Russian equipment makes strikes on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant seem as though coming from Nikopol

KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO – SATURDAY, 13 AUGUST 2022, 17:10

Russian occupying forces have placed several artillery systems on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). They are using these systems to fire on the power plant, while making it seem as though the shells come from Nikopol.

Source: Anonymous ZNPP engineer in an interview for BBC News Ukraine

Quote from the ZNPP engineer: "There is an area on the territory of the plant where heavy metal structures, such as new steam generators, are stored. That’s where the Russian artillery systems are currently placed; they are shelling the ZNPP while making it seem as though it is being hit from Nikopol.

I have personally seen the shelling being carried out from this particular area, I saw the projectile being launched and I saw it land. No more than three seconds passed between the launch and the strike. Each of the ZNPP workers saw and heard it. Each of them even knows where [the projectiles] are coming from and where they’re going."

Details: The anonymous ZNPP worker believes that such shelling does not endanger the power plant’s critical facilities because Rosatom representatives have closely studied the plant’s layout and are helping adjust the Russian forces’ fire, "they tell them where to aim so that it’s loud but not dangerous". [Rosatom is the Russian state nuclear energy corporation that has been overseeing the ZNPP since it was captured by the Russian forces - ed.]

However, the engineer believes that the fact that the Russians are targeting the power lines connecting the ZNPP with Ukraine’s power grid is, in fact, a potential source of danger. The Russians, meanwhile, claim that the attacks on the power lines are carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Quote from the ZNPP engineer: "The effects of such shelling are not that critical for Ukraine in general, but could be fatal for the ZNPP…We need at least one power unit to work, regardless of which power grid it’s connected to. First of all, this means we’ll have an opportunity to get the other power units working at some point. Second of all, this is a must to prevent a potential nuclear disaster.

They know it. But what are they doing? They continue damaging the high-voltage power lines, which connect the ZNPP with Ukraine’s power grid. Meanwhile, they keep saying that ‘if the neo-Nazis from the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroy your last power line, we can offer you help’.

What would their ‘help’ entail? They’ll let us ‘connect’ the ZNPP to the Russian-controlled grid via Melitopol and Dzhankoy. If we suddenly ‘hit the zero’, meaning that a blackout occurs, we will need to get power from the ‘outside’ to be able to operate the pumps that cool the spent nuclear fuel.

So the Russians are deliberately creating the conditions for a blackout to occur so that they can ‘help’ us. Right now, this appears to be a pretty plausible scenario. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow, they will have destroyed the last power line."

More details: The ZNPP engineer believes that an accident at the ZNPP will be more similar to that at Japan’s Fukushima power plant than to the Chornobyl disaster.

"The Fukushima disaster occurred because the earthquake and the tsunami interfered with the [nuclear] reactor’s cooling process. As a result, a steam explosion occurred in an active area, destroying confinement, the hermetic area around the reactor. Radioactive substances leaked. This scenario may as well occur at the ZNPP, but not due to a natural disaster. It will be caused by Russian shelling," he said.

He also said that only about a tenth of the entire power plant’s staff are currently working there. "Almost half of the staff left in the last couple of weeks, since the beginning of the [Russian] attacks," he explained.

Background:

• Later, Russians used MLRS to hit the ZNPP; the projectiles hit the area next to one of the units where the nuclear reactor is located.
• On 6 August, Russian occupiers launched missiles, hitting Enerhodar and the ZNPP site, directly next to the plant’s and the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel.
• At the UN Security Council session on 11 August, the US indicated that in order to guarantee the ZNPP safety, Russian troops should be withdrawn from that area and let the IAEA experts work there.
• Serhiy Kyslytsia, Ukraine’s permanent representative in the UN stated that Russia has to let the IAEA-led mission visit the ZNPP, clear the ZNPP facilities of landmines and withdraw the troops and weapons from the plant’s premises. 
• But Vasiliy Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative in the UN did not support the offer about creating the demilitarised zone around the ZNPP. 

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