Business Analyst - August 9

Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Russia using Zaporizhzhia nuclear
power plant as army base — Ukraine
ruSSIAn forces occupying
the Zaporizhzhia nuclear
power plant have turned the
site into a military base to
launch attacks against
ukrainian positions, the head of
ukraine's nuclear power company says.
Petro Kotin told the BBC the threat to
the plant was "great", but that it
remained safe.
For days, ukraine and russia have
blamed each other for attacks on the site,
Europe's largest nuclear plant, raising
concerns of a major accident.
the complex has been under russian
occupation since early March, although
ukrainian technicians still operate it.
over the weekend, ukraine accused
russian forces of attacking the Soviet-era
site, saying two workers were taken to
hospital with shrapnel injuries and that
three radiation sensors had been
damaged.
Mr Kotin, who heads Enerhoatom,
said 500 russian soldiers were at the
plant, and that they had positioned
rocket launchers in the area, claims that
cannot be independently verified.
"they [russian forces] use it [the
power plant] like a shield against the
ukrainian forces, because nobody from
ukraine is going to do something," Mr
Kotin said.
"the ukrainian Armed Forces know
that these are ukrainian personnel and
this is a ukrainian plant and there are
ukrainian people [there] so we aren't
going to kill our people, our staff and
damage our infrastructure."
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is
the largest in Europe
the plant's staff, Mr
Kotin said, were working
under pressure and in
danger, and some had been
captured, beaten and
tortured.
He said russia's plans
were to disconnect the
plant from ukraine's grid
and eventually connect it
to russia's system.
oleksandr Sayuk, the
mayor of nikopol, which
sits on the opposite side of
the Dnipro river, told the
BBC last week that his city
was under russian
shelling "almost every
night", and that the attacks
were being carried out by
forces at the nuclear plant.
the tensions have led
to growing calls for
international inspectors to
be allowed to visit the site.
the un Secretary
General, Antonio Guterres,
said "any attack [on] a
nuclear plant is a suicidal thing", while
ukrainian President volodymyr Zelensky
described russia's actions as "nuclear
terrorism".
"there is no such nation in the world
that could feel safe when a terrorist state
fires at a nuclear plant," Mr Zelensky said
in his nightly address on Sunday.
russia, however, denied the
accusations, and blamed the ukrainian
forces for the attacks. the country's
defence ministry said a high-voltage
power line had been damaged as a result
of the shelling.
the Institute for the Study of War, a
Washington-based think-tank, said last
week that russia was using the plant to
play on Western fears of a nuclear
disaster, "likely in an effort to degrade
Western will to provide military support"
to ukraine.