MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. Ukrainian saboteurs who planned to seize the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant were trained in the UK, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of the military-civilian administration of the Zaporozhye Region, said during a Rossiya-1 TV broadcast on Thursday.

"Not only did [they] study English <...> but underwent special training under the guidance of the British Secret Intelligence Service, the MI-6. After that they returned to Ukraine, <..>, through Warsaw, ending up in Odessa and from there, by the end of August, [they] arrived in the Dnepropetrovsk region, on the right bank of the Dnepr River, where they got ready and moved out to execute the criminal orders given to them," he said.

Rogov earlier told TASS that the Ukrainian saboteurs, according to preliminary information, were planning to carry out a terrorist attack at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, timing it to coincide with the visit by the IAEA’s fact-finding mission.

On the morning of September 1, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian troops attempted to disembark at 07:00 at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, near the Vodyanoe village. The landing was thwarted by Russia’s Armed Forces, when they sunk two self-propelled barges carrying saboteurs that departed from Nikopol.

Also, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, at 06:20 Moscow time, the Kiev regime carried out a landing by two Ukrainian sabotage groups with a total number of up to 60 people on seven speedboats on the coast of the Kakhovka reservoir, three kilometers north-east of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. The Defense Ministry reported that the Ukrainian servicemen were blocked by units of the Russian National Guard and the Russian Armed Forces.

The much-awaited IAEA mission has now arrived in Energodar and at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. The mission will assess the physical damage to the plant, determine the operability of the facility's security and safety systems. Specialists will also have to assess the working conditions of plant personnel and take urgent measures to ensure the safety of the facility.