The human rights activist recalled that the occupation of Energodar and the Zaporizhzhia NPP was a tragedy not only for the city but for the whole of Ukraine. For the first time in history, an operating nuclear power plant found itself in a war zone, and more than 11,000 of its employees effectively became hostages of the Russian occupation.
Russian troops turned the ZNPP into a military base, creating unprecedented risks of a nuclear disaster. Employees of the plant who refused to support the occupation and forced passportization were subjected to pressure, threats, and repression.
Today, there is much talk about the economic damage caused by the seizure of the ZNPP, but much less about the fate of at least 15 of its employees who paid for their loyalty to Ukraine with their freedom and found themselves in the hands of the occupiers.
“The story of one engineer from the ZNPP’s physical protection service is one such example. Oleksiy Brazhnyk lived in Energodar for more than 20 years. Recently, he worked at the ZNPP, where he was kidnapped by Russian occupiers on September 21, 2022, right at his workplace. Oleksiy sent his wife and two daughters to the territory controlled by Ukraine back in the spring of 2022. The occupiers searched and robbed the apartment, and took the man himself to the police station, where he was subjected to all kinds of torture,” – said Zarema Bariieva.
It is known that until February 2023, Oleksiy was held together with 16 other detainees in a cell designed for only four people. On February 10, when his friends came to the detention center to bring him food and necessary items, they were told that such a prisoner
On February 13, she saw a report on the Russian TV channel RIA Novosti, which was posted on the Russian Telegram channel “Zhduny Zaporizhzhia Region” about her husband and another ZNPP employee, Roman Matviyenko, who was arrested on January 12, 2023. In the report, the men were accused of passing information about the ZNPP to the Ukrainian side and destabilizing the situation, allegedly deporting them to the territory controlled by Ukraine. But to believe the Russian Federation is to disrespect yourself. As you understand, there was no deportation. Instead, the men were taken by the Russian military and used as live labor to build defensive structures. The family gathered all the information about Oleksiy bit by bit from people who met with him in various torture chambers, basements, or detention centers in the occupied territories of Ukraine and on the territory of the Russian Federation,” explained the manager of the CTRC.
According to Zarema Bariieva, a 54-year-old Oleksiy has serious health problems, including a stomach ulcer. Due to a lack of proper nutrition, he developed gastrointestinal bleeding. According to her, the occupiers suspected him of having tuberculosis, forced the men to undress, and threw them naked into a deep pit.
Later, according to the testimony of people released from captivity, it became known that Oleksiy and Roman were transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Melitopol.
Recently, Bariieva notes, information has emerged that since January 2025, the ZNPP engineer has been illegally held incommunicado in another pre-trial detention center — thousands of kilometers from his native Energodar.
“To date, 13 of the 15 illegally arrested ZNPP employees have been convicted on trumped-up charges to terms ranging from 12 to 25 years under articles on high treason, espionage, terrorism, illegal manufacture of explosives, organization of a terrorist group and participation in it, and much more that the sick imagination of the occupiers could come up with, but which makes no sense whatsoever,” the human rights activist concluded.