Ukraine accuses Russia of detaining two employees at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
This morning, Ukraine accused Russia of detaining two employees at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is militarily occupied by Moscow. Thursday, “The Russian army broke into the premises where the facility’s Department of Social Programs is located and, in the presence of other employees, violently beat the head of the department, Oleksiy Trubenkov, and his deputy, Yuriy Androsov.”lamented the nuclear operator Energoatom in a press release published on Telegram. “After this violent beating”Russians “brought them out and took them in an unknown direction”condemned Energoatom.
The plant’s head of nuclear safety, Konstantin Beiner, was also “thrown in the basement” but according to the same source is not detained by Russian forces.
Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom has accused Moscow soldiers, who have occupied the site since early March, of “getting lost and becoming real policemen and jailers”, “intensify repression” employees. “We once again call on the Director General of the IAEA [Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique]Rafael Grossi and the entire international community for sparing no effort and taking all possible measures to free the workers.” of the central Russians, they concluded. It is not the first time that Kiev has accused Moscow of abusing Ukrainian personnel at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. In late September, its director general was arrested by Russian forces before being released a few days later.
For months, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of bombing around the Zaporizhia power plant, not far from the front line, raising fears of a major accident. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia has placed 500 soldiers at the site. Calls by the IAEA and the international community to demilitarize the site have been multiplied without success so far.
