According to Ukraine, Russia has instructed its employees at the captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility not to report to work today.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s primary military intelligence agency, stated that employees of the Russian state nuclear business Rosatom have been asked not to report to work on Friday, fueling concerns that they are organizing a “large-scale provocation” at the plant.
The warning was issued late on Thursday, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Volodymyr Zelensky in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to discuss, among other things, the safety of the Zaporizhzhia facility.
On his first visit to Ukraine since the outbreak of hostilities, President Erdogan stated that he is “worried” about the situation there and added, “We don’t want another Chernobyl.”
Guterres, who has demanded that independent UN inspectors be granted access to the plant to assess its safety, stated that any attack on the facility would be tantamount to “suicide.”
He stated, “We must tell it like it is: any potential harm to Zaporizhzhia is suicidal.”
There is a significant likelihood of a large-scale terrorist attack at the nuclear station, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence, which cited the presence of a large quantity of weapons on the nuclear plant’s property as well as continuous provocative shelling.
Zaporizhzhia, which contains six nuclear reactors, is the largest nuclear station in Europe and accounts for almost one-fifth of Ukraine’s yearly energy consumption.
It is situated on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, which divides Ukraine in two, near to Crimea.
Since the beginning of the war, when forces seized control following a brief but terrifying fighting that put an administration building on fire, the territory has been occupied by Russia.
The situation has been tense but stable for several months, but has escalated in recent weeks as Ukraine strives to drive Russia out of the south.
Multiple explosions have been recorded around the site, with both Russia and Ukraine blaming the other of responsibility.
Kyiv asserts that Russia has converted the facility into a military installation by placing explosives around the reactors to protect them from attack.
Ukraine adds that Moscow’s forces are attempting to isolate the power plant from the main electricity grid and reroute the energy to the occupied region of Crimea.
They argue that this is risky because disconnecting the station from the main grid will force its reactor cooling system to run on diesel generators, which have limited power.
In addition, they accuse Russian troops of triggering explosions in the vicinity of the facility as part of a “false flag” operation that they can blame on Ukraine.
According to Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, the Russian commander in charge of the plant has instructed his soldiers to be prepared to detonate it if Ukraine attempts to retake it.
Moscow has dismissed these claims, stating that the Ukrainians are the ones bombing the plant in an attempt to blame Russia for any fallout.
Zelensky has asked the United Nations to secure the plant’s security while also condemning Russia for ‘deliberate’ attacks on the facility.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Russia’s seizure of the plant as a “serious threat” and demanded a Russian pullout and inspections by the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
Thursday, emergency personnel in Zaporizhzhia, a city that shares its name with the plant but is 30 miles distant and under Ukrainian authority, began practicing their response to a crisis at the plant.
Volunteers masquerading as irradiated patients were hosed down by men and women wearing full-body protection suites, gas masks, gloves, and rubber boots.
They were also transported on gurneys through a supermarket parking lot and through a medical tent on stretchers secured to a conveyor belt.
In the case of a nuclear meltdown at the Zaporizhizhya facility, the parking lot would serve as a receiving center for thousands of people caught in the early fallout.
Russia is over six months into a conflict in Ukraine that was expected to last only a few days in order to overthrow the government and install a puppet administration in Kyiv.
It has failed to achieve this objective, as well as the more modest ambition of seizing the entire eastern Donbas region.
Luhansk, one of the two provinces that comprise the Donbas, is now under Russian control, although Donetsk has only been seized in part.
Putin’s forces have conquered the city of Mariupol, the whole Azov Sea coastline, and have created a ‘land bridge’ between occupied Donbas and occupied Crimea in southern Ukraine, which may be Russia’s greatest military victory to date.
To reverse these advantages, Ukraine has declared a strong counter-offensive in the south, with the objective of recapturing Kherson, a strategically significant city on the Dnipro River, and finally driving the Russians out of Crimea.
Ukraine has thus far been successful in severing Russian supply lines by destroying bridges and rail lines, and has also attacked two airfields in Crimea, limiting Russia’s capacity to provide air support for its troops.
However, Kyiv’s forces have struggled to recapture any major area, while Russia has strengthened its defensive positions to make them more difficult to conquer.