Russia is gradually reducing the number of personnel at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southern Ukraine, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Friday.
“According to the latest data, the occupation contingent is gradually leaving the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the main directorate of intelligence at the defence ministry (GUR) said on the Telegram messaging app.
GUR said that among the first to leave the nuclear power station were three employees of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom who had been “in charge of the Russians’ activities”, Reuters reports.
It said Ukrainian employees who had signed a contract with Rosatom had also been advised to depart. Employees should leave by 5 July, it said, and had been told to preferably head for the Crimea peninsula, which Russia illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014.
GUR said the number of military patrols was also gradually decreasing on the plant’s vast territory and in the nearby city of Enerhodar, and that personnel remaining at the plant had been told to blame Ukraine “in case of any emergency situations”.
Russian authorities declined to comment on the claims when approached by Reuters.
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