Some Rosatom employees and collaborators leave ZNPP – Enerhodar mayor

Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said this in a comment to Ukrainian Radio, Ukrinform reports.

"As to the employees of the nuclear plant, it is true that some of the collaborators who signed contracts with Rosatom and held management positions in the fake company from Rosatom left the city... Also, some of the Rosatom personnel, who were brought from Russian nuclear power plants - there are not many of them, up to 100 specialists, left the city at the end of the previous week," Orlov said.

According to him, the invaders brought explosives to the ZNPP almost a year ago: they mined the perimeter of the plant, the entire shore of the Kakhovka Reservoir.

“Since the beginning of this year, the Russians began to mine in a chaotic mode, likely preparing for a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces, the territory around the perimeter of the city, agricultural fields. What they did with the Kakhovka HPP had a rather significant effect on the mood of those specialists who remain in the city of Enerhodar. They understand that the enemy can undertake any step, and the placement of trucks with explosives shows that the occupiers are preparing for any scenario. In fact, the Russians are using the nuclear plant as a lever of international influence to blackmail not only Ukraine, but also the whole world," said the mayor.

He noted that there are currently about 5,000-6,000 employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the city, who are actually hostages of the Russian army. The occupying "authorities" do not allow them to leave the city, and they are not allowed to work, because those who did not sign a contract with Rosatom had their passes blocked.

The Enerhodar mayor also said that in December 2022, the occupiers prohibited any evacuation of the city's residents through Vasylivka. For some time, people were able to evacuate through the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, but the ZNPP workers were not allowed in - the Russians had their lists.

As for the humanitarian component, since September, the occupiers have blocked any possibility of (delivering) humanitarian goods, in particular medicines, such as insulin, which is important for the life of some categories of citizens," the official stressed.

As Ukrinform reported, the Russians occupied the ZNPP on March 4, 2022.

On June 22, 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Russia's plans to carry out a terrorist attack at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov said that Ukraine is preparing for any scenario around the Zaporizhzhia NPP.