Ukrainian Shelling Kills a ZNPP Worker

November 1, 2022

Among the zany things the Russians have allegedly done in their shelling of Russian-occupied Energodar and the Zaporizhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was to kill a 26-year-old ZNPP employee on his way to work on August 22, along with cab driver bringing him. They did it with a GRAD rocket they fired. Or maybe it was Russian shooting that killed them. Something Russian did it, allegedly.

Others blamed Ukrainian shelling. The camera doesn't lie, and it agrees with them, showing a munition fired from the Ukrainian-held northwest is exactly what killed these two people. 

Clashing Claims

August 23 memorial by Memorial Ukraine on Telegram: "Don't wait, act!" - these are the words Vladyslav Mitin wrote on his Instagram page a few days before his death. A 26-year-old resident of Energodar was shot dead by Russians on August 22 when he was riding in a taxi in the passenger seat." Their tribute image at right. 

Two weeks later on September 6, his employers at Energoatom on Telegram noted this entry on Mr. Mitin, who worked as a mechanic in the thermal automation and measurement shop. They were heartbroken that he died "when the Russians fired at a taxi in which the man was riding in the passenger seat." They add some explanation: "From the photo and video, where you can see the damaged car with bullet holes, it is clear that the car was fired upon almost at close range. Vladyslav was seriously injured, he was immediately hospitalized for resuscitation. But in a few hours he died. The driver of that taxi also died." Noone has named the driver. 

Vladyslav wanted others to urgently "act" - maybe to fight the Russian invaders, although it's not specified. Maybe that's why they decided to gun him down? 

By September 6, maybe shooting was the Ukrainian official story, but early on when that tribute was posted, most parties agreed Mitin was killed by artillery shelling (variously reported as rocket, mortar, or unspecified). Of course, they disputed who was to blame. 

I didn't find the original source, but someone tweeted, citing Energodar (Russian-affiliated) city council member Vladimir Rogov: "Zelensky's militants are hitting Energodar with heavy artillery! Strikes were recorded on the TPP area, previously from American long-range artillery weapons, one civilian was killed, another received a shrapnel wound to the chest, medical professionals are fighting for his life."

Note "TPP area" = Zaporizhya Thermal Power Plant - Mitin was mortally wounded just outside this plant as his taxi passed it. See map below.

Elsewhere on Telegram, Rogov blamed Ukraine, simply showing the footage of the damaged car with the killed driver slumped over at the wheel, declaring: "The Nazis will not calm down until we ourselves calm them down and send them by express train to meet with Bandera and Shukhevych."

Pro-Kyiv sources, of course, blamed Russians. Ukraine Front Lines (EuroMaidan PR) Aug 23: "An employee of the Zaporizhzhya NPP - a fitter in the thermal automation & measurement shop Vladyslav Mitin was injured in Energodar as of car shelling. According to the city mayor, the employee was treated, but he died in intensive care in a few hours from his severe injuries." Flash News: "Yesterday, August 22, 2022, as a result of the shelling of a taxi car in Energodar, an employee of the Zaporizhia NPP, Vladyslav Mitin, born in 1996, a mechanic at the thermal automation and measurement shop, was injured. He was hospitalized, but died a few hours later from his severe wounds in intensive care."

Youtube videos: Russian troops fired at the TPP in Energodar on August 22, 2022 from BM-21 MLRS (distance view) - Russia shelled the TPP in Energodar - The shelling of the hydroelectric power station in Energodar (blames noone) - now unavailable - unavailable (deleted accounts) - I recall some had blamed Ukraine. Maybe those were the deleted two. 

Flash_news_ua early tweet was ambiguous: "According to eyewitnesses, about an hour ago, the Russians fired on a thermal power plant in Energodar. There are pre-dead (early death(s)). We are waiting for official information." GeoConfirmed had a quick geolocation, citing Flash News:  "According to eyewitnesses the thermal power plant in Energodar was shelled. A taxidriver was killed by the shelling."

But not quite everyone agreed. Energodar's Ukraine-affiliated mayor-in-exile, Dmityo Orlov, had a muddled Aug. 22 report on Telegram, mixing shelling reports with his own uniformed observations to suggest gunfire. Translated from the original:

"There are reports from Energodar about the death of a man and several others injured as a result of shelling in the area of ​​the Zaporizhzhya TPP."

"The occupiers have traditionally blamed the Armed Forces for this. But the circumstances of the event raise big questions. Judging by the available video from the occupants of the damage to the car ❗️ with almost equal holes from bullets❗️, the car was fired at almost at close range. Probably, ❗️ from the machine ❗️[automatic gunfire] We are currently investigating whether there is a fact of human death. But what is already known for sure: the central heating station [thermal plant] was damaged by mortar attacks in Energodar today. It will take time to restore the water supply. In advance, repair work will continue until the morning."

The claim was repeated: Aug 23, EuroMaidan Press: "On Aug. 22 as a result of a taxi car firing by Russian occupiers in Enerhodar, a mechanic at Zaporizhzhya NPP Vladyslav Mitin was injured and died in the intensive care." Orlov is cited. This deduction and Orlov's supposed authority may be the exact origin of the shooting claim as passed by Memorial Ukraine and Energoatom.  

IAEA report (PDF ) would mention shelling, no shooting, and nothing about casualties. 

