Move ends month-long reliance on backup generators after power line was cut in September

Russian engineers have reconnected the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to external electrical power from Ukraine, ending a month-long emergency that had plunged the future of the six-reactor site into doubt.

Ukrainian sources told the Guardian that Russian technicians had hoped to connect Europe’s biggest nuclear plant – which had been relying on backup generators since its last external power line was cut in September – to power from the Russian grid on 7 October as a birthday present for Vladimir Putin.