The news around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Complex is not getting better. From The NY Times:
Russia, trying to pin down Ukraine’s forces to blunt a counteroffensive in Kherson, has been firing shells from near a nuclear plants it occupies.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — The main front in Russia’s military onslaught on Ukraine appears to have shifted dangerously to the south of the country, risking a catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and setting up a possible make-or-break struggle for an important regional capital seized by Russia at the start of its invasion.
...With fighting raging around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station and the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, around 60 miles down the Dnipro River from the nuclear plant, the south is now where both Russia and Ukraine are focusing their firepower — and their hopes of avoiding a stalemate that could drag on for years.
...Over the weekend, Russia used territory around the nuclear power station, which it seized from Ukraine in March, as a staging ground for attacks on Ukrainian positions. It unleashed a barrage of howitzer fire on the nearby Ukrainian-held town of Nikopol, local officials said.
The intensifying battles around the power plant, which have sent residents in the area fleeing and stirred alarm of a radiation risk far beyond Ukraine, came as Russian forces in Kherson faced encirclement by the Ukrainian military.
….In a Saturday night address to his country, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Moscow of “nuclear blackmail” and warned Russian soldiers at the Zaporizhzhia plant that they had become “a special target” for Ukraine’s special services and military.
But the Ukrainian military has said it has limited options. It worries that if its forces fire back at the Russians, they might hit the sprawling Zaporizhzhia facility, the first active nuclear power plant in a combat zone.
There are obvious risks to returning fire at Russian positions in the middle of a nuclear reactor complex. The situation is causing international alarm and calls for demilitarizing the zone. While Russian forces occupy the complex, it is still being operated by Ukrainian workers, who are increasingly stressed and worried for their families.
Previous posts I’ve written on Zaporizhzhia:
As Ukrainian forces increase pressure on Russian forces concentrated at Kherson, Russia is using the nuclear complex to try to divert Ukraine’s attention. To repeat an earlier report on what might happen if Russia believes it will be forced to withdraw from the complex, From the Brussels Times:
Russian forces are threatening to deliberately blow up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, stating that the site is already wired with explosives, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear power station operator.
...Faced with a potential Ukrainian offence against Zaporizhzhia and pushes into the greater Kherson region, Energoatom states that the Russian general in charge of the garrison of the nuclear power plant had made direct threats to cause a major nuclear incident at the site.
“There will either be Russian land, or a scorched desert,” Major General Valery Vasiliev is reported to have told his troops.
Energoatom claims that Ukrainian intelligence services are aware of the fact that Russian forces had rigged the site of the nuclear power plant with explosives.
“As you know, we mined all the important objects of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. And we do not hide this from the enemy,” the occupying Russian general is quoted as saying. “We warned them. The enemy knows that the plant will be either Russian or nobody's.”
The NY Times report places this in context with the situation around Kherson.
...The precarious position of the Russian troops in Kherson, who were largely cut off from their main source of supplies after Ukraine wrecked the last of four bridges across the Dnipro, has led to speculation about their fate.
Some reports on Saturday said Russian commanders had already retreated from the city. A regional legislator, Serhiy Khlan, told Ukrainian television on Sunday that Russia is moving its Kherson command center across the Dnipro to more secure territory on the eastern bank.
...An all-out offensive on Kherson, long threatened by Ukraine but so far limited to attacks on nearby villages and warnings to Russian troops stationed there, has made Moscow particularly eager to hang on to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant up the Dnipro River to the northeast.
Its objective is to pin down Ukrainian troops and prevent them from joining any battle for Kherson, the first major city seized by Russia at the start of the war, and shells fired from the direction of the nuclear facility have streaked into a small nearby town held by Ukraine across a reservoir on the Dnipro.
Kos wrote up a Sunday 8-14 update on Kherson that provides a larger look at what is happening there:
Russia continues to flood forces into the Kherson area in response to Ukraine’s repeated declarations that it is just this close from launching its long-expected counter-offensive to retake its land. The whole situation continues to have the feel of a trap as Ukraine systematically eliminates ammunition depots and supply routes into the region.
...Only two bridges connect Kherson and all that red territory to the north of the Dnipro river. The Antonovsky bridge near Kherson (which remains inoperable), and the bridge at Nova Kakhovka. This is why the betrayal at the beginning of the war was so painful—all Ukraine had to do was blow both bridges and Russia would’ve never been able to take Kherson. Local government officials conspired with Russians to sabotage the city’s defense, and countless lives have been lost as a result, and countless more will do so in the months ahead.
Ukraine has also begun hitting the two bridges connecting Crimea (the purple at the bottom of the map) with Kherson oblast. Cutting off Melitopol from the south will be critical to retaking that city. Russia can barge some supplies across the Dnipro, as well as helicopter stuff over, but their insatiable artillery can’t be fed by barges and aircraft. And Ukraine’s degradation of Russia’s air defenses means Ukrainian aircraft can better engage moving target—those barges and supply helicopters.
The upshot is that tensions are rising in that part of Ukraine as both sides maneuver for position and try to consolidate what they have at the moment. This is leading to intensifying artillery attacks around Zaporizhzhia and people fleeing the area.
All in all, the danger of a catastrophic event at the nuclear complex is rising.
...Which makes this video all the more bizarre. According to Polygraph, it is not a parody: Time to move to Russia.
...a pro-Russian Telegram channel called Signal took credit for producing the video. Signal first published it July 25 on YouTubewith the hashtags “Russia,” “gas,” “sanctions” and linked to its 700,000-subscriber Telegram channel. Signal later described how the embassy posts boosted views.
UPDATE: According to apteryx2 in comments, there are reports that Russia is deliberately firing shells into the compound to A) make it look like Ukraine is putting the power plant at risk, and B) knock out equipment that connects power from the plant to the parts of the grid that is under Ukrainian control. There are also reports about brutalities committed against the workers at the plant.
Again, this is the kind of story that is difficult to confirm, so take it with a grain of salt.