• Shelling on 22 August damaged the transformers of the nearby thermal power plant, causing a disconnection of the power line linking this power plant to the ZNPP, lasting several hours before it was restored later the same day. In addition to the restored backup line to the thermal power plant, the ZNPP had only one operational power line connecting it to the grid out of a total of four such lines.

Cameras Not Lying 

Geolocation

The IAEA reported an electrical transformer was damaged in this shelling, affecting the ZNPP. That's probably at the VRU 330 electrical substation on the thermal plant's NE corner. It's a different shell that hit a road just outside this plant's SE corner, killing Mr. Mitin and the unnamed driver. The site, with raised pipes over the roadway, has been geolocated a few times, none by me (AyazK already had it). It's on a road that bypasses the thermal plant entrance and continues to the nuclear plant (a plausible route to work there, as reported). Coordinates: 47.50754307792859, 34.63466943732734

Below: Area map with both plants, likely route, incident area in red. It's a good guess that Mitin lived in the north of Energodar.

Below: Google Maps street view of the incident spot, coming from the southeast, vs. a video scene of the same. The damaged car is just visible here, just around the first corner ahead of the pipes.

Damage Analysis

These are not bullet holes. They're too irregular and varied, including larger pieces of shell casing. As most people initially said, these marks were made by explosive fragments from an artillery shell or rocket. Elongated marks from glancing impacts across the hood and windshield vs. more circular marks from direct hits to the side means the shell detonated on the driver's side, just barely ahead of the car. Here are some compiled good views of the damage, which we'll consider more below.

There is no shelling crater visible, in a passing video where the relevant area is covered with water. There probably is one under the massive puddle, I would expect, some meters on the northwest side of the pipes. Below, I traced the scene on the satellite view, oriented to north. The white car at upper left is about where the affected taxi wound up (probably after someone pushed it off the road from its original stop point).

 Overhead pipes color-coding, as used below: green = southeast, blue = northwest. Estimating impact at the red star, fragments from the back side (yellow) would mainly hit the pavement. In the forward direction, all lines marked orange would have fragments above ground, from low at the sides to highest to the SW, up into the pipes from below. Fragments will angle higher on the forward side, so this proves the shell arrived from the northwest, flying southeast, roughly towards this car. The shell and the car headed towards each other at just the wrong moment, and virtually collided. 

The car was logically headed northwest and was just passing the pipes, taking fragments lower on the arc than the pipes would - front end hit low, angling up the driver's side to the back of the car- in a band wide enough it covers the whole car's side pretty fully - but note above almost no marks at the back end, where fragments were angling up into the pipes instead. To hit the left/driver's side so much means the blast was south of the car, probably south of center on the road or at its far edge - not quite how I showed it above. 

Side-view sketch, from the driver's side. Orange dots where fragments would hit the car (basic idea - not mapping every actual hit), red where they'd hit the driver and passenger. Other frags would pass above the car and into the overhead pipes, shown here extra-large with color-coding: again green = southeast pipe, blue = northwest. Orange lines to the underside areas that might be hit with fragments. (note this isn't to exact scale - just basic idea)

Pipes cross-view - no hit to the pipes except in the orange zone = the fragments came from the northwest side.

Southeast side as seen on the way in: water is spraying away from the camera, mostly from unseen surfaces, seeming to appear at each pipe edge (middle pipes marked white).

... vs. northwest side on the way back out: water spraying towards the camera, from various holes in the underside and this side of perhaps all four pipes (it's unclear if the blue NW pipe is punctured - a railing blocks our view of its lower edge - but it was just lightly hit at best - another clue to the impact's relevant angles). 

Add 11/3: a video I happened upon shows the pipe s being repaired - the southeast side is free of visible marks, while at least 9 punctures are seen from the northwest side, including at least 2 in the blue NW pipe. https://twitter.com/gporter812/status/1562098455299907584

Conclusion

The weapon type is not clear from reports or images. It could be a cannon shell, GRAD rocket, or something else not terribly powerful. They all work on the same basic principles. The disc of fragmentation damage, from car bumper to overhead pipes in a short span, suggests a fairly horizontal impact (well under 45 degrees), so I'd venture this was a relatively long-range use of the weapon, whatever it was. Close-range mortar fire by the Russians can probably be ruled out, along with their gunfire.

As noted above, the munition's suggested trajectory was from the northwest, basically down this road or perpendicular into the pipes. Considering an impact point south of what I showed above, around the edge of the road, I'm leaning towards a few degrees south of perpendicular. One line I tried at right was just bareky so, and it runs back to around Prydniprovske at 20 km or Chkalove at 32 km distance. Perhaps even better would be a line passing closer to Kamianske. The direction can't be called with precision, but it was probably fired from the north bank, somewhere in that area, depending on the weapon and its range.

This artillery fire from the northwest killed two Ukrainian citizens, besides disrupting power to the nuclear plant. Some extremists in Kyiv's unaccountable, Western-backed forces fired those shells and then - in another crime against reality -they denied the act. They blamed the Russians for shelling themselves again, complicating their own occupation again, with mortar shells or Grad rockets or just shooting. Kyiv's ideological extremists recast their unlucky victims here as heroes, partly because the facts of their actual lives and deaths in this physical reality don't matter to them,