Employees at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant warn of the risk of keeping the six reactors disconnected from the electricity grid
The nuclear threat hangs over the war in Ukraine and has a double face. On the one hand there is the possibility of using nuclear weapons, on the other hand there is a disaster in some nuclear power stations in conflict areas such as Zaporizhzhya, the largest factory in Europe. The Russians have occupied this facility since the early days of the invasion, and in recent hours fighting in the area has cut power. Although the six reactors have been shut down since 9/11, they require a steady supply of electricity to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent disasters. Now they are maintained thanks to emergency generators, as confirmed by Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear company, Energoatom, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iván closely follows everything that happens in what he calls “my factory” from the city of Zaporizhzhya, just 100 kilometers away, where he is temporarily staying like thousands and thousands of displaced people from the southern front of the country. He has been working there since 2017 as part of the special electrical maintenance team. With the arrival of the Russians, he was one of hundreds of workers who peacefully demonstrated to ask them to withdraw the army from the factory, and in June decided to escape as the Russians began arresting those who had mobilized. “I spent four months working every day in a factory surrounded by enemy soldiers. We had hardly any contact with them and within the facilities there is only a group of high-ranking engineers from Moscow, the rest of the staff that makes this possible is Ukrainian,” says Iván.
Before the war, about 10,000 people worked at the factory in Zaporizhia, but many of them had to flee after the occupation. At the gates of the factory is Energodar, the city founded in the late 1970s to house the factory’s staff, a common strategy in the former Soviet Union. Energoatom continues to pay workers’ wages, despite Vladimir Putin ordering it to take control of these facilities as part of his annexation decree for this region of southern Ukraine. “We don’t know what will happen next, who will pay the salaries… let alone what is going through Putin’s mind, so the situation is dangerous. Let’s hope someone reminds him of what happened in Chernobyl” , says Ivan.
Irina lives a few meters from the apartment Iván has rented on the outskirts of Zaporiya. She worked for ten years as a liaison for the Ministry of Emergency Situations and was quicker than her partner when it came to escaping because “since 2014 I have been part of the groups of volunteers who help the army, sooner or later they would come and arrest me. as they have already happened to others in the same situation. Although the plant does not produce any energy, Irina warns of the risk of being disconnected from the electricity grid, but believes that “Russia is pulling the strings for future negotiations. It is impossible to predict Putin’s plan, but he is not an idiot and he has lived through Chernobyl. I’m more inclined to use a nuclear weapon to show power, in this case I think there’s a 50% chance it will, but I don’t even want to think about a possible disaster in Zaporizhzhya.” said Irina. .
Irina, like Ivan, has one eye on the plant and the other on the explosion that took place on the Kerch Bridge. He cannot hide his joy, but he knows that “this is not going to sit well with Russia and it will react one way or another, you have to be prepared for anything.” Among the news broadcast by the Ukrainian Telegram channels, the great tool that citizens use to inform themselves, there is also the discovery of two hundred bodies in mass graves in the recently liberated city of Limán, in the Donetsk region, according to the military governor. Pavlo Kyrylenko. Limán joins Bucha on the blacklist of cities with mass graves during the enemy occupation.
The emergency generators have diesel for ten days, according to the Ukrainians. The IAEA has had two experts at the plant since September, and its director, Mariano Grossi, confirmed via Twitter that a first rotation has been completed and that four new inspectors have “arrived security and control experts to continue with this vital mission.” .” The goal of the international organization is to create a protection zone around the facilities and this is the main issue that Grossi hopes to agree with Moscow and Kiev, but has so far failed to achieve.
The factory workers who remain in the city of Zaporizhzhya look to the horizon and try to see Energodar, where many of their relatives have stayed. The reunion will have to wait until the end of the occupation.
Source: La Verdad
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