to reduce load on the grid. Yalta occupation authority Mayor Yanina Pavlenko in video comments described the power grid situation in the city as particularly difficult because – aside from the heat and nuclear reactor failure affecting the whole region – an underground high voltage trunk line had failed and needed to be dug up and repaired. She called on neighbors to be patient. Advertisement “Friends! There is no electricity. But maybe we can use this moment, as a possibilty to be with our loved ones. To talk about life. About one’s family. About love,” Pavlenko said in a candle-lit video statement.