Hundreds of people walked out on Sunday in the central Ukrainian town of Enerhodar to protest the detention of its deputy mayor, Ivan Ignatevich Samoydyuk.
Enerhodar – which is close to the Zaporizhzia nuclear power plant that was occupied by Russian forces on March 4 – has seen sporadic protests since then.
There appeared to be fights with Russian soldiers around a vehicle, followed by bursts of gunfire into the air.
Samoydyk’s son – also called Ivan – told the CNN that “about 30 minutes after the start of the demonstration, a military vehicle with five or six Russian soldiers arrived. They tried to detain two people, but the residents reacted and did not allow that to happen.”
He also stated: “Immediately after that, an armored vehicle accompanied by several dozen armed Russian soldiers arrived at the rally site to disperse the demonstration.”
Samoydyk told CNN that on Saturday (19) “during a phone call with one of his subordinates, my father said he was being stopped by the Russian military”.
“After that, the connection with my father disappeared. We don’t know where he is now, there were no demands from the kidnappers either.”
The young Samoydyk added: “The big problem is that my father is responsible for the livelihood of the city”, including providing food for the operational staff of the Zaporizhzia factory.
“The staff at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is extremely concerned about the events taking place in the city and does not know if it is safe for them to go to their shifts, if they are in danger of disappearing at any moment in the same way as they did. to my father,” Samoydyk told CNN.
City
Enerhodar is a city in southern Ukraine, located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, near the Kakhovka Reservoir. The city was founded on June 12, 1970 to serve the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest power plant in Europe. In addition to the nuclear power plant, the other major employer in the region is the coal-fired power plant, owned by the Ukrainian company DTEK.
Ukraine has four active nuclear power plants: Zaporizhzhia, Rivne, Khmelnytsky and South-Ukraine. In total, the four nuclear plants have 15 reactors, six of which are located in Zaporizhzhia. The 15 nuclear reactors are responsible for half of the energy the country produces.
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I remain seriously concerned. It is the first time that a military conflict has taken place next to the facilities of a major nuclear energy program, which in this case also includes the site of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. And he left the warning: “The safety of nuclear facilities in Ukraine must not, under any circumstances, be threatened.”
Russia announced that it already had control of the Ukrainian city since Tuesday (1st), information denied by the Mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, published on social media the information that the city was resisting Russian advances.
Defense
To defend Enerhodar, the town closest to Zaporizhzhia, residents built barricades, trenches and blocked roads. In the images you can even see children trying to stop the Russian army from advancing.
Among the measures, the population used sandbags in an attempt to protect an emergency hospital in the city and allow professionals in the emergency unit and medical care to provide health services.
Before the clashes that sparked the fire near the plant, residents of the city also set up a care center, where food and clothing for both civilians and members of the Ukrainian forces were selected and distributed.
Source: CNN Brasil
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