Head of Zaporizhzhia power plant, appointed week before its occupation, had Russian citizenship

Ukrainska Pravda
·4 min read
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Ihor Murashov, who was appointed as the head of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) a week before the occupation of the station, and is now in Kyiv and has been appointed chief engineer of the ZNPP, has had Russian citizenship since 2014.

Source: Hromadske’s investigation.

The generally known facts show that the Russians kidnapped the head of the ZNNP on 1 October 2022. Petro Kotin, Head of the Ukrainian National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom, then reported this.

Murashov said that he refused to cooperate with the Russians, after which he was held captive for several days and "deported" to Zaporizhzhia.

Currently, Murashov lives in Kyiv and holds the position of chief engineer of ZNPP, working remotely.

However, Hromadske journalists discovered that Murashov's attitude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the occupation of parts of Donbas and Crimea might have been completely different before 2022.

Sources of Hromadske with access to data on movement across the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and occupied Crimea say that Ihor Murashov visited the occupied peninsula at least three times in 2014.

He became a citizen of Russia during one of these trips. This event is dated 23 September 2014. Journalists received the information about Murashov's Russian passport from two sources obtaining excerpts from the automated system.

Moreover, the day after Ihor Murashov obtained the Russian passport, his father Valerii, a native of Ivano-Frankivsk [now deceased – ed.], had obtained a Russian passport at the same branch of the federal migration service in Sevastopol. However, unlike his son, a month later Valerii Murashov also obtained a Russian passport for foreign travel. This time – in Moscow.

The applications of Ihor and Valerii Murashov for obtaining Russian passports have been preserved in the database of the Russian Federation's passport registry, Rospasport.

The forms also indicate the reason for acquiring citizenship. The excerpts state that the passports were issued based on Article 5 of the treaty between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea, which is incompatible with international law. This treaty foresees that Russia recognises as its citizens the citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons who permanently lived on the peninsula at the time of annexation.

Currently, the passport issued to Ihor Murashov is invalid, as he did not replace the document in 2021 when he turned 45.

However, the invalidity of the Russian passport does not mean the loss of Russian citizenship. Late passport replacement in Russia is punishable only by a fine.

Murashov said to the journalists that he knew that his father had decided to obtain Russian citizenship. Murashov states that his father had pro-Russian views.

But Murashov claims that he has never seen documents testifying to his personal acquisition of Russian citizenship. He says that it was done by the father, without the son's consent. A bribe was apparently given for this.

 
 

"We quarrelled a lot. He shouted and got out of the car on some trips. I don't want to bring that up. My wife and I had a clear pro-Ukrainian position," Ihor Murashov said.

However, Bellingcat’s investigator Christo Grozev, whom the journalists contacted, considers the version of the chief engineer of the ZNPP to be unlikely. Theoretically, it would be possible to find a corrupt official who would take such a step. But the documents contain Ihor Murashov's biometrics.

The journalists sent the received information to the Security Service of Ukraine.

Background:

  • Murashov became the acting general director of the Zaporizhzhia NPP a week before the full-scale Russian invasion – on 16 February 2022.

  • The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) opened a series of criminal proceedings because of the ZNPP being seized by the Russian army and its improper maintenance and operation during the temporary occupation. The pre-trial investigation is carried out on the basis of Art. 111 (treason) and Art. 438 (violation of the laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

  • As part of these proceedings, the SSU investigates all the circumstances of the seizure of this critical infrastructure facility and documents the criminal actions of the management and employees of the ZNNP, who voluntarily hold positions in a fake Russian operating organisation and help the aggressor state.

  • Ihor Murashov was born in the Russian city of Borovsk, 100 km from Moscow. He received his higher education at the Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering. He studied there together with Dmytro Verbytskyi, the current head of ZNPP. After Obninsk, Murashov studied at the Sevastopol Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry.

  • He has worked in various positions at the Zaporizhzhia NPP since 1998.

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