Ihor Murashov, the former head of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, has Russian citizenship, hromadske investigators found out. Currently, the man works as the chief engineer of the station.
“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 in Russia. He studied there together with Dmytro Verbytskyi, the current head of ZNNP. After Obninsk, Murashov studied at the Sevastopol Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry. Since 1998, he worked in various positions at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and often visited Crimea. He continued to go there after the Russians occupied the peninsula,” the journalists write.
Ihor Murashov visited the occupied peninsula at least three times in 2014. The man received a Russian passport during one of these trips. Hromadske received an extract from the Rospassport, a Russian state database, from two sources. It shows that Ihor Murashov received a passport with a double-headed eagle in occupied Sevastopol on September 23, 2014,” the media stated.
In addition, Murashov’s now-deceased father, Valerii, also received the Russian document. “The excerpt shows that the passport was issued based on Article 5 of the treaty between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea, incompatible with international law.” According to this article, Russia recognized citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons, who at the time of annexation permanently lived on the peninsula, as its citizens,” the journalists write.
Murashov was supposed to replace the document in 2021 when he turned 45 years old. However, he did not do this. The passport is selected as “invalid” in the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, but it is still marked as existent in the Rospassport system. The invalidity of the Russian passport does not indicate the loss of Russian citizenship. Late replacement of a passport in the Russian Federation is punishable by a fine.
Murashov was appointed acting head of Zaporizhzhia NPP a week before the full-scale invasion – on February 16, 2022. Last fall, the Russians kidnapped a man and then released him. He resigned and stated that he did not agree to cooperate with the Russians.
Murashov told reporters that he had not seen any documents testifying to the acquisition of Russian citizenship. The man says he traveled to Crimea through an apartment on the peninsula bought in 2009. Murashov said his father had pro-Russian views and wanted to issue a Russian passport. A relative offered to issue a passport for his son without his presence as a bribe, but Murashov allegedly refused.
The journalists sent the received information to the Security Service of Ukraine. Earlier, it was reported that the Special Forces of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence tried three times to liberate Enerhodar and Zaporizhzhia NPP. However, all operations failed.
