In October 2022, the Ukrainian military tried to recapture the Zaporizhzhia NPP occupied by the Russian military.
Source. The Times writes about this with reference to representatives of the Ukrainian special forces, intelligence and navy.
As the newspaper found out, on the night of October 19, about 600 Ukrainian soldiers on 30 armored boats armed with heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers tried to land on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
"The idea was that it would be an infantry-only battle. They (the Russians) would not be able to use artillery against us because it is a nuclear power plant," said one of the newspaper's sources.
However, they faced resistance from the Russian military at the power plant. "The Russians built a very dense defense, mined everything. When we were approaching, they even brought tanks and artillery and started firing at us directly on the water," the source said.
Nevertheless, a small group of Ukrainian soldiers managed to reach the shore, they started a firefight with the Russians, but retreated after three hours.
This failed assault was first reported by a collaborator, a representative of the occupation "administration" of Zaporizhzhia region, Volodymyr Rogov, on October 19. The attempted assault was also confirmed by the Russian Defense Ministry. But Kyiv has never recognized the attack, the newspaper writes.
At the same time, according to the president of the Ukrainian state enterprise Energoatom, Petro Kotin, despite the strategic importance of the facility, the Russian occupation was poorly disciplined, chaotic and dangerous.
"They do whatever they want, whenever it occurs to them. For example, one group starts repairing the line that connects the ZNPP to the Ukrainian power grid, and then another group shoots at it," he said in an interview with the publication.
Background. The day before, it was reported that the situation at ZNPP was becoming increasingly tense: Russians kidnapped four more employees of the plant.