The international nuclear watchdog says it can no longer monitor what is going on at Chernobyl after remote systems went dark.
Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are increasingly worried about the situation at the ruined plant, where 210 scientists are being held.
Russian forces have controlled it for several days and have kept workers trapped to operate vital safety mechanisms.
Now the IAEA has revealed that it appeared ‘remote data transmission from safeguards monitoring systems installed at the Chernobyl NPP had been lost’.
Ukraine’s state regulator said it ‘could only communicate with the plant via email’ after being denied access for almost a fortnight.
The IAEA has offered to hold talks between Russia and Ukraine to alleviated the crisis and agree a system for rotating exhausted staff being held against their will.
In a statement, the watchdog revealed that, while workers have ‘access to food and water, and medicine to a limited extent’, the ‘situation for the staff was worsening’.
The Ukrainian government has previously detected increased radiation coming from the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
At the time, officials said it was likely due to military vehicles disturbing radioactive material in the soil around the wrecked plant.
Director general Rafael Mariano Grossi: ‘I’m deeply concerned about the difficult and stressful situation facing staff at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the potential risks this entails for nuclear safety.
‘I call on the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there.’
Ukraine’s atomic regulator said eight of the country 15 nuclear reactors are continuing to operate as normal.
That figure includes two at the Zaporizhzhya plant, the largest in Europe which has been surrounded by Russian forces since last week.
It said radiation levels at the sites remained normal, according to IEAE.
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