Ukraine's head of the country's nuclear power industry said Russian forces had tortured staff at Europe's largest nuclear plant, located in Ukraine, to force them to keep the facility in operation.
Petro Kotin, head of the Ukrainian company that operates Europe’s biggest nuclear facility, said he hopes international inspectors will visit the nuclear plant soon.
"There are negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with the United Nations on their support of this mission, and I think within ten days they will be on-site," Kotinsaid.
A report in Ukraine said that Russian troops were arresting Ukrainian staff of the plant and putting them in "the basement." The report said that when the people who go to the basement or cellar and then come back up after "conversations," they "don't say a word at all."
As Financial Times reported, officials in Ukraine have been stressing the risks involved with the Russian occupation of the nuclear plant. Zaporizhzhia's reactors are designed to withstand the impact of an aircraft, but fighting and shelling could threaten to disrupt the operation of the plant's vital water cooling systems, which would increase the likelihood of a meltdown.
Zaporizhzhia is situated in an area outside of the southern Ukraine town of Energodar and is operated by Ukrainian employees who are overseen by Russian troops along with representatives from Rosatom, a Russian state-owned nuclear company, FT reported.
