ENERGODAR /Zaporozhye Region/, June 1. /TASS/. The Kiev regime and the Ukrainian military have made employees of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant the main target of strikes, attempting to destabilize the situation and cause psychological exhaustion through these attacks, ZNPP Director Yury Chernichuk told TASS.
"Speaking specifically about the Zaporozhye plant, the enemy is trying to destabilize the situation there, to sow chaos and panic. <…> By and large, the people here are the enemy’s main target and greatest asset, because the facility’s security depends on them," Chernichuk said. According to him, attacks on transport carrying nuclear plant workers, on the plant’s infrastructure, and on Energodar, where the families of ZNPP employees live, are intended to cause psychological pressure.
Over the past month, Ukrainian forces have significantly intensified shelling in the area surrounding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and its satellite city of Energodar. On May 31, the Ukrainian military once again struck the plant’s transport depot, destroying six buses and two minibuses. No staff members were injured. The plant said attacks on buses transporting employees across the city have been recorded on multiple previous occasions, noting that this creates additional risks to the stable operation of the plant and poses a threat to employee safety. On the same day, strikes hit a maternity hospital, a boxing school, residential buildings, gas stations, and the Energodar city administration building.
On May 30, a Ukrainian fiber-optic combat drone struck the machine hall of Power Unit No. 6 at the plant. A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency documented the damage. The site of the strike is located just a few meters from the reactor.