At least 1,000 Russian soldiers are currently in the area and in Energodar, where the population has gone from 53,000 to “about 15,000” in a year, according to the municipal leader.
Although he has lived in Zaporizhia, located 120 kilometers from Energodar, since April 2022, Orlov says he maintains regular contact with the inhabitants who remain in the city.
Lack of staff
“Most of the occupation troops are based in the power plant, because they feel safe there,” says the mayor.
The number of workers at the plant has fallen from 11,000 before the invasion to 6,500 today, Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom told AFP.
Thousands of employees have fled to kyiv-controlled territories, and among those who have stayed, some 2,600 have agreed to “collaborate with the aggressor,” according to Energoatom.
“There is a real personnel problem, which has an impact on security,” says Orlov, according to whom the workers are under “pressure” from the Russians and forced to work with reduced staff and without vacations.
The plant, which previously produced 20% of Ukraine’s electricity, continued to function for the first months of the invasion, despite bombing, before being completely stopped in September.
Since then, none of its six VVER-1000 reactors, dating from Soviet times, have produced electricity, but the facility remains connected to the Ukrainian power system and consumes electricity produced by it for its own needs.
“The occupiers tried for several months to connect it to the Russian electrical system, but were unsuccessful, says the mayor.
According to the Energoatom press service, “the Russians are unable to restart even one reactor, because the high-voltage lines are damaged.”
negotiate demilitarization
Although Moscow has sent, according to Energoatom, nuclear specialists to the plant, “their skills are not enough to organize real work.”
And the stoppage of the nuclear power plant implies a “gradual degradation of all systems and their equipment,” warns the Ukrainian nuclear operator.
It is also concerned about the “risk of a nuclear accident” if the last power line linking the plant to the Ukrainian energy system breaks.
It is also concerned about the “risk of a nuclear accident” if the last power line linking the plant to the Ukrainian energy system breaks.
In a note published on Wednesday, the US think tank Institute for the Study of War considered that Moscow could “try to deter a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive” in the south of the country “by intensifying threats against the Zaporiya plant.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deployed observers to the plant in September and is trying to negotiate its demilitarization, but the process does not appear to be advancing.
IAEA director Rafael Grossi of Argentina announced Thursday on Twitter that he had completed a new rotation of experts, accompanying his message with a video showing observers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests walking around a destroyed bridge to reach to the center.
“The fact that they are there is already something,” considers Orlov, who says he has high hopes for the OEIA negotiations with Moscow.
“For obvious reasons, no one will demilitarize or end the occupation of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant with military means.”
