Shelling Attack on the ZNPP, November 19/20

November 23, 2022 (rough, incomplete)

Last updated Nov. 27

So I haven't followed events at the Zaporizhya Nuclear Power Plant as closely for a while, but I just learned that it was attacked again with artillery shelling - on two days in a row, November 19 and 20 - after a long break. 

Elena Evdokimova had all the info gathered: https://twitter.com/elenaevdokimov7/status/1594652428162732033. I started with the provided links and dug just a bit wider, Short on time to edit, let's start with the IAEA's full statement. 

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-128-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

Powerful explosions shook the area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) yesterday evening and again this morning, abruptly ending a period of relative calm at the facility and further underlining the urgent need for measures to help prevent a nuclear accident there, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.

In what appeared to be renewed shelling both close to and at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, IAEA experts at the ZNPP reported to Agency headquarters that more than a dozen blasts were heard within a short period of time in the morning local time. The IAEA team could also see some of the explosions from their windows.

Citing information provided by plant management, the IAEA team said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the ZNPP site, but none of them so far critical for nuclear safety and security. There were no reports of casualties. The IAEA experts are in close contact with site management and will continue to assess and report on the situation.  

“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing. Explosions occurred at the site of this major nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” Director General Grossi said.

The Director General renewed his urgent appeal to both sides in the conflict to agree and implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible. In recent months, he has engaged in intense consultations with Ukraine and Russia about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement.

“I’m not giving up until this zone has become a reality. As the ongoing apparent shelling demonstrates, it is needed more than ever,” he said.

Again, both sides blame each other, and again the IAEA can be of no help in directing efforts to bring the responsible party to heel. Who is it? Again and again, the evidence (long overdue overview post: forthcoming) shows artillery shelling of the plant in August and September comes from the Ukrainian-held north bank of the Dnipro river. Just the hated and distrusted Russians (and maybe the Chinese, etc.) are calling them out over it. "Whoever it is" had better stop, or else ... nothing. They don't have to stop and they don't want to. 

The latest shelling isn't the clearest example by the limited views so far (decent views of two impacts from the 20th and one from the 19th), but it tends to implicate Ukrainian forces as well. I'll see about expanding this view in time.

Conflicting Claims

(rough collection)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/europe/zaporizhzhia-iaea-warning-intl/index.html

Ukraine’s national nuclear power company Energoatom said it appeared that Russian forces were trying to hinder the country’s ability to provide electricity to its citizens. 

https://www.weareukraine.info/infrastructure-for-launching-the-znpp-power-units-was-disabled-by-russian-shelling/

With its shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the Russian army destroyed the infrastructure required to restart electricity production for Ukraine’s requirements. State Enterprise “National Atomic Energy Generating Company Energoatom” reported this on Facebook.

“At least 12 ‘arrivals’ were registered at the Zaporizhzhia NPP site this morning, November 20, 2022, as a result of several Russian shellings,” the report states.

As a result of the bombardment, communication trestles with their facilities, tanks with chemical desalinated water reserves, steam generator blowdown system, auxiliary systems of one of the two main power plant diesel engines, and other station infrastructure equipment were damaged. Three impacts were also detected in the vicinity of the Rayduga substation. The extent of the damage and destruction is still being determined.

https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1594266306546737152

Russian shelling of the ZNPP (video - see below for analysis)

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1594882445769572352

Two days of shelling caused widespread damage to the #Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on November 20 and 21. The #Russian government is continuing to escalate control over the Russian information space.

https://www.1tv.ru/news/2022-11-20/441877-ukrainskie_boeviki_nanesli_seriyu_massirovannyh_udarov_po_zaporozhskoy_aes

12 attacks in less than half an hour. These are the first direct attacks on the nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — since late September. In the past two months, nationalists have opened fire on the surrounding area, now on the nuclear power plant itself. Three shells hit the nuclear waste repository, six more munitions - in the cooling system. The scale of the destruction is now being assessed.

https://vz.ru/news/2022/11/19/1187447.html

The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP) was damaged as a result of strikes inflicted on Saturday by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), said Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Rosenergoatom concern.

