He was until now the deputy chief engineer of the plant, occupied by the Russian army, since March 2022. The Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom on Thursday accused the new Ukrainian director of the Zaporizhia plant, in the south of the country, named the day before by Russia, which appropriated the site, to be a “traitor“for agreeing to collaborate with Moscow.
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Yuri Tchernichuk has therefore worked all this year, at the head of the Ukrainian team, with 200 employees, today considered to be “in captivity” by their employer, Energoatom. But in a statement this week, the exact context of which is unknown, he said he had accepted the Russian offer to run the site.
“Hold on, don’t sell your soul to the devil!”
Is equivalent to “betray Ukraine“, and “to go over to the enemy”, denounces the director of the nuclear operator in Ukraine. He should have “do everything possible to free the plant as soon as possible”, but instead, he claims, Chernichuk helped the Russian army settle permanently in Zaporizhya. And the big Ukrainian boss is therefore appealing to his remaining employees: “Hold on, don’t sell your soul to the devil!”he begs them…
“Instead of doing everything possible to free the plant as soon as possible, he decided to help the Russian occupiers to legalize their criminal appropriation (of the site) and now encourages other employees to do so.“, thus regretted Petro Kotine, who warns that“he will sooner or later answer for all (his actions) before the law and before the people”.
For its part, the Russian nuclear operator, which has de facto control over the plant, affirms that the entire Ukrainian management team has signed new work contracts with the Russians of its own free will. A communication battle, one more, around this plant, which kyiv and Moscow have already accused each other of bombing for months.