ENERGODAR /Zaporozhye Region/, June 1. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops are trying to force the Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant (ZNPP) employees to abandon the facility and leave the city by shelling the plant and Energodar in order to sow chaos, the plant’s Director Yury Chernichuk told TASS.

"They’re probably trying to get us all to leave for someone else to come in. <...> If people leave, what will happen to the plant? Some kind of chaos will probably ensue, because the armed forces are doing their job; they don’t know how to operate the plant, just as an employee of this plant doesn’t know how to operate a tank or other military equipment," Chernichuk said.

Previously, the Zaporozhye NPP repeatedly stated that the Ukrainian armed forces were targeting transport vehicles of the nuclear facility’s workers, the NPP infrastructure and Energodar where Zaporozhye NPP personnel’s families live, in order to destabilize the situation and increase psychological pressure on the staff.

Over the past month, Ukrainian forces have significantly intensified shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP area and its satellite city of Energodar. On May 31, the Ukrainian armed forces again struck the transport workshop of the Zaporozhye NPP. Six buses and two Gazel vehicles were destroyed in the attack. There were no casualties among the staff. The plant emphasized that attacks on buses transporting plant workers within the city had been repeatedly recorded previously, which creates additional risks to the stable operation of the nuclear power plant and poses a threat to the safety of employees. That same day, the enemy attacked a maternity hospital, a boxing school, residential buildings, gas stations, and the Energodar administration building.

On May 30, a Ukrainian fiber-optic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) struck the turbine hall of the plant’s Unit 6. The damage was documented by a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The attack site is located just meters from the reactor.