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Things were already touchy at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor complex in Ukraine. Then the sneaky and devious Russians decided to hide their heavy equipment inside the plant. Go ahead and shell us now, they taunt. They think flirting with a Chernobyl style disaster is sly.
Don’t shell near the reactor!
Fresh footage is making the social media rounds showing “Russian military vehicles inside a turbine hall connected to a nuclear reactor at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”
For the past couple weeks, plant workers have been expecting the place to go foom at any moment, after “intensified shelling,” CNN notes, “fueled fears of a nuclear disaster.”
Before they freaked everyone out, CNN “geolocated and confirmed the authenticity of the video, which began circulating on social media Thursday.”
Russian military vehicles are inside a turbine hall at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. They are located about 130 meters from the reactor. At least five vehicles – with one clearly marked with the pro-war symbol "Z" – are seen.https://t.co/LDUpeASLxB pic.twitter.com/w6ISdYtEUl
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 19, 2022
They admit they can’t tell when it was taken. Nobody can deny the video “shows one of the six turbine rooms located on the western side of the nuclear plant, located in the southeastern city of Enerhodar.” Each one of the turbine halls “is connected and built into a large building that houses a nuclear reactor.”
Experts are of the opinion that they “appear to be standard Russian military trucks.” They’re “sitting in the far western edge of the building on the ground floor, just over 400 feet from the reactor.”
There are at least five of the trucks, one has a big “Z” pro-Russian symbol emblazoned on it. More surprising are “at least two tent-like structures nearby.” Also, “there are a number of assorted pallets near the vehicles.” Nobody knows what’s on them.
Moscow denies everything
The Kremlin swears up and down the only equipment they have near the reactor complex is for “guard duty.”
On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense “claimed” that their satellite imagery, “shows that weapons, especially heavy ones, are not placed on the territory of this station.” Sure, the world says, we believe you.
Kyiv is singing a different tune. All along they’ve been accusing Vladimir Putin of “storing heavy weaponry inside the complex and using it as cover to launch attacks.” The dirty bleepards know that “Ukraine can’t return fire without risking hitting one of the plant’s reactors.” That would be one reactor too many.
At the same time, Moscow accuses Ukraine of “targeting the site.” It seems like they are trying to build some plausible deniability if the place does go “foom.”
Word leaked out through the chairman of Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, Petro Kotin, that Russia was stashing “14 units of heavy military equipment” in the “first power unit” and “six vehicles” in the “second engine room.”
Nobody has seen any of the known Russian military vehicles at the plant since July 24. It appears they have been found, sheltered by the reactor umbrella.
