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Russia plans to move around 2,700 Ukrainian staff from Europe’s largest nuclear plant, the Ukrainian atomic energy company claimed Wednesday, warning of a potential “catastrophic lack of qualified personnel” at the Zaporizhzhia facility in Russian-controlled southern Ukraine.
Workers who signed work contracts with Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom after Moscow seized the Zaporizhzhia plant early in the war will be brought to Russia along with their families, Energoatom said in a Telegram post.
Energoatom did not specify whether employees would be forced out of the plant or could not immediately verify Energoatom’s claims about Moscow’s plans.
Cutting staff would “accelerate the already very rapid problem” of labor shortages, Energoatom said.
Evacuation order
The governor of the region attached to Moscow ordered the evacuation of civilians from the area last Saturday, including from the nearby town of Enerhodar, where most of the factory workers live. The full scope of the evacuation order is unclear.
The fighting near the plant has fueled fears of a disaster like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and released deadly radiation, devastating large areas in the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the 10 largest nuclear plants in the world. While the six reactors have been shut down for months, they still need power and qualified staff to operate critical cooling systems and other safety features.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region are stepping up their push to evacuate local residents, including families of workers at the factory, in response to Ukrainian counterattacks, Kyiv officials said.
Moved to southern Russia
Military analysts said Ukraine could focus its counterattack on the Zaporizhzhia region, trying to split Russian forces in two by driving to the Azov Sea coast in the south.
Relatives of Zaporizhzhia plant staff who agreed to move were taken to Russia’s southern Rostov region and placed in a temporary camp, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
It said that factory employees are now prohibited from leaving Enerhodar. He did not mention the Russian plan called Energoatom.
The Ukrainian National Resistance Center, which says it runs and coordinates Ukrainian partisan movements in areas controlled by Russian forces, said officials stationed in Zaporizhzhia were closing schools, preparing buses and appointing officials to oversee the evacuation process.
He said the process mostly targets children.
The International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him and Russia’s children’s ombudsperson of personal responsibility for the abduction of a minor from Ukraine.
At the time, Ukraine’s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, said that 16,226 Ukrainian children had been forcibly taken to Russia, citing data from Ukraine’s National Information Bureau.
‘Serious compromise’
After taking over in Zaporizhzhia, the Russians left Ukrainian staff to maintain the factory, but the number of workers currently at the factory is unknown. The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ questions about staffing levels.
However, the IAEA said that after the Russian army attacked the plant after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the low level of staff “seriously compromises” one of the fundamental factors in nuclear safety and security, which is that “operating staff must be able to fulfill their safety and security duties and have the capacity to make decisions without undue pressure.”
The IAEA has sent some staff to Zaporizhzhia to ensure its safety.
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