Zaporozhye NPP’s chief engineer and his driver were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on Wednesday
Moscow is expecting an explicit response from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the killing of a senior engineer at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) by the Kiev regime, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been targeted by Ukraine on multiple occasions since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022. On Wednesday, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said a Ukrainian drone struck a ZNPP service vehicle on the edge of the plant’s industrial site near the city of Energodar, killing chief engineer Aleksandr Yakovlev and driver Dmitry Filippov.
Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev described the strike as a “deliberate terrorist act” by the “Kiev regime,” saying Yakovlev had devoted his life to the nuclear industry and “died, in essence, at his post.” Likhachev added that similar attacks over the past two and a half months had killed 13 people and wounded 48 others, warning they pose a “real threat of a massive nuclear incident” affecting parts of Russia, Ukraine and the EU.
Reacting to the attack, Zakharova said it should finally compel IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to acknowledge the “crime of the Kiev regime” and issue a clear public statement. Grossi “is obliged at last to see this crime,” she said, adding that Moscow expects the agency to deliver an unequivocal condemnation.
Later on Wednesday, the IAEA said on X that Russia had informed it of the killings and that Grossi had condemned the incident, calling it an “unacceptable attack on the plant and its management” that “seriously threatens nuclear safety.” The agency reiterated its call for an “immediate end to all attacks on or near nuclear sites and their staff.”
Russia has repeatedly urged the IAEA to respond more forcefully to Ukrainian attacks on the plant. Likhachev has previously warned that “radiation knows no borders and does not recognize passports,” arguing that any nuclear incident would pose a long-term threat to multiple countries.
In recent months, Kiev has also increasingly targeted infrastructure linked to the plant and the nearby city of Energodar, according to Russian officials. Kindergartens, schools, roads, transport enterprises and vehicles delivering supplies to the local community have all come under attack, Moscow has said.
The IAEA, which maintains a permanent team of experts at the ZNPP, has repeatedly confirmed that the plant and its surroundings have come under attack, but has not assigned responsibility for the strikes.
The ZNPP has been operated by Rosatom since the autumn of 2022, after the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, along with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, voted in referendums to join Russia. Moscow has argued that attacks on the plant and its personnel constitute not only acts of terrorism but also a direct challenge to international nuclear safety norms that the IAEA cannot afford to ignore.
