Russian intelligence services torture workers at the occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant to force them not to tell UN inspectors anything about security risks at the plant.

This was told The Telegraph by people who either work at a power plant or have recently fled amid growing fear of a repeat of the Chernobyl disaster.. IAEA inspectors will arrive to check the state of safety at ZNPP in the coming days. The head of the international organization Rafael Grossi and the director of the state Russian company Rosatom agreed on this in Istanbul on Wednesday. After the meeting, Rosatom announced that it would organize an IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye NPP " And that the safety of nuclear facilities is “the highest priority for Russia”.

But ZNPP workers, on condition of anonymity, told The Telegraph that there is an atmosphere of fear at the station.. And their colleagues were repeatedly arrested.

“We are alarmed by the possible visit of representatives of the IAEA. Because the Russians will stage provocations and then blame Ukraine for this. Looks like that's what they're planning to do,"

" During the IAEA visit, they plan to minimize the presence of our personnel and put several of their representatives in each room of the control center, who will shout loudly that they were waiting for the “liberation” from the regime in Kyiv,” he added..

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An employee of the ZNPP, whose identity the Telegraph journalists were able to confirm, but did not disclose, said that many of his colleagues were arrested at home or on their way to work..

“Now I understand that their army is weak, but the FSB is working. One of their methods here is to take the employees of the control center “to the basement”,” the engineer said, using a constant phrase meaning detention and torture by the security services..

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“Our leadership is silent about this so as not to create a panic. But people come back from those basement conversations and don't say a word at all. It will not be a surprise if during the visit of the mission they suddenly start saying what they were told, ”the source explained to The Telegraph..

Three eyewitnesses who worked at the ZNPP but recently escaped said the Russian military had reduced the number of workers at the plant to a dangerously small number and also restricted movement, making it difficult to get the job done.. Regular exercises were canceled on the orders of Russian commanders who wanted to reduce the number of civilians on the station.. Also, the interlocutors of the British publication said that the ZNPP cooling tanks were mined. Perhaps the Russian soldiers did it for defense reasons..

“It feels like we are in a maximum security prison with constant psychological pressure, without any contact with the families, because they cut all communication lines and banned mobile phones.. We can't monitor the station's active equipment because they've banned people from moving around the area at night.. They placed their equipment in the turbine halls and forbade the passage. This led to constant conflicts between workers and soldiers of Russia,” said a ZNPP worker.

Each power unit of the Zaporozhye power plant has a turbine hall. Recently, a video was circulated on the network of Russian military trucks driving into a structure that looks like a warehouse.. According to a ZNPP worker, this video was filmed in power unit No. 2.

Some disappeared for two weeks.

Each of the eyewitnesses interviewed by The Telegraph confirmed the presence of Russian military equipment at the ZNPP, including infantry fighting vehicles, Tiger military jeeps and Pion self-propelled howitzers, which are among the heaviest artillery mounts in Russia's arsenal.. One of the interlocutors said that the power plant has become a convenient base from which one can “go out at night and shell Manganets or Nikopol”, located on the other side of the Dnieper.

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ZNPP workers were arrested at the gates of the station when they came to their shift or they were seized right at home. Some of them disappeared for two weeks. One former power plant employee who recently moved to Zaporozhye said he decided to flee Energodar after representatives of the occupying " No one was forced. However, according to the source of The Telegraph, there was an atmosphere of embarrassment and fear when everyone turned down the offer to take Russian passports.. He decided to flee to Zaporozhye before he was also called for a conversation.. A fugitive from Energodar said he waited until the weekend to try to move to Kyiv-controlled territory. And he hasn't shown up for work since..

“There is a place at the station where spent nuclear fuel is stored.. There, parts of the rockets are stuck in the roof. Rashists took a photo themselves and tried to claim that these were Ukrainian missiles. But everyone who works there knows that they flew in from the city, from Energodar. You can determine this by the trajectory,” said a former worker of ZNPP.

Those who still work at the power plant told The Telegraph that the Russians want to shut down the reactors and disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian grid.. But so far they have not been able to do this due to technical problems and security threats.. Even with the station's reactors turned off, electricity is required for cooling systems. In case of an emergency, the ZNPP has diesel generators that can power the cooling systems for 72 hours.

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An engineer working at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant said that Russian representatives are trying to find coal to start a nearby thermal power plant and thus generate the electricity needed for cooling.. But damaged lines near Melitopol complicate those efforts..

The Ukrainian engineer said that he and his colleagues are going to stay at the ZNPP to keep it running safely despite the threat of going to the " When asked by British journalists whether the " If they say anything unnecessarily, they may endanger their families or relatives.”.

“That is why crowds of people flee from Energodar every day. Only my colleagues and I stay to prevent a repeat of Chernobyl or Fukushima. And I am sure that we can do it,” said the ZNPP worker..