Europe's largest nuclear plant has been under Russian control since March and sits near the frontline of the war in territory President Putin has said has been annexed by Russia.
Landmines detonating around the plant's perimeter have also been implicated in starting fires that have threatened the reactors and the crucial power connections that link the plant to Ukraine's national gird.The Zaporizhzhia plant is made up of six pressurised water reactors. The sheer scale of the facility means there are hundreds of tonnes of nuclear fuel in the reactors themselves, and more than 2,000 tonnes of spent fuel in storage ponds and a dry storage facility on the site.
They're also much safer now than they were at the start of the Ukraine invasion. Under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency , which now has two observers stationed at the plant, all six reactors are in"cold shut down", their fuel slowly cooling inside the reactor buildings.The main ongoing risk is a loss of power to the site. Even while shut down, cooling water has to be circulated around the reactor fuel to prevent it melting down.
The reactors are a very thick still vessel, surrounded by a heavy concrete shell, so the direct risk to them is considered quite low. However, fire, or damage to safety systems like backup power, could cause fuel to overheat and melt down. In that case, most international experts believe things could get as bad as they did at Fukushima in Japan in 2011. In that disaster, a loss of power led to nuclear fuel overheating, the hydrogen gas this produced then exploded, releasing radioactive contamination high into the atmosphere.
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