Rosatom Is Complicit in Tortures of Zaporizhzhia NPP Employees

On September 19, the Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform (Kyiv) presented the study “Nuclear prison: how Rosatom turned Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a torture chamber and how the world can stop it” by Truth Hounds team of documentarians and investigators of international crimes at Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Roman Avramenko, Truth Hounds Executive Director, said that Truth Hounds has been investigating war crimes for 9 years. “We talk only with eyewitnesses. This report included the accounts of 14 eyewitnesses of war crimes committed at ZNPP. It is actually quite a lot. As a result of interviewing these witnesses, we were able to identify at least 30 victims (ZNPP employees) who survived the tortures. Some of them are still on the occupied territory,” – said Roman.

The ZNPP employees were taken from their apartments, sometimes from their workplaces to the torture chamber where they were severely beaten, tortured with electric shocks, strangulations and then taken to the forest and forced to dig their own graves. Such actions were aimed at signing a contract with rosatom and further cooperation with the occupation authorities.

The rosatom is a transnational corporation which is sufficiently integrated into the international relations in the field of nuclear law and represented in 54 countries. Collecting the evidence on the war crimes of rosatom means that in future this company will pay compensations and that its funds will be withdrawn from the international assets. The researchers note that not only russia as separate country should bear responsibility for the war crimes, but also, russian business, in particular, rosatom.

Oleksandra Romantsova, Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties, emphasized that rosatom representatives at ZNPP not only don’t care about the safety of the employees, but also initiate the abductions: they identify those who remain pro-Ukrainian and name them to FSB representatives. “The math just doesn’t work here. People who, under stressful, terrible conditions, hazards and lack of personnel, save the whole world from the huge potential nuclear disaster are the most valuable human capital of this nuclear power plant”, – she said.

Dmytro Koval, Legal Director of the Truth Hounds, informed that one of the recommendations made in this report is the introduction of sanctions against rosatom. “Now people understand that buying russian gas and oil means sponsoring the war and killing the Ukrainians. As for rosatom, everything is a little bit complicated. Cooperation with rosatom for other countries will be of no importance when alternatives appear – business, safety, fuel alternatives, etc. With such tortures and inhumane treatment, rosatom violates world standards on safety of nuclear facilities, in particular, not creating proper working conditions for ZNPP personnel”, said Truth Hounds Legal Director.

Unfortunately, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which representatives are at ZNPP, takes into account only physical safety but should take into account the human rights in its assessments of the situation at the nuclear facility. That is why, when the journalists asked the speakers on that who can force rosatom to stop torturing workers, they unanimously answered – the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Uatom.org website