Nuke plant crew being moved
Relocating staff could ‘exacerbate’ issues at facility
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia intends to relocate around 3,100 Ukrainian staff from Europe’s largest nuclear plant, Ukraine’s atomic energy company claimed Wednesday, warning of a potential “catastrophic lack of qualified personnel” at the Zaporizhzhia facility in Russia-occupied Ukraine.
Workers who signed employment contracts with various affiliates of Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom following Moscow’s capture of the Zaporizhzhia plant early in the war are the bulk of those set to be taken to Russia along with their families, Energoatom said in a Telegram post.
Energoatom didn’t specify whether the employees would be forcibly moved out of the plant. It also wasn’t immediately possible to verify Energoatom’s claims about Moscow’s plan.
Removing staff would “exacerbate the already extremely urgent issue” of staff shortages, Energoatom said.
In fighting Wednesday, Ukrainian forces advanced by as much as a mile near Bakhmut, the city that has been the major focus of intense battles for about eight months, Ukrainian ground forces commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said.
The claim couldn’t immediately be confirmed but the head of the Russian private army Wagner, which has led the grinding assault on Bakhmut, said that his forces were considering pulling back because of insufficient ammunition.
Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin has previously complained that Russia wasn’t adequately supplying his fighters and said on Telegram on Wednesday that “I demand ammunition in order to save the lives of the fighters and put the squeeze on” Bakhmut, of which there is only about 5% left occupied by the enemy.”
An Energoatom representative reached by phone told The Associated Press that the Zaporizhzhia plant evacuation plan, which staff were aware of, covered roughly half of the plant’s 6,000 employees and was prompted by fears of a Ukraine counteroffensive in the area.
Some plant employees are already being relocated deeper into Russia-held territory and accommodated in the resort towns of Berdiansk and Kyrylivka, the person said on condition of anonymity because of safety fears.
Before the war, the plant employed around 11,000 people. About 500 Russian troops are stationed at the site, while at least 1,500 others are based in the nearby city of Enerhodar, the Ergoatom representative said.
The Russians have laid minefields around the plant and built defensive positions, the person said.
The Moscow-installed governor of the region ordered civilian evacuations from the area last Saturday, including Enerhodar. The full scope of the evacuation order wasn’t clear.
Fighting near the plant has fueled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
On Wednesday, the city of Nikopol that lies across the river from the plant came under attack from artillery and drones that damaged an industrial facility, Dnipropetrovsk region governor Serhiy Lysak said.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. While its six reactors have been shut down for months, it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region are accelerating their push to relocate local residents, including families of workers at the plant, because of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, Kyiv officials said.
Military analysts say Ukraine may focus the counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia region, trying to split Russian forces in two by pushing through to the Azov Sea coast in the south.