Russians steal money allocated for for Zaporizhzhia NPP’s workers

Representatives of the Russian Rosatom corporation, who are currently managing the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, are issuing fictitious documents using names of Ukrainian employees from the facility and stealing money allocated for them, Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) reported.

No financial reports are currently being made or submitted at the power plant. This means that money that was supposed to be used to pay the facility’s staff is being misappropriated by the occupying administration of the power plant and the Rosatom employees, according to a communiqué published on Thursday on the HUR website.

The Ukrainian service announced that a significant number of Russian soldiers, who had been stationed there since February, had left the power plant site, but around 500 military personnel, including 200 Chechens from the so-called Kadyrovtsy formation, are still on site.

“The main task of these [individuals] is to intimidate the facility’s personnel and induce [Ukrainian] workers to cooperate with the occupying power,” it was added.

The report also mentioned that around 300 mines, left intentionally by retreating aggressor troops, were found at the power plant site.

Almost year-long occupation

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, is located in the city of Enerhodar, in the Kremlin-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, which Russia is trying to break off from Ukraine.

The power plant has been occupied by the aggressor since March and the site has been as a result of this subjected to repeated shelling. The Ukrainian authorities raised the alarm that these are security-threatening Russian provocations.

Since Monday, the occupiers have banned all staff members refusing to sign contracts with Rosatom from entering the power plant.