In the coverage of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that flows through Russian state channels and Russian-installed local outlets, the acting subject is routinely dropped. Licences “were issued.” The station “was transferred to Russian jurisdiction.” Measures “are being carried out” to prepare units for restart. The sentences read as descriptions of events. They are actually descriptions of institutional outcomes with the institution removed.
This is not a stylistic accident. It is the point at which the actor — Rosatom, its subsidiary Rosenergoatom, the Russian regulator Rostekhnadzor, the occupation administration in Enerhodar — disappears from the sentence while the result is presented as fact. For readers who track occupation media, the practical task is to restore the missing subject from the same texts before treating any sentence as a neutral description.
What the passive construction hides
Consider the licensing story. According to reporting by NEI Magazine on the IAEA–Rosatom consultations, “Since December Rostekhnadzor has issued 10-year operating licences for ZNPP 1&2 although Rosatom has given assurances that the units will not be restarted while the military conflict continues.” The same report states that “A Russian Federal State Unitary Enterprise, JSC Zaporizhia NPP, was established by nuclear utility Rosenergoatom to operate the plant.”
Both sentences name the actor. But in the condensed versions that circulate through Telegram and Russian state media, the actor is frequently dropped: licences “were issued,” the plant “was transferred,” a new operating entity “was established.” The grammatical subject becomes the licence, the plant, the entity — never the body that issued, transferred, or established it.
The same pattern appears in the decree that formalized the takeover. NEI Magazine reports: “On 5 October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree formally transferring ZNPP to Russian jurisdiction under nuclear utility Rosenergoatom (part of Rosatom).” In the passive rendering — “the plant was transferred to Russian jurisdiction” — Putin, the decree, and Rosenergoatom all vanish. What remains is a jurisdictional fact with no author.
Where the actor survives: direct quotes
The most reliable place to find the named actor in this media environment is the direct quote. When Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev speaks in his own words, the passive framing falls away. NEI Magazine quotes him: “in terms of electricity sales and electricity use, we are prepared to consider an international and even multilateral format for this activity,” while “of course, state corporation Rosatom will operate and guarantee the safe operation of the station.”
That is the load-bearing sentence. Likhachev names Rosatom as the operator. The surrounding passive constructions — measures “are being carried out,” licences “have been issued” — do not. A reader who skims the framing and skips the quote will miss the only explicit attribution of operational responsibility in the text.
The same pattern holds in the coverage of the 15 July death of ZNPP chief engineer Aleksandr Yakovlev. According to DW’s Russian service, Rosatom stated that Yakovlev died in a drone strike and that the drone was Ukrainian; Likhachev demanded a “prompt, concrete and clear reaction” from the IAEA. The attribution of the strike is Rosatom’s own claim, reported as such. The actor in the sentence — Rosatom, through Likhachev — is named. The claim itself is not independently verified in the retrieved text, and readers should treat it as an attributed statement, not a finding.
The naming layer is itself a claim
Before the grammar, there is the name. “Zaporizhia NPP,” “Zaporizhzhya NPP,” “ZAES,” and “occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP” are not interchangeable transliterations. Each carries a position on jurisdiction. The Russian-installed operator’s own designation — JSC Zaporizhia NPP, established by Rosenergoatom — is a corporate name that asserts Russian operation. The Ukrainian designation, used by Energoatom and by Ukrainian outlets, asserts Ukrainian ownership. International outlets often split the difference with a transliteration that avoids the jurisdictional claim entirely.
Readers should treat the choice of name as a claim rather than a translation preference. When an outlet switches from “Zaporizhzhia NPP” to “Zaporizhia NPP” — or drops the word “occupied” — that switch is editorial data. It tells you which institutional frame the outlet is operating within.
What the passive construction conceals in practice
The licensing process is the clearest example. According to reporting by UA News citing Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, the so-called director of the occupied station, Yurii Chernichuk, announced the licensing process. Rostekhnadzor previously issued licences for unit 1 in December 2025 and unit 2 in February, even though the units have been in cold shutdown for more than three and a half years.
In the passive rendering — “licences were issued for units 1 and 2” — the reader cannot tell who issued them, under what legal authority, or to whom. Restoring the subject — “Rostekhnadzor issued licences to the Russian-installed operator” — makes the regulatory claim checkable. It also makes visible the gap between the licence and the physical reality: the units are not operating, and according to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, electricity generation at the plant can only resume after hostilities end.
The same report notes that the occupation administration openly acknowledged logistics problems, with cargo and personnel transport extremely difficult and food disruptions in occupied Enerhodar due to damaged trade infrastructure. That admission is rare — it names the occupation administration as the actor experiencing the problem. Most ZNPP coverage does not extend that courtesy to the reader.
