The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, seized by Russian troops in the first months of the invasion of Ukraine, will stop using American-made nuclear fuel “as soon as possible,” reports the Russian news agency “Interfax” with reference to a Russian official. according to Reuters. The announcement came as the United States said it had sensitive nuclear technology at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest – and warned Russia not to touch it.

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, built mainly in Soviet times, initially used Russian nuclear fuel, but Ukraine gradually switched to supplies from the US company Westinghouse after the first conflict with Russia in 2014.

The Zaporizhzhia station has been under the control of Russian forces since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and has been frequently disconnected from the power grid due to Russian bombings, raising fears in Europe of a nuclear accident. The facility is managed by Ukrainian personnel, but managed and controlled by Rosatom.

Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Russian nuclear concern “Rosenergoatom” (a part of “Rosatom”), told “Interfax” that the nuclear power plant has reserves of American-made fuel for about four more years. He claims that the Russian leadership will try to replace this fuel with Russian “as soon as possible” because “their own technology is better”, according to Reuters.

“Element of psychological pressure”

Renat Karchaa also told Russian state news agency Interfax that American fears about sensitive nuclear technology in Zaporizhzhia are “unfounded” because Russia “absolutely does not need it.”

In addition, he qualifies the US warning to Rosatom about American technologies in Zaporizhzhia as “an element of psychological pressure on the plant’s personnel.”

Who is the “nuclear man” who answers to the Americans?

Russian state media present Renata Karchaa, against whom Ukraine has imposed sanctions, as a “nuclear expert.”

Karchaa accompanied the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation to the Zaporizhzhia NPP during the IAEA’s first visit there last year.

He had an interesting story before becoming a “nuclear expert”, his career path raised many question marks.

• Who is the expert Renat Karchaa, whom the Russians sent to the Zaporizhzhya NPP / A career worthy of an FSB officer

Mediazon’s investigative journalists reconstructed Karchaa’s biography after he explained to IAEA representatives that “the projectiles rotate 180 degrees when falling”, and therefore they were allegedly fired only by the Russians, not by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Russian state media call him a “nuclear expert” and adviser to the head of Rosatom, although contradictory and fragmentary references in public sources give as much reason to consider Karchaa a primatologist from Sukhumi, a political consultant from Pskov, or an official from Murmansk.

In 2014, Russian journalists introduced him as an “expert from the North Caucasus and Abkhazia” when he talked about the political situation in the region on the Dozhdi TV channel, also known as “Dozhd TV”.

In the biographical information about Karchaa on the Abkhazia-Inform website, it is stated that he was born on July 17, 1966 in Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia, graduated from school with a gold medal, and served in the Soviet army in Tallinn. . In the late 1980s, Karchaa moved to Abkhazia in the Caucasus region, where he received a degree in biology and geography from the state university of the region, which became part of Georgia immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At the age of 25, Karchaa became the youngest member of the first Abkhaz parliament. During this period, in addition to his parliamentary activities, he also held the position of director of the Research Institute of Primatology and Experimental Therapy, which conducted research on monkeys from a well-known farm in Sukhum, the largest city and capital of Abkhazia. .

In 1994, the “scientist” who became a “political technologist” was accused of embezzling the property of the Research Institute, the most serious charge being that he sold its scientific archive. Commenting on the allegations years later, Karchaa said “the old story brings a smile to his face”.

10 years later, he will be involved in another criminal case, this time for a fatal road accident. Meanwhile, he arrived from Abkhazia in the city of Murmansk in the Arctic region of Russia, where he headed the region’s representation at the federal government in Moscow.

It is known that in 2014 Karchaa returned to Abkhazia, where he was appointed as an observer of the Central Committee of Russia. He returned to the attention of the Russian media after, in August of the same year, during the campaign for the presidential elections in Abkhazia, he was attacked during a fight between supporters of different candidates, which happened near the headquarters of the election commission.

He was later appointed as an adviser to the president of Abkhazia, leading disinformation expert Maria Avdeeva to call him a “sociologist” on Friday after he accompanied an IAEA team to Zaporizhzhia. The Russian press presented him as a “nuclear man”. Meanwhile, Karchaa was fired from his position as presidential adviser last January.

Ukraine imposed sanctions against Karchaa and another 700 individuals and legal entities associated with the Russian state nuclear power company Rosatom, following the visit of international experts to Zaporizhzhia.

Russia’s warning to the US

On March 17, the US Department of Energy sent a letter to the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom, which was obtained by CNN. In the document, Director of the Office of Nonproliferation Policy of the US Department of Energy, Andrea Ferkil, informs the CEO of Rosatom that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “contains American nuclear technology, the data of which is controlled by the United States government.”

“The goods, software and technology are subject to US export regulations and cannot be used in a way that undermines the national security interests of the United States,” the US official warned in a letter to the Russian state-owned company.

The US Department of Energy has warned Rosatom that control of US technology by Russian citizens or Russian entities is “illegal”: “Under United States law, it is illegal for unauthorized persons, including but not limited to Russian citizens and Russian entities such as “Rosatom” and its subsidiaries knowingly and intentionally access, possess, control, export, remove, transfer, copy or process such technology or technical data without the permission of Russian organizations that have received permission from the US Secretary of Energy.”

The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration told CNN that the letter is authentic.

In another letter to the inspector general of the Department of Energy, dated October 24, 2022, Andrea Ferkil refers to the technology that the United States exported to Ukraine for use in Zaporizhzhia, and notes that the department “has no record of any current authorization for the transfer of this technology and technical given to any Russian citizen or legal entity”.

In June 2021, the US Department of Nuclear Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy publicized US support for the Zaporizhzhia NPP when it announced that the United States had “helped implement new procedures and maintenance operations at the reactor that should ultimately enhance Ukraine’s energy security.” , CNN also notes.