On Thursday evening, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that Russian troops were withdrawing some units from the annexed part of the Zaporozhye region and were also preparing to evacuate employees of local occupation administrations.
However, a Medusa source close to the Kremlin, as well as a source close to the Russian government, says Russia “has no plans” to completely abandon the Zaporozhye region.
However, according to these sources, Moscow is ready to withdraw from the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which Russian troops have basically controlled since the beginning of the aggression and whose activities have already brought it to the brink of a nuclear disaster several times, at least according to the experts sent by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Liberation of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant? Even the Russians themselves are starting to talk about withdrawal
The war in Ukraine
According to the Kremlin’s plan, the nuclear power plant could be handed over to the Ukrainians or the IAEA.
Key date December 5th
According to sources cited by Meduza, Russia expects to receive guarantees of uninterrupted transit of oil and gas through Ukraine in exchange for the withdrawal of troops from the nuclear power plant.
The southern leg of the Druzhba pipeline runs through Ukraine, carrying Russian oil to Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. In total, the Druzhba pipeline guarantees about a third of all Russian oil deliveries to Europe, Meduza notes.
The Ukrainian section of Druzhba is owned by the company UkrTransNafta, which charges Russia oil transit fees and also has the technical option to close it. Since mid-November, pipeline deliveries have been halted due to rocket attacks. They were renewed this week.
December 5 is approaching, when the Druzhba pipeline will become the main route for transporting Russian oil to Europe, as the European embargo on oil supplies from Russia comes into force. However, the embargo only applies to waterborne transport.
According to Meduza’s sources, there is a “willingness to reach an agreement” in the Kremlin and in the government. “The extraction and sale (of oil and gas) is very important for the Russian budget,” a Meduza source close to the Kremlin said bluntly.
The president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the possibility of such an agreement in correspondence with Meduza. Renat Karchaa, adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, said the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant would not be handed over in exchange for a stable transit of gas and oil from Russia through Ukraine.
Russians continue to bomb, rockets hit an infrastructure facility in Zaporozhye
The war in Ukraine
