Russia has refuted social media rumors of a nuclear emergency after speculation spread on Friday that a radiation incident had occurred at the Rostov nuclear power plant.
"The Rostov nuclear power plant is operating normally, the background radiation is normal, the messages that have appeared about the emergency are fake," Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom told state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
Rosenergoatom also responded to the rumors on the social media platform VKontakte, asking internet users to "be vigilant."
"The units are operating normally, the radiation background is at the natural level!" it said.
The Context
On Tuesday, one of the nuclear power plant's four power units was shut down due to a malfunction of the turbine generator, Russia's state-owned energy group Rosatom said. This resulted in millions of Russians in the south of the country experiencing power outages.
At the time, it said that "the radiation background is normal" but that the cause of the shutdown was being investigated.
What We Know
The Rostov nuclear power plant supplies power to Russia's entire Southern Federal District, and rolling power outages this week affected residents of Russia's Krasnodar Territory, Rostov region, and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by President Vladimir Putin from Ukraine in 2014.
A number of social media users and Telegram channels spread the rumor on Friday that the nuclear power plant released "radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere."
"There is a radiation emergency at the Rostov nuclear power plant," the Crimea-based Telegram channel Crimean Wind said. "The radioactive cloud is moving inland, towards Saratov."
The channel added: "The Russian government is carefully hiding this."
"Radiation emergency at the Rostov nuclear power plant. The radiation cloud is moving deep into the Russian Federation," Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram.
In Rostov, "the emergency release of radioactive water at the Rostov nuclear power plant has not yet been localized; in addition, there is a constant leak of radiation," X user Serg Volin wrote on Friday.
Newsweek reached out to the International Atomic Energy Agency for comment via email.
Radiation monitors indicate normal radiation levels in the Rostov region.
What's Next?
Power was restored to Russia's southern regions on Wednesday.
Valery Andrianov, an associate professor at Moscow's Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that a heat wave that has swept the country in recent days likely contributed to the power plant's malfunction.
Russia's Energy Ministry said in a statement that it "continues to monitor the energy supply situation in regions experiencing abnormally high temperatures."
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Update 7/19/24, 7:47 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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