The Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) continues to be in a high-risk zone. Potential restoration of the plant will require a long time and considerable efforts.
This is reported by Novini.LIVE with reference to the comment of Ekaterina Shavanova, a biologist and senior researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Power Plant Safety Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
According to her, the facility is mined and the Russian occupation forces are putting pressure on the plant's employees, including the use of torture. The scientist emphasizes that the longer the station remains under the control of the invaders, the more efforts will be needed to restore it.
Ekaterina Shavanova noted that for more than three years the station has not actually been properly maintained.
"There is a shortage of personnel, the personnel who work there are under wild pressure, there are no repairs that should be, there is no Kakhovka reservoir, it is destroyed, and it also affected. Also the Russians made such pits to underground water. There is no documentary evidence of how and what they did. The area is mined, the facility is mined. There will not be some kind of radiation accident there, but it should be understood that a huge nuclear power plant is brought to failure," the expert said.
In her opinion, the return of the station under Ukrainian control will be only the first step - restoration work may drag on for years.
"This is the main risk. It will take 5-10 years. That is, imagine how much time it takes to survey at least for mine clearance of these territories. Just to make it safe for people to come in, to make repairs, to decide whether we restore the Kakhovka reservoir or not, how it will be further. When ZNPP will be back under our control, our specialists will come in, then it will be possible to understand concretely", - Shavanova added.
