Two power-plant employees in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region were killed in separate drone attacks on Monday, November 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency said, in the latest deadly incidents affecting staff at Europe's largest nuclear power plant.
The agency said it had been informed that one employee of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was killed in a drone attack on Monday. Separately on the same day, an employee of the nearby Zaporizhzhia Thermal Power Plant was also killed by a drone.
Director General Rafael Grossi strongly condemned the strikes, calling them unacceptable attacks that violate the indispensable pillars of nuclear safety, and said attacks on nuclear facility staff must stop. The agency did not say which side carried out the attacks.
The deaths follow the killing of another plant employee, a welder, in a drone attack on October 29 — the second Zaporizhzhia nuclear worker killed in under two weeks. The plant, in Enerhodar in southern Ukraine, is Europe's largest nuclear power plant, and IAEA monitors have maintained a presence at the site since September 2022.
The day before the killings, the plant lost its sole 330-kilovolt external power line for about ten hours, forcing reliance on emergency diesel generators before supply was restored on November 8.