Ukrainian nuclear power plant workers flee the brutal Russian hunt for saboteurs

Russian soldiers controlling a giant nuclear power plant in Ukraine are rounding up workers and subjecting them to brutal interrogations for possible saboteurs, pushing many employees to leave and raising safety concerns, Ukrainian officials said.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, il largest in Europeit is located in the south of Ukraine, in the city of Enerhodar, on the east side of the Dnipro River, facing the territory still occupied by the Ukrainian forces.

With 11,000 workers, the plant occupies a strategically important position and the plant’s safety concerns make any Ukrainian counter-offensive to recapture the area particularly difficult. complicated.

Russian forces have fortified the outside of the plant with trenches and heavy artillery, and inside they are stepping up measures to find anyone they believe may pose a threat, according to the company and local officials.

Enerhodar’s exiled mayor Dmytro Orlov says he has received reports from employees and residents that the plant’s workers are kidnapped regularly by Russian soldiers, “thrown into cellars” and questioned about alleged rebel activities.

Speaking on a Radio Svoboda program called “Azov News”, he said the people who had remained in the city to operate the plant safely and avoid accidents were working “under moral and physical pressure“.

He could not be contacted immediately for comment.

Many plant employees and other residents are trying to flee into Ukrainian-controlled territory, he said.

“Young people are also leaving the city,” he said.

“It is not clear who will manage the nuclear power plant.”

Orlov’s statements could not be independently confirmed.

The state-owned company that oversees the complex, Energoatom, has offered similar stories based on interviews with plant workers.

Petro Kotin, interim president of Energoatomtold reporters last month that the Russians were using the nuclear power plant as military base.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a well-fortified facility even in peacetime,” he said.

“It is a perfect military base. Furthermore, the Russians understand that the amount of nuclear material that is there protects them. Ukraine will not attack such an object. “

Enerhodar, like other Russian-occupied areas in the south, was the scene of attacks by Ukrainian partisans and reprisals by Russian forces.

Moscow has cracked down on a growing resistance movement in southern Ukraine, including violence, civil disobedience and efforts to help the Ukrainian military.

Tensions in the city escalated on May 22 when Andrii Shevchyk, whom the Russians had appointed mayor, was injured in a bomb attack outside his apartment.

He had to be flown to the Crimea for medical treatment.

The next day, according to Energoatom, the Russian forces they shot several times to an employee of the nuclear power plant in his home.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian representative on the main governing council of the Zaporizka region, which includes the nuclear power plant, said in a televised interview Tuesday that the time has come to institute the death penalty for “war criminals“.

Ivan Federov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol who has become something of an unofficial spokesman for the Ukrainian resistance in the region, estimated Tuesday that about 500 rooms in their hometown they had been arrested and held by Russian forces.

His claim cannot be independently verified, as Russia strictly controls access to the occupied territories.

Russian forces regularly inspect the cell phones of people living there at checkpoints and during searches of their homes, according to witnesses, making communication with strangers difficult. extremely risky.

Federov himself was kidnapped by Russian forces before being released, part of a pattern that occurred in towns and villages, including Enerhodar.

Ivan Samoiduk. Enerhodar’s first deputy mayor has been in Russian custody for more than three months, according to Ukrainian officials.

As Russia escalates its crackdown, the Ukrainian government has promised a major counter-offensive and told anyone who might flee the occupied territories to leave before it starts.

c.2022 The New York Times Company