Europe | Uncertain reaction

Amid Russian bombing, Ukraine is planning more nuclear reactors

Atomic power may not solve the country’s energy woes

Employees stand in front of the second power unit of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant.
Photograph: Reuters

RUSSIAN MISSILES have knocked out roughly half of Ukraine’s pre-war electricity-generation capacity. But because Russia has refrained from blowing up nuclear reactors, nearly 60% of Ukraine’s electricity production is currently nuclear—even though the country’s (and Europe’s) biggest plant, in Zaporizhia, was occupied by Russia in 2022 and is now shut down. Without nuclear reactors, says German Galushchenko, the energy minister, Ukraine’s grid “would not survive”. In what would be a first for a country under assault, Ukraine now aims to install more of them.

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Uncertain reaction”

From the December 14th 2024 edition

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