I am honestly very angry that I haven't seen anyone focus on that, and I need you to understand that the only reason we are not sorting out a radiation polution crisis right now is because some usual plain civilians got up and did their job under constant shellings and with russian guns in their faces.
On August 25 ZNPP stopped working for the first time in history due to the system failing because of russian shelling. We owe our safety to some safety breaker and local workers jumping into action to power the necessary safety grids.
Now stop.
And think about it.
A safety breaker. And Ukrainian civilians. That's all that kept us from a disaster! And while we were all talking about what happens next to the power supply or how to reconnect the plant, nobody said a word about those amazing people who risked their lives to save us all! I am outraged!
Just a day before that on August 24 they filmed a video begging for help. Since I couldn't find an English translation, I'll translate it below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLmK_O6gunA
1st person: Dear President of Ukraine, Armed Forces of Ukraine, dear people of Ukraine, we, the citizens of Energodar city, address you in complete despair with a plea for help. Today we, the citizens of this city, all the workers of the nuclear power plant, are the prisoners of russian forces. They took control of the powerplant and are threatening the whole world with a nuclear disaster. The occupants use us and our children as living shields.
2nd person: The invaders commit genocide on the territory of Energodar. Genocide and terror. We cannot go outside into the streets of our city, our children are scared, we cannot go out to get food or to get water because the citizens- the citizens of our city get captured on the streets for no reason and taken in an unknown direction. Russists and kadyrovites with an aid of collaborators break into our houses, our apartments, loot them, rob them for no reason - for no reason at all, under the excuse of looking for Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian warriors, and ATO veterans. We have no contact with those whom they take in an unknown direction - people just disappear.
3d person: The occupants regularly shell the territory of ZNPP, we fear these shellings will lead to the worst scenario, we insistently request that you do not leave us in trouble.
4th person: We ask you to free our city and our nuclear power plant from these terrorists.
2nd person: Energodar is Ukraine.
4th person: Ukraine above all.
These people and their colleagues keep working every day, KNOWING they are the prisoners, knowing they can be "taken in an unknown direction" any minute, walking past the trucks full of explosives inside the plant, walking past the barrels of guns pointed at them and their children, struggling to get food or water getting their doors kicked down, robbed of their possessions. But they still GO AND DO THEIR JOB to keep us all safe.
Today the International Atomic Energy Agency should arrive at ZNPP. I have very little hope that this visit will solve anything. We had a big country-wide air raid today (it's one of those when an air raid alert sounds all over the country in every little nook, and you have no idea what is going to happen) that I think was a threat to the Agency.
But whatever happens next, we have to always remember the price of our safety and the price of our freedom.
Glory to Ukraine, Glory to All Ukrainian Heroes: those on the battlefields, those in the hospitals, those making difficult decisions, those volunteering, those stoically doing their jobs.