ZAPORIZHZHIA. Around 1500 laborers and slaves fleeing the masters of the Zaporizhzhia region took refuge in Khortytsia, the largest island in the Dnieper. The community grew numerically and economically thanks to the taxes imposed on boats bound for or arriving from the Black Sea, constituting the embryo of the first Cossack fortification, also known as “sich”. The foundation is around 1550, the constituent father was Dmytro Vyshnevetsky prince from Volhynian, a region between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. Khortytsia has since become a symbol of Cossack pride, a kind of guardian of the military community in Tsarist Russia. In 1775, the Sich was destroyed by General Tekhely on the orders of Catherine the Great, causing the displacement of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks. In 1965, Khortytsia was “proclaimed a historical and cultural reserve”, of the Cossack fortification remain the Church of the Intercession (or Wooden Church) the watchtowers and the monument to the Ataman, the military leader.
Its gaze is high on the Dnieper River, almost guarding Dnjeprostroj, the great dam, a vital structure not only for Zaporizhzhia but for the entire Oblast of the same name. On the threshold of the Second World War, the work, (built between 1928 and 1931), represented the largest river barrier in the world. In August 1941, the retreating Moscow troops detonated part of the Dnjeprostroj to delay the advance of the German army, causing thousands of casualties, including the Soviet soldiers themselves. The Germans rebuilt it and the dam returned to work at the end of 1942, to be bombed again by the Luftwaffe, during the German retreat, causing another disaster and as many victims. With the end of the war, the Soviets rebuilt Dnjeprostroj, a fundamental structure for river transport (the Dnieper is characterized by frequent rapids) and for the production of electricity.
Downstream from Zaporizhzhia, the USSR decided to build the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, active since 1985, the new ground zero of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to which the Dnieper supplies cooling water. Today the dam represents a strategic structure and, for its majesty and design, also a symbol, a sort of new bastion like Khortytsia was, to protect not the Cossacks but the Ukrainians, not from the Soviets but from the Russians. “It is fascinating of its kind, I am often here on guard and I do not tire of observing it,” says Mikhail, the National Guard volunteer who accompanies us to the edge of the Dnieper bed, under the great dam. “She conveys a sense of protection – continues the military -, but now we are protecting her”.
Repeated bombings have affected the dam area, without however scratching the structure which was fortified after 24 February. The damage risks causing the drop in hydroelectric production and damaging agricultural production. The repercussions, however, would also fall on the Energodar power plant, because the flow of cooling water could be altered. The whole complex is armored and the Ukrainians employ task forces to hunt down saboteurs, fifth columns or basists who can facilitate the task of the Russian special forces. Its fate, however, is linked to the nuclear power plant that stands further south and where the inspectors of the IAEA, the UN atomic agency, are still engaged in assessment and first aid activities. The director, Rafael Grossi, on his return from the mission, described the situation at the plant as “extremely complex and difficult”. The confirmation came yesterday from the same agency based in Vienna which reported a new interruption of the connection to the electricity grid, the second after 25 August, “after new bombings in the area”. The site, however, continued to function “thanks to a helpline.” For experts, such interruptions are a gamble for the health of the plant whose “physical integrity has already been violated,” as Grossi said.
The risk of a nuclear accident therefore survives the arrival of the IAEA inspectors and to avoid it, we look to Ankara. Recep Tayyp Erdogan opened the way for dialogue in a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin: “Turkey can take on the role of facilitator, as has been done for the wheat agreement.” But the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev speaks of a “game of chess with death” in a new invective against the West, guilty of giving support to Ukraine in an attempt to provoke “the violent disintegration of a nuclear power”.