Nine Russian soldiers were left wounded and an unknown number dead in an “incident” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to a Ukrainian mayor.
Dmytro Orlov, the apparently exiled former mayor of Energodar, provided only sparse details on his Telegram channel. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located in the city of Energodar and employs many of the town’s residents.
“Today, Energodar was shaken by the news that an event took place on the territory of the temporarily occupied Zaporozhye NPP, as a result of which the reactors were slightly physically reduced,” he wrote, adding that due to a large amount of speculation surrounding the situation, he will only say what he claims to know.
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“In the afternoon, 9 soldiers of the terrorist country were urgently delivered to the city hospital with injuries of varying degrees of severity,” Orlov said. “Some are treated on an outpatient basis, some are hospitalized. One of them in serious condition — in intensive care. There are also dead people, but we cannot name their exact number at the moment. We will not guess what caused the simultaneous ‘thinning’ of the ranks of the occupiers at the facility, which they seem to carefully ‘guard’. I think the competent services will say about this later.”
He added that the “orcs,” a Ukrainian slur for Russians, were sent into a panic, temporarily blocking the two shifts of operating personnel from replacing each other. At the conclusion of his message, he cryptically wrote, “The occupiers continue to look for enemies. And, perhaps, they are beginning to realize that the cynical shelling of neighboring settlements, conducted by them from the territory of the nuclear plant, will not pass without a trace for them.” Orlov remains the only source for the story so far.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant grabbed world headlines in early March when a firefight broke out between Russian and Ukrainian forces over its control, raising fears of a nuclear disaster, according to NPR. The plant has been occupied by Russian forces ever since, along with Energodar. The main Western source regarding events in the occupied town is the exiled mayor, who was replaced by a Russian-appointed mayor, Andrei Shevchik. Shevchik was wounded in May in an apparent assassination attempt from an improvised explosive device placed in an electric wiring box by the entrance of his home, according to TASS.
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The nuclear power plant has been shelled in recent weeks, according to TASS, although Ukrainian sources claim the shelling was provoked by Russian soldiers firing from the plant. The plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and formerly supplied one-quarter of Ukraine’s electricity. Russian officials now plan to use it to supply energy to Crimea, according to TASS.
