Latest news on the war between Ukraine and Russia
Oct. 18 () –
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed on Tuesday the arrest of two workers at the Zaporizhia plant after the Ukrainian nuclear company denounced their alleged kidnapping.
“This is another worrying event that I sincerely hope will be resolved quickly,” said its director general, Rafael Grossi, in a statement in which, on the other hand, he welcomed the release of the deputy director general of the nuclear power plant , Valeri Martiniuk.
According to the Energoatom company, on October 17, “Russian nuclear terrorists” detained the head of the plant’s technology service, Oleg Kostyukov, and the deputy director general of the plant, Oleg Osheka. The brief statement published on Telegram underlines that they do not know both the status and the whereabouts of these two people.
In that same text, the company calls on the director of the IAEA, as well as the entire international community to intensify “all efforts” to achieve the release of these two people and allow them to return to their jobs.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has denounced Russia for these alleged practices. In this last month, the aforementioned Martiniuk was also kidnapped, as well as the general director, Igor Murashov, who was released on October 3, a few days after his arrest.
The news comes out shortly after Grossi himself highlighted that Russia and Ukraine have expressed their intention to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, one of the main scenarios in which this war has been fought since the Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of what he has dubbed a “special operation”.
The Zaporizhia plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, has been under Russian control since March 4. Both sides accuse each other of launching attacks on the surroundings and putting the security of the region at risk. At the end of August, a special IAEA mission began to learn about the state of the facilities and their workers.
