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Europe’s largest nuclear plant is back in the spotlight amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. kyiv denounced that Moscow troops installed rocket launchers to carry out new attacks from there. According to Ukraine, the weapons are near one of the six reactors of the plant, located in the south of the invaded country.
Alarms are turned on again at the Zaporizhia nuclear plant.
The Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Generation Enterprise (Energoatom) said Russian troops installed multiple Grad rocket launchers near one of its six nuclear reactors. Fears are growing that the largest atomic power facility in Europe will be used as a base for firing on Ukrainian soil.
“The occupiers are preparing another provocation at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant,” Energoatom stressed.
Although the risk of a nuclear meltdown is greatly reduced because the reactors have been shut down, experts say a dangerous release of radiation is still possible.
The local nuclear company said the weapons were housed in new “protective structures” that the Russians secretly built, “violating all conditions of nuclear and radiological safety.”
Soviet-made multiple rocket launchers are capable of firing rockets at ranges of up to 40 kilometers, and Energoatom notes that they could strike targets as far as the opposite bank of the Dnieper River.
This is the river current where each side of the conflict continually accuses each other of shelling the nearby cities of Nikopol and Marhanets.
Precisely, these armed confrontations cut off the external power sources necessary to operate the cooling systems of the reactors and other security systems, which caused their closure.
Energoatom denounces the kidnapping of three workers at the Zaporizhia plant
In the last few hours, Energoatom also publicly denounced the kidnapping of three plant workers, in the midst of a “brutal beating” by the Moscow military.
According to the company, the soldiers broke into the place where the plant’s social program office is located and, “in the presence of other employees, They severely beat the head of the department, Oleksiy Trubenkov, and his deputy, Yuriy Androsov.”
They were later taken from the place with an unknown destination, the state company added in a statement. The events occurred on Thursday, December 8.
The atomic power station has been under Russian control since the first days of the invasion, ordered by Vladimir Putin on February 24, but has remained under the supervision of Ukrainian experts working at the site.
Zaporizhia, in the south of the invaded country and where the plant is located, is one of the four regions that the Kremlin annexed last September through disputed referendums, despite the fact that its troops do not control the entire province.
Russian opponent who denounced war crimes in Ukraine is sentenced to more than 8 years in prison
In other news, the Russian politician and opponent of the Putin government, Ilya Yashinwas sentenced to eight years and six months in prison by a court in his country, on charges of spreading “false information” about the Kremlin Army.
The man had denounced “war crimes” by Moscow troops on Ukrainian soil through a video posted on YouTube.
In the images, the politician referred to the findings in Bucha, a town on the outskirts of kyiv and one of the first liberated by the Ukrainian Army that witnessed the worst aberrations during the ongoing war.
Residents and several human rights organizations accused Russian troops of committing crimes there such as kidnapping, rape and torture during the time they occupied the place.
❗ A Moscow court has found prominent opposition politician Ilya Yashin guilty of spreading “fake” information about the military over his criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine.https://t.co/CudSK7Q4MI
—The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) December 9, 2022
The Russian Prosecutor’s Office considered that Yashin helped the “enemy”, as he usually refers to kyiv and the West, with his accusations.
The prosecution body also stated that the man defended an “anti-Russian” position. However, the defense maintains that the defendant cited information from both Western and local media and the war report of the Ministry of Defense on this matter.
An ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalni, who is serving nine years in prison, Yashin is one of the few politicians critical of the Kremlin who has not left his country since the war began and since last July has demanded that the persecution against him end. .
With Reuters, EFE and local media
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