Fears are growing over damage from Russian shelling to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and from purported Russian plans to redirect power from the plant to Russian-annexed Crimea.
Russian forces have occupied the nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, since early March.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has meanwhile pledged to win back Crimea, one day after several explosions hit a Russian airbase on the annexed peninsula and killed at least one person. Ukrainian officials have not claimed responsibility for the attack.
As Ukraine and Russia trade blame for shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, one former employee said the consequences could be catastrophic and that she is terrified for her former colleagues at the facility in the town of Enerhodar.
“The mood there is very sad. It is very scary for them to work,” Alyona, 37, told NBC News on Tuesday from the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is still under Ukrainian control.
NBC News isn’t revealing her last name because she still has family in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region under Russian rule and she fears repercussions. Also, her husband is in the Ukrainian army.
Alyona said she stopped going to work as an engineer at the nuclear plant after Russian forces seized it in March and escaped to Zaporizhzhia soon after.
She added that she is still able to call and exchange messages with some of her former co-workers at the plant, which was operated by around 11,000 people before the Russian invasion. The number of staff currently working there is unknown.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the European Union and the G-7 countries to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens.
“Russians overwhelmingly support the war on Ukraine. They must be deprived of the right to cross international borders until they learn to respect them,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told The Washington Post that the only way to stop Russia from annexing any more of Ukraine’s territory is for Western countries to ban all Russian citizens.
[Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html]