There would have been NO road blocks for extending the lifetime. Westinghouse offered fuel rods which would have been delivered in time.
They had all the normal maintenance (every 2 years) and were in pristine condition, much better than most other nuclear reactors on this planet. Only the 10 year interval was pushed out, but it's just an additional check to further increase safety over the long term. No downtime would have been required, especially no multi-year downtime.
The previous government did not know that Russia was to attack Ukraine and gas flow was about to stop with all the effects on energy availability and prices.
No, that is not true. Maintenance was done with the respect to the planned life time. They couldn't just have kept running. That the previous government didn't knew about the Russian war onto Ukraine makes no difference. Gas prices have recovered to pre-war levels, so there is no extra need for the nuclear plants compared to before the war.
The article is about shutting down the reactors at the 31.12.22. As you know, they were not shut down at that date but ran some months more. That doesn't say anything about the long term maintenance requirements. And in any case they would have to be inspected before any further decisions to be taken as the article only states "they might be able to run further". But that was only an opinion, not a result of a inspection.
They had all the normal maintenance (every 2 years) and were in pristine condition, much better than most other nuclear reactors on this planet. Only the 10 year interval was pushed out, but it's just an additional check to further increase safety over the long term. No downtime would have been required, especially no multi-year downtime.
The previous government did not know that Russia was to attack Ukraine and gas flow was about to stop with all the effects on energy availability and prices.