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KIIV, Ukraine (AP) – Renewed Moscow attacks against Ukrainian force infrastructure this winter have hooked the breach of the Ukraine force of the force of Ukraine to protect the bunnings of maximum critical force of the country near nuclear sites.

Despite more than a year of warnings that the sites were vulnerable to possible Russian attacks, the Ministry of Energy acted quickly, the existing and former Ukrainian officials of kyiv to Associated Press.

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Two years of punishing Russian strikes on its power grid have left Ukraine reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity generation. Especially vulnerable are the unprotected nuclear switchyards located outside the perimeters of its three functioning nuclear plants, which are crucial to transmitting power from the reactors to the rest of the country.

“The switchyards that handle electrical routing from nuclear power plants are a vital component of Ukraine’s nuclear energy infrastructure — powering homes, schools, hospitals and other critical civilian infrastructure,” said Marcy R. Fowler, head of the office for research and analysis at Open Nuclear Network, a program of the U.S.-based NGO PAX sapiens that focuses on reducing nuclear risk.

“Given the great dependence of Ukraine in nuclear energy, army attacks against these lands would have an effect on civilian life and have an effect on civil life and press the resistance of the power network,” he said.

Only in the fall, after Ukrainian intelligence agencies warned of potential Russian strikes targeting the nuclear switchyards, was action taken to begin building protection — far too late in the event of an attack, analysts said.

“If two (nuclear gardens) are affected, we will not have energy for a minimum of 30 to 36 hours, and there will be a massive limitation of the energy source for at least 3 weeks,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, an expert in the energy industry of Ukraine.

He said he would take 3 to five weeks to send and install new equipment, a depressing situation for the other people of Ukraine the winter months without blood.

And what is even more worrying, nuclear roads also have a critical function: the supply of electricity to the nuclear power plants of the external network, which is to cool its reactors and the spent fuel. A disturbance could mean a disaster, as it has detected the United Nations nuclear company several times since the beginning of Russian attacks in August.

And while Ukraine’s nuclear plants have backup emergency power systems, these “are designed to provide temporary support,” Fowler said. “Without functioning switchyards, the backup systems alone would not be sufficient to sustain operations or prevent safety risks during an extended outage.”

The legislators cited not to protect those sites in a solution last month, asking for the withdrawal of the Minister of Energy, Herman Hauschenko. The list of complaints, which has also censored Hauschenko for alleged systematic corruption and insufficient surveillance in the electricity sector, will have to be chosen through Parliament.

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Haluschenko held at a press convention on Tuesday that the accusations were “manipulation” and that the fortifications for the force network “made. ” But he would answer direct questions about whether the nuclear Ukraine switches in specific were protected.

Russian strikes in November and December came dangerously close to the country’s nuclear power plants, which give the country’s nine operational reactors to electricity production. The attacks did not reach nuclear roads about a kilometer (half a million) from reactor sites, but they have been alarmingly prolonged.

The task of construction protections for energy transmission substations, whether nuclear and non -nuclear, gave the impression of state and personal companies, the Supervisor Ministry of Energy.

Three layers of fortifications were ordered: sandbags followed through cement barricades capable of resisting drone attacks and, maximum and less complete structures, iron and steel.

Following a government decree in July 2023, many of the state’s force corporations began contracting without delay to build first- and second-layer fortifications for their maximum critical force facilities. In the spring of 2024, the government repeated the pressing call to get the task done.

But nuclear switchyards, under the responsibility of Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, did not issue contracts to build second-layer concrete fortifications until this fall. By then, state energy company Ukrenergo, which manages the high-voltage substations that transmit power from the nuclear reactors to the grid, had already completed 90% of its 43 sites.

The bidding process for two nuclear plants — in Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv — only started in early October, according to documents seen by the AP. The tender for the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant was even later, at the end of November.

The structure is not ended before 2026, according to the contract documents.

Concerns over the delays were raised repeatedly in closed-door meetings and letters sent to energy officials over the last year, three current and former government officials told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the foot-dragging by the Energy Ministry.

“We officially wrote to the Ministry of Energy several times declaring this challenge in the last 12 to 14 months,” said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, former head of Ukrenergo, who shot in September and blamed the disaster to protect the energy infrastructure, a widely criticized movement as politically motivated.

The Minister of Energy, Hauschenko, guaranteed that the scenario was low and prioritized other projects, in specific lobbying for parliamentary approval for the structure of the dear nuclear reactors that take a construction of up to a decade.

Ukraine’s Western partners were also repeatedly told “all” critical infrastructure was protected, according to two Western diplomats with knowledge of Western financial assistance to the country’s energy sector, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

Energoatom responded to requests for comment from the AP about delays, prompting the sensitivity of the issue.

During the summer and in December, Ukraine raised foreign alarm bells and whistles about possible Russian attacks aimed at nuclear infrastructure and compromised nuclear safety. In mid -December, he convened an ordinary consultation of the International Atomic Energy Agency after attacks a month before damaged, with strength of force considered very important for Ukraine nuclear safety, expanding the option of a nuclear emergency.

The United Nations nuclear firm sent in December to electrical substations in the plants of the nuclear force of Khmelnytskyi, Rivne and in southern Ukraine to document hurt and gather evidence “highlighting the vulnerabilities of the vulnerabilities of the electricity network as a result of The attacks, “said General Manager Rafael Grossi, in a statement in January.

“These attacks have an effect on the stability of the network and compromise the reliability of food outside the site, creating dangers for nuclear safety,” said gross considerations similar to the Zaporizhzhia factory owned by Russia, the largest in Europe.

The presence of IAEA inspection groups led some in the Ukrainian government to say that the country’s nuclear sites were off-limits to Russian attacks, a senior Ukrainian official said on condition of anonymity to speak frankly.

But that has proven to be a major miscalculation.

“Why didn’t they react?” Kudrytskyi, former director of Ukrenergo, said of the Energy Ministry’s inability to respond temporarily to the precautionary series. “I don’t have an answer to this. “

AP Newshouings David Rising in Bangkok and Volodymyr Yurchuk in kyiv contributed to this report.

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