Why the actor matters for safety claims
When Energoatom head Pavlo Kovtoniuk says that regular blackouts at ZNPP wear out equipment and raise safety risks, and that frequent diesel generator starts accelerate equipment degradation, the claim is attributed to a named official of a named institution. The reader can evaluate it. When the same claim appears in passive form — “equipment is degrading,” “safety risks are increasing” — the institutional source disappears, and with it the ability to assess whether the claim comes from the operator, the regulator, the IAEA, or a Telegram channel.
This matters because the physical situation is not in dispute. All six units are in cold shutdown. The plant has lost external power repeatedly since the occupation began. The IAEA has a permanent presence at the site. Russia rejected the IAEA’s March 2024 call to withdraw all unauthorized personnel, including military, and to return the plant to Ukraine or place it under international control. Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence has stated that Russian troops turned ZNPP into a military base, placing drone control points and weapons depots there, military equipment in the machine halls of four power units, and machine-gun nests and missile systems on reactor building roofs.
Each of those claims has a named source. The passive construction strips the source and leaves the claim. That is the opposite of what a reader needs.
A practical reading routine
For any ZNPP sentence, ask three questions:
1. Who is the grammatical agent? If the sentence has no subject — “licences were issued,” “the station was transferred,” “measures are being carried out” — the agent has been removed. Find it in the same text, in the same outlet’s corporate reporting, or in the regulatory record.
2. Who benefits from its absence? The actor who benefits from being unnamed is usually the actor who performed the action. In ZNPP coverage, that is typically Rosatom, Rosenergoatom, Rostekhnadzor, or the occupation administration.
3. Does the same outlet name the actor elsewhere in the same text? Direct quotes are where the actor survives. Likhachev’s own words name Rosatom as operator. The passive framing around the quote does not. Read the quote first.
A worked example
Take the sentence: “Licences for the plant’s units were issued.” This is a constructed example, not a quotation from any specific outlet, but it reproduces the pattern.
Restore the agent from the same reporting: “Rostekhnadzor issued licences for the plant’s units to the Russian-installed operator.” The second version makes three things checkable: who issued the licence, to whom, and under what authority. The first version makes none of them checkable.
The technique is not complicated. It requires only that the reader refuse to accept an agentless sentence as a description of events. In a media environment where the acting institution is routinely removed from the sentence, that refusal is the basic unit of verification.
Limitations
The retrieved sources for this analysis do not include the IAEA’s own press releases or topic pages, Energoatom’s English-language statements, Rosenergoatom’s corporate pages, or Russian registry and court records documenting the transfer. Those retrievals failed. The analysis therefore relies on secondary reporting that quotes or summarizes those primary sources. The pattern described here — agentless phrasing in ZNPP coverage — is visible in the retrieved texts, but no corpus analysis was conducted, and no count of passive constructions is offered. The claim that passive voice is deliberately used as a coordinated strategy is not supported by the retrieved sources and is not made here. The pattern is documented; the intent is not.
FAQ
Is passive voice always a sign of obfuscation?
No. Passive constructions are normal in English and Russian, and they are often appropriate when the agent is unknown or irrelevant. The issue in ZNPP coverage is not the grammatical form itself but the consistent removal of a known actor — Rosatom, Rostekhnadzor, the occupation administration — from sentences that describe institutional actions those actors performed.
How can I tell the difference between accurate attribution and obfuscation?
Look for the actor elsewhere in the same text. If the outlet names Rosatom or Rostekhnadzor in a direct quote or in its own corporate reporting, but drops the actor in the surrounding framing, the framing is doing work the reporting does not support. If the actor is genuinely unknown, the passive construction is appropriate. If the actor is known and named elsewhere, the passive construction is a choice.
What is the most reliable source for ZNPP status?
The IAEA’s own reports and press releases, when retrievable, are the primary source for the plant’s safety and security status. Energoatom’s statements are the primary source for the Ukrainian operator’s assessment. Rosatom’s statements are the primary source for the Russian operator’s claims. Each should be read as an attributed statement from a named institution, not as neutral description.
Does the choice of name — Zaporizhia vs. Zaporizhzhya vs. ZAES — matter?
Yes. Each name carries a jurisdictional claim. The Russian-installed operator’s corporate name, JSC Zaporizhia NPP, asserts Russian operation. The Ukrainian designation asserts Ukrainian ownership. International transliterations often avoid the claim. Treat the choice as editorial data.