KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia intends to relocate around 3,100 Ukrainian personnel from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Ukrainian nuclear power company claimed on Wednesday, warning of a possible “catastrophic shortage of qualified personnel” at the Zaporizhia plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine.
Workers who signed labor contracts with various subsidiaries of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency after Moscow seized the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant earlier in the war are the bulk of those to be taken to Russia along with their families, Energoatom said in a Telegram post.
Energoatom did not say whether the employees would be forcibly evicted from the plant. Nor was it immediately possible to verify Energoatom’s claims about Moscow’s plan.
The job cuts would “exacerbate the already extremely urgent problem” of staff shortages, said Energoatom.
In Wednesday’s fighting, Ukrainian forces advanced as much as two kilometers (about a mile) near Bakhmut, the town that has been the focus of intense fighting for about eight months, said the commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The claim could not be immediately confirmed, but the chief of Russia’s private army, Wagner, who led the heavy attack on Bakhmut, said his forces were considering retreating due to insufficient ammunition.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had previously complained that Russia was not providing its fighters with sufficient supplies, saying in the Telegram on Wednesday: “I demand ammunition to save the lives of the fighters and to put pressure on Bakhmut,” of which it was only about 100% gives 5% is still occupied by the enemy.”
An Energoatom representative contacted by phone told The Associated Press that the evacuation plan for the Zaporizhia plant, known to employees, affected about half of the plant’s 6,000 employees and was based on fears of a counter-offensive by Ukraine in the region.
Some factory workers are already being relocated deeper into Russian-controlled territory and are being housed in the resort towns of Berdyansk and Kyrylivka on the Azov Sea coast, the person said, on condition that he remain anonymous for security reasons.
Before the war, around 11,000 people were employed at the plant. About 500 Russian soldiers are stationed at the site, while at least 1,500 others are stationed in the nearby town of Enerhodar, the Ergoatom representative said.
The Russians have laid minefields and set up defensive positions around the plant, the person said.
The Moscow-installed governor of the region last Saturday ordered the evacuation of civilians from the region, including Enerhodar. The full scope of the evacuation order was unclear.
Fighting near the nuclear power plant has stoked fears of a possible disaster like that at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 spewing deadly radiation, polluting a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
On Wednesday, the town of Nikopol, which is across from the power plant, was attacked by artillery and drones, damaging an industrial facility, said Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Zaporizhia is one of the ten largest nuclear power plants in the world. Though the six reactors have been shut down for months, the company still needs power and qualified personnel to operate critical cooling systems and other safety functions.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the Zaporizhia region are stepping up efforts to relocate local residents, including families of workers at the plant, in anticipation of an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, Kyiv officials said.
Military analysts believe that Ukraine could focus its counteroffensive on the Zaporizhia region and attempt to split Russian forces in two by advancing to the Azov Sea coast to the south.
Relatives of employees at the Zaporizhia plant who agreed to be relocated were taken to Russia’s southern Rostov region and placed in makeshift camps, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
It added that workers at the plant are currently barred from leaving Enerhodar. The alleged Russian plan referred to by Energoatom was not mentioned.
The National Center of Resistance of Ukraine, which says it directs and coordinates Ukrainian partisan movements in Russian-held territory, reports that Russian-deployed officers in Zaporizhia are closing schools, preparing buses and appointing officials to oversee the evacuation process.
They claim that the process mainly targets children.
In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him and the Russian Ombudsperson for Children of personal responsibility for the kidnapping of minors from Ukraine.
At the time, Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said that 16,226 Ukrainian children had been forcibly taken to Russia, citing data from the National Information Office of Ukraine.
After taking over Zaporizhia, the Russians kept Ukrainian staff to keep the plant running. However, the exact number of workers currently employed at the plant is not known. The UN’s nuclear regulator, the International Atomic Energy Agency, did not immediately respond to an AP request about staffing levels.
However, shortly after Russian troops overran the facility after invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the IAEA stated that the understaffing had “seriously jeopardized” one of the fundamental factors of nuclear safety, namely that “the operational staff are capable to be able to fulfill their safety and security responsibilities and to be able to make decisions without undue pressure.”
The IAEA has dispatched a handful of staff to Zaporizhia to ensure security.
Both sides, meanwhile, continued their long-range drone strikes.
Ukraine has targeted two Russian regions near the border, their governors claimed. A Ukrainian drone exploded overnight in a village in the Belgorod region, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the border, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Residential buildings, a library and a post office were damaged, he said, without naming victims.
Also, the head of the neighboring Kursk region reported that a Ukrainian drone was shot down near the provincial capital, also known as Kursk.
According to Kiev officials, Russian forces have continued to fire exploding drones into Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainian General Staff said that air defenses shot down six Russian drones in the last 24 hours, including three Iranian-made ones.
The Institute for the Study of War said that “Russian forces may be attempting to launch an almost daily series of rocket attacks to present themselves as hampering potential upcoming Ukrainian counter-offensives.”
The Washington-based think tank added that “the reduced effectiveness of the attacks is unlikely to significantly limit Ukrainian actions.”
The US announced on Tuesday that it would provide Ukraine with an additional $1.2 billion in long-term military aid to further strengthen its air defenses against Russian drones, missiles and surface-to-air missiles.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
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