The Russians are terrorizing ZNPP workers. “Kidnapped, interrogated and tortured”

Russian security forces continue to abduct, interrogate and torture workers at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, despite the presence of IAEA inspectors there.

Despite the presence of IAEA inspectors at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, Russia continues to abduct, interrogate and torture plant employees. According to the Ukrainian “Energoatom”, more than 200 people have already been abducted — some of them have been deported to Ukrainian territory, others are being held for ransom, and the fate of many remains unknown. There is no exact number of employees remaining at the station. It is known that before the arrival of the invaders, about 11,000 people worked there. Now, according to various estimates, there are three times less of them.

ZNPP: why do the Russians terrorize the station’s staff?

The occupiers are experiencing an acute shortage of workers, and this may explain the new wave of repression against personnel. The Russian military is trying to forcefully detain Ukrainian personnel and prevent people from leaving the territory controlled by Kyiv, because Russia denies staffing problems at the NPP. Experts are sure that the occupying power cannot manage the ZNPP without Ukrainian personnel, so the station has become a burden for them, the publication writes.

The Russians are forming and handing over to the command and control checkpoint the lists of non-exiting employees of the NPP. First of all, this concerns managers of various levels, whose presence at the facility is critical for the operation of the station. Olga Kosharna, an independent expert in the field of atomic energy, a former member of the Board of the State Nuclear Regulation Inspection of Ukraine, told the publication that some employees are forced to sign contracts by threatening to take family members hostage.

“A middle-level female manager approached me. She was in despair. She couldn’t leave, she has a wheelchair-bound child. She is on the lists, her husband also works at the ZNPP. She was told straight away – if you don’t sign, we will take her husband “to the basement “The woman decided not to go to work,” says Olga Kosharna.

Cellars and “a hole”: where ZNPP workers are tortured?

The expression “take them to the basement” has taken root among the residents of Energodar, since the kidnapped are most often taken to the basement for interrogation and torture. There, workers are beaten, their palms are shot, they are tortured with electric shocks, their nails are pulled out, and they are doused with water.

“My acquaintance, the head of the block shift, did not sign the contract at the end of November. He sat at home for a week. Then they came for him, took him away. They tortured him. They tore his tendons. Then they let him go,” says Olga Kosharna.

One of the most terrifying places known in Energodar is the so-called “Hole” or “Pit”, which the occupiers set up in the basement on the territory of the permanent deployment of the National Guard of Ukraine in military unit 3042.

The “hole” is located approximately one and a half kilometers from the reactors. Those released say that one of the divisions of the FSB deals with detentions and torture. Employees are beaten, shot through the palms, tortured with electric current.

The chairman urged all parents not to give their children to the occupiers. The Russian invaders plan to take up to 2,000 children from the temporarily occupied territories to Moscow – as if for the Christmas tree. This was announced by the chairman of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov.

“Now the occupiers are trying to collect approximately one and a half to two thousand children from the temporarily occupied territory and, under the guise of New Year’s holidays, take them, as it were, to the New Year’s tree in Moscow. But we well remember September, when the Rashists collected children from Energodar, Kamianka-Dniprovska and, as it were, took them them for a week, and they returned it in two months,” Fedorov said.

The chairman called on all parents who remain in the occupation not to give their children to the occupiers.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian troops have killed 450 children in Ukraine and injured 864 children.

This is reported by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“More than 1,314 children were injured in Ukraine as a result of the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation. As of the morning of December 22, 2022, the official number of child victims per day has not changed – 450. The number of injured has increased – 864,” the message reads.

It is emphasized that the specified numbers are not final, as work is ongoing to establish them in places of active hostilities, in temporarily occupied and liberated territories.

According to the OGP, the most children were affected in Donetsk oblast — 428, Kharkiv oblast — 267, Kyiv oblast — 117, Mykolaiv oblast — 80, Zaporizhia oblast — 78, Kherson oblast — 74, Chernihiv oblast — 68, Luhansk oblast — 65, Dnipropetrovsk oblast — 34.

In particular, on December 21, a 10-year-old boy was wounded as a result of enemy shelling in the town of Ochakiv, Mykolaiv region.

Russian troops damaged 3,126 educational institutions in Ukraine by bombing and shelling, 337 of them were completely destroyed.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war of disappearances, 332 children are considered missing in Ukraine.