Ukrainian employees of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant are threatened with being sent to fight on the side of Russia if they refuse to sign documents on transfer to work in Rosatom. This was reported to the BBC Russian Service by several sources in the field of Ukrainian nuclear energy.
Today, October 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the “acceptance of the ZNPP facilities into federal ownership”. According to the information in the document, it will be operated by JSC "Operating Organization of Zaporozhye NPP", registered on October 3.
ZNPP was occupied by the Russian military at the very beginning of the war. Since then, employees of Rosatom have also been there. The work of the station all this time is provided by Ukrainian personnel. The media have repeatedly written that Ukrainian employees are being tortured.
Sources of the BBC Russian Service claim that at the moment Rosatom employees are trying to force Ukrainian personnel to sign documents on transfer to work in a Russian corporation. They do this under the threat of being sent to the front – the employees are threatened that they will be sent to fight on the side of Russia.
According to these data, now there are 10-20 employees of Rosatom at the station at the same time, they change each other. At the same time, Rosatom does not want to remove Ukrainians from work – the training of new employees will take up to 8-10 years.
The Ukrainian authorities have not yet commented on Vladimir Putin's decree. The Ukrainian "Energoatom" announced that the ZNPP will continue to work in Ukraine, in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, in the Ukrainian energy system.
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi wrote on Twitter that he had traveled to Kiev to discuss the nuclear safety zone around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. After that, his visit to Moscow is planned .
On September 6, the IAEA published a report on the state of the station after completing the inspection at the ZNPP. It states that all seven nuclear safety rules have been violated at the ZNPP and there is a risk of a "nuclear incident" if the shelling does not stop. Later in September, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution demanding that Russia end its occupation of the ZNPP in Ukraine and withdraw its troops from the station.