The chief engineer of the Zaporizhzhia NPP (ZAPP) controlled by Russian forces, Alexander Yakovlev, died on the spot after his official car was attacked by a drone. The news was officially announced by the head of the Russian state corporation “Rosatom“ Alexey Likhachev. The driver of the vehicle, Dmitry Filippov, was also killed in the strike, carried out on the border between the industrial site of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the city of Energodar.
According to Likhachev, the attack was carried out by an unmanned aerial vehicle of the Ukrainian armed forces, aimed directly at the car of the senior cadre. The head of “Rosatom“ described the incident as a “terrorist act“ and stressed that the lack of a firm response from Western countries to such events further escalates tensions around the nuclear facility. It is added that the political leadership of the Russian Federation has already been informed of the case.
The sharp position of the IAEA and the international community
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi categorically condemned the incident. An official statement by the UN nuclear regulator on the social network X states that the organization was officially informed by the Russian Federation about the death of the chief engineer.
Grossi defined the case as an “unacceptable attack on the plant and its management“, which undermines the main pillars of security. The head of the IAEA appealed for an immediate cessation of any military actions against or near nuclear facilities, as well as against their personnel. However, the organization's position does not directly attribute blame to a specific country for the attack.
For her part, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, stated on her Telegram profile that what happened was a “crime of the Kiev regime“. She called on international institutions, and especially the IAEA, to issue a clear and specific statement condemning the murder of the technical expert.
Chronology of the escalation in Energodar
The incident occurred in the context of increased fighting around the city of Energodar, where most of the Zaporizhzhia NPP personnel live. According to the plant's management, in recent days alone a number of strikes have been registered that affected civilian infrastructure, in which employees and subcontractors were injured. The nuclear safety situation at the site remains extremely unstable, and a few days ago the plant suffered another outage of external power supply, forcing it to switch to emergency diesel generators to cool the reactors.
At the moment, there is no comment from the official authorities and the armed forces of Ukraine regarding Moscow's accusations of the liquidation of Alexander Yakovlev. The Ukrainian side has repeatedly stated in the past that the only real source of risk to the security of the largest nuclear power plant on the continent remains the presence of Russian military units and equipment on its territory.