In a post last week (Who Is Shelling The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant), we looked at conflicting claims about who was shelling the largest nuclear power plant in Europe: the Russians, who have occupied it since late February, or the Ukrainians. In this post, we'll share Russian-based Ukrainian analyst Yuri Podolyaka's assessment about what happened this week in the vicinity of the plant as the International Atomic Energy Agency personnel were headed to the plant.

This translation from the Russian is via Russell "Texas" Bentley's Telegram channel. Bentley is a Texan who moved to the Donbass in 2014 to fight on the side of the Russian separatists and has lived there since. His translation of Podolyaka's is in more idiomatic English than Russian English speakers' translations I've seen (e.g., "country houses" instead of "dachas").

So, the plan was as follows. By the time the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] mission would have arrived to Energodar, the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] special forces, in cooperation with other units and under the artillery cover from the northern bank, were to take control of the territory of the plant, and that was what the IAEA mission was to record.

Let us start with the preceding story.