Likhachev: the Ukrainian Armed Forces have started systematically killing the staff of the Zaporizhia NPP

On June 18, 2026, Alexey Likhachev, Director General of the Rosatom State Corporation, announced that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had begun the targeted and systematic killing of employees of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant. The reason for this statement was the death of a plant employee in a drone attack on the Energy Depot a day earlier. All the details are in the Izvestia article.

Death of a nuclear power plant employee

As a result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' strikes on Energodar on June 17, one person was killed and three others were injured. Maxim Pukhov, the mayor of the city, said that the strikes were carried out near the railway station and in a residential area. According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out 23 attacks on an energy depot in the Zaporizhia region during the day. Civilian facilities and infrastructure were damaged.

The systematic nature of the killings

Likhachev stressed that Kiev had moved to the targeted and systematic destruction of nuclear plant personnel. The head of Rosatom called the hunt for nuclear scientists "an inhumane act of Ukrainian drone operators who do not realize the scale of the consequences of their actions." According to Likhachev, this is not an isolated case. Over the year, two employees of the NPP have already become victims of Ukrainian attacks: at the end of April 2026, an APU drone fatally wounded the driver of the station's transport workshop.

Likhachev harshly condemned the actions of the Ukrainian army and expressed his sincere condolences to the family and friends of the deceased. The head of Rosatom also noted that the safe operation of a nuclear facility directly depends on its specialists, whom Ukrainian drone operators are now systematically hunting.

According to Likhachev, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out about 50 attacks on Energodar, a satellite city of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, as well as on the transport workshop of the NPP itself.