Ukraine’s state nuclear energy firm Energoatom said on Tuesday that a deputy director of the nuclear power plant at the country’s illegally seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility has been abducted by Russian soldiers and is currently being held in an undisclosed location. Valeriy Martynyuk, an official, was taken into custody on Monday, according to a post by Energoatom on the messaging app Telegram. In response to a request for comment, the Russian defence ministry was unavailable right away.
Energoatom urged Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to take ‘all necessary measures’ to assist in Martynyuk’s release. An inquiry for comment from the IAEA was not immediately answered. The Kremlin stated that Grossi and Putin were scheduled to meet on Tuesday. Ihor Murashov, the plant’s former director, was detained on October 1; the event happened after that. On October 3, Grossi declared Murashov’s release, and the IAEA declared that he would not resume his responsibilities as the plant’s director.
The facility, which is the biggest nuclear reactor in Europe, was taken by Russia in the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian employees continue to run it today. The plant’s management would be taken over by Russian specialists, according to plans made public last week, but Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, opposed the idea. Kotin named himself the plant’s director and declared that decisions about its management would be made in Kiev.
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