On the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the Russian school of UAV operators "Archangel", which also produces FPV drones, conducts training. Russia is doing it there, because it is forbidden for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to return fire in the one and a half kilometer zone around the ZNPP.
This is stated in the text of "Babel".
The launch sites were arranged near the sixth reactor of the station and near the personnel training center. The occupiers are also using the territory of the ZNPP cooling pond — from there, drones need to travel less than five kilometers to attack the Nikopol community in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Now the Russians do not allow the IAEA to reach the perimeter of the cooling pool, although they used to allow it.
The Arkhangel UAV operator school is financed and supervised by the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. Yevgeny Balytskyi, the head of the occupation administration of the Zaporizhzhia region, and the "volunteer" structures of Russia help in this.
According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence, the Russian occupiers began to use the ZNPP zone for training and "testing" of FPV operators in the summer of 2023.
At the beginning of April 2024, the IAEA stated that the Zaporizhzhya NPP was attacked at least three times by "unknown drones". Russian propaganda blamed Ukraine (earlier for the publication of the IAEA statement). The agency did not name the party that attacked. As a result of the impacts, the surveillance and communication equipment was damaged, the upper part of the dome of the sixth power unit was burnt — there was no significant damage.
- The ZNPP was occupied by the Russian military at the beginning of March 2022 and has been operating under their control since then. The station was completely disconnected from the power grid several times. From September 2022, the IAEA mission is stationed at the station. Ukraine insists on the withdrawal of the Russian occupiers from the station. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasizes that while Russian soldiers are at the ZNPP, "the world remains on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe." Russia refuses to create a demilitarized zone at the ZNPP.