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Ukraine has said Chernobyl could be 48 hours away from leaking radiation after it was disconnected from the national grid.

Authorities have called on Russia to observe an urgent ceasefire to allow for repairs at the decommissioned nuclear plant to be made. 

The outage could put systems for cooling nuclear material at risk, meaning radioactive substances could be released into the air.

However, officials say there is no way to restore the power because the site has been seized by Putin’s troops, and fighting is underway.

Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company, said in a tweet: ‘Because of the military actions of the Russian occupiers, the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl was fully disconnected from the power grid.

‘The nuclear station has no power supply.

‘The military actions are in progress, so there is no possibility to restore the lines. Slavutich city is also out of power supply.’

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Ukrenerho added that backup generators only have fuel for 48 hours

Without power the ‘parameters of nuclear and radiation safety’ cannot be controlled, it said.

The cause of the damage to the power line serving Chernobyl was not immediately clear.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the grid supplying electricity is severed and called for a cease-fire to allow for repairs.

Dmytro Kuleba also said on Twitter that ‘reserve diesel generators have a 48-hour capacity’ to power the facility.

‘After that, cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent.’

Ukraine’s nuclear operator fears the Chernobyl blackout may cause a radiation leak that could spread across Europe.

The State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine tweeted: ‘Kyiv high-voltage line is currently disconnected due to the damage caused by the occupiers.

‘As a result, the Chernobyl station and all nuclear facilities in the Exclusion Zone are without electricity.

‘About 20,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the spent nuclear fuel storage facility.

‘They need constant cooling. Which is possible only if there is electricity.

‘If it is not there, the pumps will not cool. As a result, the temperature in the holding pools will increase.

‘After that evaporation will occur, that will lead to nuclear discharge.

‘The wind can transfer the radioactive cloud to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe.’

However, the UN nuclear watchdog said it ‘sees no critical impact on safety’ over the loss of power at Chernobyl.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the plant has ‘sufficient’ cooling water for spent nuclear fuel.

Russia took control of Chernobyl on the first day of the invasion and has since captured a second nuclear site, the biggest in Europe.

President Vladimir Putin has been accused of using nuclear ‘blackmail’ to keep the international community from interfering with his invasion of Ukraine.

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Beatrice Fihn, who leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said the war ‘is one of the scariest moments when it comes to nuclear weapons’.

The 40-year-old Swede, who has spearheaded the group’s global efforts to ban the weapons of mass destruction since 2013, said she had never in her lifetime seen the nuclear threat level so high.

‘It is incredibly worrying and overwhelming,’ she told the AP news agency.

Ukraine has also accused Russia of threatening the world with a nuclear catastrophe.

Nato has refused its calls for the west to impose a No-Fly Zone to stop the Russian Air Force from attacking its cities.

The alliance has insisted such a move could spark World War III – a conflict the Kremlin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov threatened would be ‘nuclear and destructive’.

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Instead, countries have been supplying Ukraine with aid and weapons. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the House of Commons today that Britain has now supplied 3,615 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, and will shortly be supplying a small consignment of Javelin anti-tank missiles.

He said the UK is also looking at sending  Starstreak high-velocity manned portable anti-air missiles.

Moscow has issued a string of chilling warnings about the West intervening with its invasion as the Russian economy crumbles under a barrage of economic sanctions.

Experts in the UK believe a nuclear war is unlikely, but that contingency plans must be made in case Putin launches a nuclear attack on Britain.

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