Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of military intelligence for the Kyiv regime, surfaced in a June 23 interview with the New Statesman to retail the claim that Russia has prepared to sabotage the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant with mines set to blow up its cooling pond. Budanov told his interviewer that without cooling, the nuclear reactors could melt in a period of between 10 hours and 14 days. He believes Russia would be able to raise the voltage in the power supply lines to the plant, bringing about a nuclear accident at the lower end of that time frame. As Budanov put it during the interview, “Technical means could be used to speed up the catastrophe.” Ukrainian military intelligence has also been able to establish that Russian troops have moved vehicles charged with explosives to four of the six power units, he claimed further. (https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/06/russia-plan-blow-up-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-drafted-approved )
All that’s left to do is to issue the order. Budanov is confident the plan is fully “drafted and approved.” The only element missing is the order to go ahead. “Then it can happen in a matter of minutes.”
As for why Russia would blow up the power plant, Budanov offered two possibilities. The first would depend on what military benefit Russia would see from causing a nuclear disaster, particularly if Ukrainian forces succeed in crossing the Dnieper River in the Kherson region and “ousting” Russian forces from the region. The second possibility is that Russia would use a nuclear disaster as a “preventive measure” to stop the Ukrainian offensive in the south before it got started.