Zaporozhye power plant management has accused Kiev of seeking to intimidate its staff<\/p>\n
A Ukrainian drone strike has killed a worker while he was traveling to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the Russian facility\u2019s management reported on Friday morning.
\nThe statement described Thursday\u2019s attack as \u201cbarbarism\u201d and part of a \u201chunt\u201d targeting plant personnel.
\n\u201cStrikes such as this one not only affect particular people. They are designed to intimidate plant workers, seed panic and tensions among those who ensure the atomic site operates safely every day,\u201d it said.
\nRussia\u2019s nuclear energy agency Rosatom mourned the death of the worker, who was employed as a welder and was traveling to work on an e-scooter when he was targeted.
\nThe incident was first reported on Thursday by Maksim Pukhov, the mayor of the city of Energodar, near which the Zaporozhye NPP is located. He identified the victim as a man in his early 40s but did not mention his connection to the plant.<\/p>\n
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West risks falling for Kiev\u2019s \u2018nuclear terrorism\u2019 \u2013 Moscow<\/p>\n
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) condemned the incident, saying any attack on the facility is \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d and urging \u201cmaximum military restraint\u201d around the Zaporozhye plant.
\nMoscow has repeatedly criticized the UN nuclear watchdog for failing to explicitly blame Ukraine for attacks on Europe\u2019s largest nuclear power plant, including strikes targeting its personnel.
\nRosatom head Aleksey Likhachev told an IAEA conference in September that 20 people, including nine plant employees, had been killed since Ukrainian forces intensified drone and artillery strikes against the facility in late April.
\nAmong the victims were chief engineer Aleksandr Yakovlev and driver Dmitry Filippov, who were killed in July when a drone struck a car carrying the senior employee.
\nRussian management took control of the Zaporozhye NPP in 2022. Residents of Zaporozhye Region voted to join Russia in a referendum later that year, which Kiev rejected as a \u201csham\u201d vote. The IAEA established a permanent on-site observer mission at the plant in September 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zaporozhye power plant management has accused Kiev of seeking to intimidate its staff A Ukrainian drone strike has killed a worker while he was traveling to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t