A handful of technicians closely monitor a wall of screens and dial in the control room at the Khmelnytsky nuclear plant – a vast facility in western Ukraine that's now vital to Ukraine's energy grid and its war effort. Ukraine is facing an acute energy crisis after months of relentless Russian attacks on its infrastructure. At least 60% of the country's electricity comes from the giant turbine halls at Khmelnytskyi and two other nuclear plants. Showing me around is Pavlo Kovtonyuk, the head of Energoatom - Ukraine's National Nuclear Energy Company. All these installations, he says, are under the very real threat of attack from Russia. "At present, Russia is trying to attack substations that connect nuclear power plants to the grid, to shut down nuclear energy," he tells me. "This is nuclear terrorism, because the connection between the systems and the nuclear power plant is what ensures their safe and reliable operation." Nuclear power stations are secure and sensitive installations where access to those not directly involved in their operation is heavily restricted. The BBC was given rare access to the plant to see how Ukraine is coping with Russia's intense attacks. Under nightly attack from hundreds of missiles and drones, Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting its critical energy infrastructure. President Volodymyr Zelensky says Moscow is deliberately exploiting the ferociously cold winter, leaving tens of thousands of people across Ukraine without power, heating or running water. Most of the country's conventional power plants have been hit or damaged in Russian airstrikes and that is why nuclear power plants like Khmelnytskyi are now providing most of the country's energy needs. But Ukraine's biggest power plant, on the southern stretch of the Dnipro River near Zaporizhzhia, has been controlled by Russia since the start of the war. Not only is it the biggest in Ukraine, it is also the largest nuclear power station in Europe, able to generate enough electricity to supply a country the size of Portugal. But Zaporizhzhia is now in "dormant" mode, not generating electricity and with Russian technicians and troops in charge of the plant. That's why the future of the Zaporizhzhia site is one of the most critical points of any possible future peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Recent reports suggest Ukraine wants to control the plant 50/50 with the US, with half the energy coming to them and the other half distributed by the US as it sees fit – perhaps even to Russia. On our tour of the Khmelnytskyi complex we met some staff, now employed here, who were working at Zaporizhzhia when Russia attacked on the night of 3 March 2022. Among them were Dariia Zhurba, a technician at the plant, and her engineer husband, Ihor. "It was scary. It was really frightening when they occupied. We were at home that night," Dariia told me. "We heard explosions, shooting… so we hid in our corridor, as the gunfire and explosions continued," said her husband. "In the morning, we realised we were occupied." The couple continued to work at the plant for a few weeks until things became "unbearable", as the Russians gradually took control of the operation. They were eventually able to leave, via occupied Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Poland on a journey where everything they had, including their phones and possessions, were first of all scrutinised by their Russian captors. "They checked everything in our phones, connected them to special devices so they could search our contacts, all social media, even the things we'd 'liked'," said Dariia, now happy to be living in a small modular home provided by the Swedish government next to her new workplace. "They even interrogated us about who are relatives were, who had served in the Ukrainian army and who didn't." They escaped Zaporizhzhia. Others, less fortunate, did not. "We know cases where people were taken to the 'basement' where they were interrogated and things like that," says Ihor. "Basement" is often
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