A Ukrainian drone strike killed an employee of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant at his home in southeastern Ukraine, the plant's Russian management said on Wednesday. He is the 15th plant employee to be killed since April amid frequent attacks in the area.
A statement issued by the plant's management said the employee was killed at home after finishing his shift. The worker lived in Enerhodar, the town beside the plant where many of its staff live, which has also come under frequent attack. The management said another worker was killed earlier this week, and that two people, including a female employee, were killed earlier in the month.
Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe's largest with six reactors, in the first weeks of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Each side has since regularly accused the other of military actions liable to endanger nuclear safety, and the plant and its surroundings have been hit repeatedly.
The head of Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said in July that the plant's chief engineer had been killed by a Ukrainian drone near the station. The latest death underlines the danger faced by the plant's civilian workforce, who continue to live and work beside the front line.
The plant produces no electricity, but it needs a constant external power supply to keep the fuel in its reactors cool, a requirement that has made the safety of the site a recurring concern as fighting continues around it.
The account of the strike comes from the plant's Russian management, which issued the statement on Wednesday. The killing comes as the war's diplomacy continues elsewhere: US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are due in Moscow on Thursday for talks with President Vladimir Putin, before meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Dublin on Thursday evening.
