Ukraine and Russia stoke nuclear fears around Zaporizhzhia plant

Ukraine and Russia are stoking fears of a massive disaster at Ukraine’s nuclear power plant — the largest in Europe — even as independent experts see no evidence of an impending attack.

Worries of a nuclear disaster are compounded by the situation’s similarities with the dam breach in Ukraine last month, when both Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of planning attacks before its collapse.

There are also growing questions over instability in Russia, with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a rebellion against Moscow last month, apparently returning to Russia despite agreeing to exile in Belarus.

And even if neither side attacks the plant deliberately, the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could be caught in the crossfire as Ukraine pushes forward in its counteroffensive across the eastern front.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed Tuesday that his intelligence indicates Russian troops “placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”

“Perhaps to simulate an attack on the plant. Perhaps they have some other scenario,” Zelensky said in an address. “But in any case, the world sees — can’t but see — that the only source of danger to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Russia and no one else.”

Russian officials in turn have accused Ukrainians of preparing to drop bombs with radioactive waste on the plant. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed in a Telegram post that because Ukraine was carrying out drills to prepare for a radiation leak, they would soon attack it.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. is “very clear that Russia’s occupation of this plant is dangerous.”

“And there should not be fighting near this plant,” she told reporters Wednesday. “We think it is incredibly dangerous.”

Experts say that Ukraine has little motivation to sabotage the power plant, while Russia might seek to hold it hostage or shut it down to knock out a crucial power source for Ukraine.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the United Nations nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said there is so far no evidence of planted explosives at Ukraine’s nuclear plant.

But he he warned Wednesday that “military tension and activities” were increasing in the region around the site.

“Our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground,” Grossi said in a statement, referring to his inspectors stationed at the plant. “Their independent and objective reporting would help clarify the current situation at the site, which is crucial at a time like this with unconfirmed allegations and counter allegations.“

An explosion at the Zaporizhzhia plant would be environmentally devastating to southeastern Ukraine, with radiation seeping into groundwater and contaminating fields used for agriculture, likely hitting a crucial global food supply chain. Ukraine is a leading international grain producer.

A disaster could potentially impact even surrounding countries such as Russia and Georgia and would be catastrophic for civilian energy usage. The nuclear plant powers about 15 percent of Ukraine’s electricity and more than half of its nuclear energy.

John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said the “potential scale of a nuclear disaster from a total meltdown of six reactors is far beyond” precedent.

“We’re talking about a major disaster, thousands of acres of farmland being flooded and people having to leave their homes,” said Erath.

Still, an attack on the plant would not spread as far and wide or be nearly as destructive as the infamous Chernobyl explosion in 1986, according to Bryan Clark, a former U.S. Navy submarine officer who worked with the military branch’s nuclear power unit.

Clark said the worst-case scenario of a breach at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which now has all of its reactors in cold shutdown, would be similar to Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

In that 1979 accident, the most serious nuclear disaster in U.S. history, there was a partial meltdown of one reactor, leading to small radiation leaks that affected 2 million people in the surrounding area. There were no adverse health effects, such as cancer, from the leak.

Clark, also a senior fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said even if nefarious sabotage agents were to deliberately plant explosives, they have a 50 percent chance of triggering the worst-case scenario.

“The Russians would have to deliberately cause a leak, sabotage the safety systems, and then, in the end, the worst they could achieve is a Three Mile Island type disaster,” he said. 

“The impact of sabotaging this plant could be very significant in terms of a news story and generating terror and panic, but in terms of the environmental effects, it would be much less significant than Chernobyl.”

Since last spring, when Russian forces took the power plant, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned of a nuclear disaster at the hands of Moscow. 

Fighting around the plant last year sparked international alarm and eventually led IAEA inspectors to station permanently at the plant in the fall. Fears revived in June as Ukraine said Russian forces were withdrawing from the site and accused Moscow of preparing to blow up the nuclear plant from the inside.

Ukraine’s top spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov, told Reuters Thursday the latest threat from Russia against the power plant has “receded” but declined to go into further detail. He added as long as their forces hold the plant, there’s a risk of a disaster.

The IAEA says inspectors conducted a walkthrough Wednesday and found no evidence of explosives or mines at the plant. 

However, Russia controls the nuclear power station and what inspectors may see. Grossi, the IAEA chief, said this week he requested access to additional areas, including reactors three and four, as well as cooling stations.

The IAEA encourages both Ukraine and Russia to follow the principles of not attacking the plant or attacking from within the site — nor should it be used for the storage of heavy weapons. Some humanitarian advocates have called for a fully implemented safe zone around the plant.

The back-and-forth accusations between Kyiv and Moscow come just weeks after the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River was breached by an unknown force, sending immense floodwater across southern Ukraine. As with the nuclear power plant, Ukrainian and Russian officials blamed each other for preparing attacks, not long before the dam collapsed.

Kyiv has hinted it wants the plant back rather than wait for a disaster orchestrated by Russia, though Ukraine’s counteroffensive launched last month has made incremental progress, and forces trying to break deep into the Zaporizhzhia region remain far from the plant.

Ukrainian forces would have to break through miles of Russian lines to get to the city of Tokmak, a major waypoint in the counteroffensive near the city of Melitopol, and then advance west toward the banks of the Dnipro. 

Ukraine does control territory on the opposite bank of the plant located on the Dnipro, but has shown no signs it will launch an attack across the river.

Erath, from the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said he was most concerned about Russia taking the plant as hostage if Ukraine advances toward the site.

“Nuclear power plants are very strongly built. They are built to withstand thunderstorms and tornadoes. They are not built to withstand modern military action,” he said. “There’s not a precedent for this.”

Clark, from Hudson Institute, argued the most likely scenario if Russian troops are forced to retreat from a Ukrainian advance, is for them to attempt to disable the plant from restarting again — but not in a way that triggers an environmental disaster.

“Let’s render Ukraine unable to rebuild its economy in the aftermath and it will continue to be a weak state,” Clark said of Moscow’s potential thinking. “Which is what Russia has wanted all along.”