Karchaa said on the air of the TV channel "Russia-24" that in the period from 17.15 to 17.41 Saturday, 12 strikes were inflicted on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. He stressed that we are talking about the perimeter of the station itself, and not about the industrial zone and other territories adjacent to the station,TASS reports.

The adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom said that six hits occurred on the splash pool, which is part of the cooling system of the nuclear power plant, two hits were recorded in the square of the dry storage of nuclear waste and three more hits in the area of checkpoint-2. As Karchaa noted, the blow was really massive. He stressed that such shelling can lead to nuclear contamination.

The adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom said that the damage and destruction will be clarified on Sunday morning. He noted that on Saturday the staff at the station is much less than on weekdays, and this is happiness that there were no casualties and only ended in damage. He also added that the station itself has not been hit since the end of September.

Cameras Not Lying

Six decent-sized photos of the damage that I've found (another shows a twisted remnant of one of the rockets used)

One impact can be easily placed - right in front of reactor block 5, damaging its water tanks and service passageway. Two other photos show the water tanks, and one shows the passage (4 images total). Overall, the low damage to the side vs. higher damage and debris spread out front (to the south), and the angle of the black line from detonation suggest a trajectory from just west of local north ("north" within the plant's overall 21-degree rotation), or just east of actual north - Marganets area, like they're saying. 

https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1594893502533742592 - improved graphic here:

The angle of damage marked purple doesn't make immediate sense, but maybe I set the impact a bit wrong, and even like this, this northern of 2 water tanks is more to the side or even behind the impact, so the upward angle expected in front is not expected here, But should it angle up to the right/rear? Maybe it has to do with the tank's circular shape? I feel I can move on from that without waiting for a sure answer.

Special building 2 has another roof impact, as shown twice above, that raises a more serious problem. The wider view clearly faces east away from the reactors and towards the city of Energodar and the thermal plant's smokestacks in the distance. 

In that light, the splash pattern of shrapnel marks on the right indicates the munition came in from the right, or from local SOUTH. 

This is unusual. I've seen zero impacts from the south. Even maneuverable drones seem to come from the NNE, usually. Maybe this was a drone, and they finally had it maneuvere in such a tricky way?

There's also a released map of impacts that somehow doesn't include the one at reactor 5 in its right spot. 3 impacts between reactors 4 and 5 are shown, with one placed right at reactor 4's turbine hall. 5 more impacts are indicated just to the east, between the two special (ized) buildings, and one to the roof of special building 2. Just the 9 impacts are shown, just for the attack on Sunday the 20th. Shown but not mapped: a crater a ways east of reactors 1 and 2. Shown and maybe mapped (not placed): a building with windows blown out. 

There's also a video that shows some of impact occurring at the spray pools and near the admin building and a security gate. These impacts were reported for Saturday the 19th, the 26-minute attack after 5PM. The sun set at 4PM that day, and the scene is dark like late twilight/early evening, People are probably filming because of previous attacks. One impact is heard outside, and the flash seen reflected on a wall of the special building, where the cameraperson is. Another view shows uncontrolled water spray (that can he heard as a loud hissing) and perhaps smoke at the spray pools, one of which may be drained (green below).  

The next impact to the south happens after a rocket shell is heard loudly passing overhead (so it's flying partly to the south). Below: line of sight to that impact (light blue). Just from the video, the fireball gives some indication of trajectory, mainly by giving little; the fireball's movement is mainly towards-or-away-from the camera (and it's apparently away). Movement on the left-right axis is usually clearer, but faint here - perhaps a bit to the left/east. So that's to local south, southeast or SSE, on a trajectory from the north.

Neither of these hits is mapped for the 20th, but one is shown in a photo. I think. The second rocket hits not far from the pools, maybe about where that unmapped crater in front of reactors 1 & 2 is. Note that view is right between the reactor blocks, just across from the south end of special building 1 (dark blue line). I'd expect that impact was a bit further south, but how many can there be in that small area? The view I have is tiny, but suggests a trajectory close to 45 degrees with this sidewalk - more from the NW than the other impacts suggest. A better view might help correlate it to the same angle, or maybe there were 2 attack directions. After all, this is the Saturday attack, while the north (and south) clues are from Sunday's follow-up.

