HOW TO STEAL A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AND GET AWAY WITH IT

VLADIMIR PUTIN HAD DONE HIS HOMEWORK.

- BY SIMON SHUSTER/ZAPORIZHZHIA

He knew the layout of the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the source of the water that cools its reactors, and the high-voltage cables that move its electricity.

He knew where a shell had recently exploded, punching a hole in the roof of a building, and where a fire had started while Russian troops seized the facility in the spring of 2022. He also knew, perhaps better than anyone, how dangerous it had been to turn the plant into a battleground.

"He knew it all very precisely," says Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Not just in general terms. He knew it all down to the technical details." Grossi has met with Putin several times to discuss the standoff at the nuclear power plant, which remains under the control of Russian forces in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. Their first meeting, held in a palace outside St. Petersburg in October 2022, led Grossi to conclude that the plant plays an outsize role in Putin's military strategy. "It's become larger than life," he tells me.

Even the basic details of the situation can sound like the clumsy plot of some apocalyptic thriller. An invading army has seized Europe's largest nuclear plant, taken thousands of its employees hostage, and turned the grounds—home to a large stockpile of nuclear fuel—into a forward operating base in the middle of an active war zone. None of these facts are in serious dispute. They have been confirmed by satellite imagery, eyewitness testimony, U.N. nuclear inspectors, direct statements from Russian officials, and footage taken inside the plant.