GUR: The Russians turned the Zaporizhzhia NPP into a military base — they set up weapons warehouses and placed equipment there

Russia has turned the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Energodar into a military base and placed kamikaze drone control points and weapons depots there.

The Main Intelligence Directorate (known as GUR) writes about this in Telegram.

According to intelligence, the Russians have placed military equipment in the engine rooms of the first, second, fifth, and sixth power units. The Russians have set up warehouses in the basements and shelters of ZNPP, and ammunition and military equipment are stored under technical passages that connect the power units with other buildings.

The Russians mined some technical buildings at the station near the shoreline of the former Kakhovka reservoir. The Russian Guard is also present on the territory of the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP — 1 500 soldiers.

Another problem at the station is power supply: before the occupation, Zaporizhzhia NPP had 10 external power supply lines, now only one power line is working. On July 3, the station had its 21st blackout since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

GUR added that the station does not have enough employees: out of the required 11 000, only 7.5 thousand work there, including 500 employees of an outsourcing company that does not have a license to perform work at the station.

Whatʼs happening with the Zaporizhzhia NPP now?

The Russians occupied the Zaporzhzhia NPP in early March 2022 and have been operating under their control since then. An IAEA mission has been at the station since September 2022. Ukraine insists on the withdrawal of the Russian occupiers from the station. Russia refuses to create a demilitarized zone at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

The Zaporizhzhia NPP has repeatedly lost external power supply due to hostilities near the plant. In such cases, it switched to backup diesel generators. The longest was the tenth blackout, which occurred due to Russian shelling and lasted a month — from September 23 to October 23, 2025.

On May 30, Rosatom announced that Ukrainian troops allegedly hit the machine room of unit No. 6 of the Zaporizhzhia NPP with a drone, a few meters from the reactor. The South group of troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that they did not hit the power unit. Among the evidence: Ukraine does not have fiber-optic drones that can reach the station and carry 5-6 kg of explosives. In addition, the Russians have set up a multi-level smoke screen around the station, and the drone would not have been able to fly through it unnoticed.

Following these accusations by Russia, IAEA conducted an inspection of the Zaporizhzhia NPP. Experts said that the outer part of the turbine housing and the metal hatch were damaged, and they also found several fragments and burnt remains of an optical cable. But IAEA did not specify who exactly the drone belonged to.

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