General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, visited the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant for "information exchange" on possible scenarios and risks at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the General Staff of the Armed Forces informed on July 3.
Accompanied by Chief of Staff Serhii Shaptala, Zaluzhnyi met the head of the state-owned atomic energy company Energoatom Petro Kotin and the Rivne plant director Pavlo Kovtoniuk, the report said.
The officials shared experience between the military and the energy industry and agreed on close cooperation in order to "respond to certain situations in a timely manner."
President Volodymyr Zelensky also visited the Rivne plant on July 1 to discuss regional safety measures, the President's Office reported.
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, one of Ukraine's four nuclear power stations, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022.
Citing intelligence reports, Zelensky announced on June 20 that Moscow is considering a terrorist attack at the plant to cause a radiation leak.
Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of military intelligence, also told New Statesman on June 23 that Russia had completed preparations for a potential terror attack at the plant.
On July 1, Zelensky told Spanish journalists that another possibility was that Russian forces could return control of the plant back to Ukraine after having mined it, only to blow it up remotely.
The exiled mayor of the nearby city of Enerhodar Dmytro Orlov said on July 2 that around 100 employees of Russian nuclear monopoly Rosatom left the occupied plant, as well as several Ukrainian collaborators.
Dinara Khalilova
(Updated: )
