Engineer from the Chornobyl NPP was stealing fuel from Russian occupiers to prevent the disaster due to the lack of electricity

On February 24, the occupiers seized the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of the greatest man-made disaster in human history. Employees of the station were forbidden to leave its territory, and all National Guards were imprisoned by the Russians. On March 9, due to hostilities, the power plant stopped receiving external power needed to store spent fuel. Then the emergency diesel generators were switched on, and each time after “Ukrenergo” employees restored the external power supply, the occupiers cut it off again.

Engineer Valerii Semenov was among the captured workers of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. He tried his best to find fuel to support the generator. So the man decided to take a desperate step — to steal fuel from the occupiers.

“If we lost electricity, it could be a disaster. There could be a release of radioactive substances. You can imagine the scale of this. I was not afraid for my life. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t watch the station. I was afraid that a tragedy for humanity could occure,” says the hero.