Until two days ago, Dmytro was in charge of the electrical installations at the Zaporizhia power plant in southern Ukraine before fleeing. On this site – the largest in Europe – controlled by Russian forces for three months, he describes an atmosphere of general surveillance, paranoia with arrests and disappearances of employees who threaten the security of the structure. He listed nearly 500 of them: “If the pressure continues and if people disappear or are forced to leave, who will take care of the reactors?”
“The military, they don’t know how to do it. And the engineers who remain are forced to think about their survival.”
Dmytro, responsible for electrical installationsat franceinfo
“When the administration of the power plant demands accountability for an engineer kidnapped, the Russians answer: ‘Do you have any questions for him? No, because we do.’ In my opinion, it is very, very dangerous.”
Ukraine, through Energoatom, the Ukrainian operator of nuclear power plants, announced on Tuesday that it would oppose the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) coming to inspect the Zaporizhia site that it would be occupied by the Russian army. The government fears that the IAEA, whose management is made up of a quarter of Russians, will legitimize the occupation of the site. This would not facilitate the collection of information
Worried about the safety of the plant, the employees have also, since the start of the war, been faced with a lack of equipment. The parts are not always renewed and random checks. Olena was in charge of logistics. She left a fortnight ago what she now calls “the occupied territories”: “A simple example: light bulbs. We don’t have any. We don’t know where to buy them. Deliveries from the supplier have stopped. It’s the same situation for the rest of the equipment.”
“If we don’t pay attention to the maintenance and control of the structure, if something breaks down and if the repair is not done, obviously it’s complicated.”
Olena, Zaporizhia Logistics Managerat franceinfo
Dmytro and Olena point to a third malfunction. Rosatom, the Russian nuclear giant, and Energoatom in Ukraine do not have the same methods. There is, according to the two employees, a risk in changing a know-how proven for more than 30 years.