MELITOPOL, July 20. /TASS/. The staff of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, who question the decisions of the company's management due to the differences between Russian and Ukrainian nuclear industry legislation, are free to leave the region and work at Ukrainian plants, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom, told TASS on Thursday.

The Ukrainian company Energoatom, which used to operate the plant, said earlier that 30 employees of the plant allegedly refused to restart ZNPP’s fourth reactor, citing Ukrainian regulations.

"If they value the Ukrainian regulator's license so much, no one is holding them back," Karchaa said. "Let them go to any nuclear plant in Ukraine with this license and let them continue working there."

"We are talking about three or four employees. The essence of their dissenting opinion is the fear of losing the license of the Ukrainian regulator. ZNPP is located on the territory of the Russian Federation and is the property of the Russian Federation with all the consequences that follow," he went on to say.

Karchaa noted that the ZNPP employees in question did not resign, but expressed their personal opinion on the situation.

"Any decision of the operator organization that has received the sanction of the Russian nuclear regulator will be executed. This applies not only to Reactor 4, but to ZNPP as a whole," he said. "There is no shortage of nuclear specialists in the Russian nuclear power industry."

Data compiled by TASS indicates that as of May 2023, about 4,000 ZNPP employees had signed contracts with the Russian operator of the plant, and another 400 applications for employment were under consideration.