Russia is indeed carrying out mining on the territory of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Energodar, and also stores shells of “different capacity and different power” right in the workshops. Information previously reported by The Insider's sources was confirmed in The Insider's stream by Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine and the Russian Defense Ministry continue to accuse each other of strikes.
According to Podolyak, there is a large contingent on the territory of the station, including artillery. Russia has turned the nuclear power plant into a military facility where safety standards are violated, so there are extreme risks. Podolyak also noted the poor performance of Rosatom:
“There is no team that understands what it is doing and what is happening there. Because the key task was to try to steal something: Russia does this throughout Ukraine. So she wants to reorient the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in order to supply cheap electricity to the Crimean peninsula and the occupied territories. And to be able to minimize the costs they incur because of the occupation.”
Podolyak added that Rosatom wants to receive some kind of dividend as part of a short strategy. He urged the international community not to wait "until we get some kind of excess or Chernobyl 2.0" and preventively end the history of Russia at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. This requires extremely tough statements by the relevant international institutions, he concluded.
On August 5, Russia fired at the Zaporozhye NPP several times from multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), in total three “arrivals” were recorded at the plant site. At the same time, the pro-Russian authorities of the occupied Energodar accused Ukraine of shelling the ZNPP. The Ukrainian "Energoatom" reported that after the strikes, emergency protection worked, and called what was happening "nuclear terrorism by Russia."
The Insider's sources at the ZNPP reported suspicious activity of Russian soldiers on the territory of the station. The publication also has a video at its disposal, in which Russian military trucks drive into the territory of the nuclear power plant and unload some kind of cargo. According to this source, the machine room was mined. According to another source, about 500 Russian soldiers and military equipment, including armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft guns and equipment for radiochemical reconnaissance, are on the territory of the station, and the area around the station is mined by Russian troops.
Energoatom claimed that the Russian military was forcing ZNPP employees to drain the cooling pools. According to the agency, a provocation was being prepared: the Russians intend to accuse Ukrainian nuclear scientists of storing weapons on the territory of the station. To do this, they detained several workers and tortured them to confess that, allegedly back in March, they dropped some kind of weapon – explosives or shells – into the concrete bowls of the cooling pools at the ZNPP. In July, Andrei Goncharuk, a ZNPP hydroshop diver , died after being tortured by the Russian military, “forcing him to come up with a justification for the need to drain the cooling pools.”