SSU detained design engineers who helped connect Zaporizzhya NPP to Rosatom

SSU detained design engineers who helped connect Zaporizzhya NPP to Rosatom

Cyber specialists from the Security Service prevented the Russian Federation’s attempts to acquire new technologies in the field of nuclear energy. Six former officials of Ukrainian design institutes who worked for the sanctioned Russian Rosatom were detained in Kharkiv.

The SSU reports this.

At the request of a company from the Russian Federation, they developed research and design documentation for the modernization of Russian nuclear power plants. First of all, we are talking about Kursk, Rostov, Novovoronezh and Balakovo nuclear power plants.

Also, Rosatom representatives planned to involve their henchmen in carrying out high-tech work in the temporarily occupied part of the territory of southern Ukraine. They were obliged to help the invaders fully integrate the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant into the energy system of the Russian Federation.

They were detained at the stage of preparing project documentation for the aggressor, which thwarted Rosatom’s attempts to gain access to strategically important Ukrainian technologies.

According to the investigation, the main person involved in the production is the manager of a design organization in Kharkiv. The official established contact with the occupiers through his relative, the owner of a Russian company that performs contracts for Rosatom. We maintained contact with each other through a popular messenger and email.

The Kharkiv resident involved five more local scientists in the field of nuclear energy in his criminal activities. They carried out the orders of the invaders even while under constant enemy missile and drone attacks on Kharkiv.

They were paid in cryptocurrency. The funds were transferred to the crypto-wallets of dummies, who then cashed out the received amounts and transferred them to the designers.

During searches at work and in the homes of the suspects, documents, computers and mobile phones, which they used to cooperate with the Russian Federation, were confiscated.

Security Service investigators informed all six detainees of suspicion under Part 1 of Art. 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (aiding and abetting the aggressor state). The perpetrators face up to 12 years in prison.

The special operation was carried out under the procedural leadership of the Office of the Prosecutor General.