A former deputy spokesman at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant who helped tell the world that Russian troops had seized the strategic site is now in exile, no longer in his job and, according to a document from his ex-employer, is suspected by Ukrainian intelligence of collaborating with Russia.
Andriy Tuz’s journey from Ukrainian patriot to pariah included an encounter with Russian intelligence and a June video — which he said he was forced to record after being tortured by Russian intelligence officers — where he states previous public comments he’d made about Russia shelling the plant were false. "Now I understand that the information was not true,” he said in the video.
Tuz has become caught up in a high-stakes propaganda battle between Kyiv and Moscow over the fate of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which has been a hot spot of the six-month conflict.