Follow-Up: More Analysis (add 11/27)

GeoConfirmed posted a Twitter thread explaining why this was probably Russian shelling. 

I posted a rebuttal thread, correcting their 3 readings, all ~90 degrees off. Soon thereafter, the GeoConfirmed one was deleted. Explained: "New information was brought to our attention, and this demands further investigation." As I said, good call (following on a very bad one).

New images from there: the south crater I wanted a better view of:

Damaged pipes at the splash pool

And an impact I hadn't seen, geolocated at the tracks in front of reactor 5, not far from the other impact. 

Tracks impact: It's not entirely clear, but seems to me the blast force is away from the camera, or local south - very similar to the one nearby. 

w/video of tracks impact I found here, we get a better idea of the debris spread, including well onto the pavement and some ways south before it thins out. Then it seems there's a third impact to the pavement right there (blue), with some rubble starting abruptly, and spreading south to somewhere off frame. A trajectory that seems to fit all 3 and their pattern is traced in white. 

South crater: about as it looked before, but improved. Maybe more to the left of this, FROM right over the corner of reactor block 2.

Some thoughts from GeoConfirmed's placement of the video impact - I now doubt that's the crater we see - it IS further south like it seemed. That might be at the damaged trailer, or as suggested, somewhere else further south. If so, that might be three impacts in this area.

Others with random mis readings: OSINT-I is dedicated to "to fight disinformation from active theaters of war." Well, this Twitter thread fails. (but it had that video of the tracks impact I found useful) "The (Russian) MoD accuses the (Ukrainian) armed forces of having bombed the area of the plant, but analyzing the photos and videos of the explosions, the image that emerges is the exact opposite." After some readings that were largely opposite of correct. They misplaced tracks impact as next to reactor 1, not 5 and read it wrong (backwards), read reactor 5 impact wrong (sideways, as GeoConfirmed did), and read south crater almost backwards wrong, as shown: main force was directed to the west, reactor 1, excavating dirt that way, then I guess carting it towards the camera to dump it all around the grass and the pavement BEHIND the impact. All this nonsense helped them decide on Russian hits from the east and ESE, and to pat themselves on the back for "disinformation" fought well. 

Their reading compared to mine: 

Oh, by the way, I never explained GeoConfirmed's 3rd wrong reading in that crater - they thought the crater "opens" (IIRC) to the SW, which I took as coming from that way, or basically from the left. Maybe I misread it, because I don't see why anyone would think that. Maybe they meant fire TO the SW, which is about what OSINT-I thought. But I don't see why anyone would think that either, except in desperation to blame Russia.

The Neocon propagandists at ISW would cite one of their amazingly credible "Russian Milbloggers" with a finding for Russian attack, which it turns out is partly correct, but which they muddled.  

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-21

"One Russian milblogger referenced a video of the shelling taken by Chechen forces and stated that it appeared the shelling came from positions in Russian-controlled territory south of the ZNPP, not Ukrainian-controlled territory north of the ZNPP.[3]"

Of course, as noted above, that video is one of the proofs the shelling came from the Ukrainian-held north. I wondered how it was framed as doing the opposite. 

Cited was this Telegram post by "Moscow Calling." I don't know about the source, but they're kind of right and it's refreshing. But they don't cite the video for this call. 

"On the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, filmed by Kadyrov's DEAR BROTHER.

If the building where the arrival occurred is located on the territory of the ZNPP, and the two pipes circled in green square are the pipes of the Zaporozhye TPP, then it turns out that the arrival was from the south controlled by the RF Armed Forces.

The conclusions are preliminary, may be erroneous due to the fact that the direction of fire was determined by the OSINT method by the spread of fragments."

That is the TPP seen from the roof of special building 1, around the middle. And indeed, the pattern suggests this thing came from the south right before it impacted. To assume it held that direction from the start is what's unfounded. A drone or maneuverable munition could hit on this trajectory after flying on any other. Drones have usually appeared to come straights from the NNE (and perhaps they usually do). The impact seen on video, the crater seen around there, and the 3 impacts by reactor 5 all came from some northern direction. So to assume the whole of both attacks originated from the south is extremely unfounded.