Russian attack rekindles nuclear anxieties

Russia’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in Ukraine — the largest nuclear power plant in Europe — sparked new fears Friday about targeting nuclear infrastructure following past environmental catastrophes at such locations. 

The former Soviet republic has 15 nuclear reactors, and the military conflict is the first in European history being carried out on such dangerous ground. Ukraine is also home to the Chernobyl plant, the site of the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.

Experts say that while new safeguards have been implemented since the Chernobyl disaster, the latest event represents a troubling escalation of Russia’s targeting of energy infrastructure.

“We’re trying to make very clear to Russia the importance of protecting the civilian nuclear power plants and not doing anything that could cause a real incident going forward,” a senior Energy Department official told reporters on Friday. 

Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in Ukraine on Friday, drawing concerns and condemnation, even though authorities said the recent actions didn’t appear to have caused radioactive materials to spew from the plant. 

Russia also recently captured the Chernobyl site, where a deadly 1986 nuclear disaster caused an explosion that killed two people and exposed numerous others to radiation, from which many developed illnesses.  

On Friday, observers and officials alike raised concerns about the possible future of nuclear plants in the conflict after the seizure of Zaporizhzhia.

“Nuclear facilities cannot become part of this conflict,” said U.S. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

“Russia must halt any further use of force that might put at further risk all 15 operable reactors across Ukraine — or interfere with Ukraine’s ability to maintain the safety and the security of its 37 nuclear facilities and their surrounding populations,” she added. 

In a press call Friday, Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed “grave concern” and said that despite the built-in safety measures, Ukraine’s plants were not built with a goal of withstanding war. 

“No nuclear plant has been designed to withstand the potential threat of a full-scale military attack, and the plants in Ukraine are no exception,” he said. “The presence of these vulnerable facilities adds a very dangerous dimension to the unfolding humanitarian and environmental catastrophe that’s already being caused by Russia’s invasion, and all parties involved need to make sure that these plants remain undamaged and functional.

“Nuclear plants have a wide range of vulnerabilities to the kinds of damage that could be caused by military assaults, either explosions or fires that would be able to damage not only directly reactor systems such as the containment reactor core but also the critical auxiliary systems that are needed to provide for instance electricity to power the cooling pumps that keep the radioactive fuel and the spent the fuel that’s stored onsite in pools, cool,” he added. 

Jack Kelly, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said he believes that a big part of why Russia took the Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl facilities was their location.

Kelly noted that Chernobyl is part of the “quickest route from Belarus down to Kyiv” and added that Zaporizhzhia is “on the way” from Russia’s other positions near places like Crimea. 

He said other plants in Ukraine that aren’t in strategic locations may not become targets. 

Kelly also said he didn’t believe the plants’ designs would allow for significant releases of radioactive material.

“They could maybe pierce a containment vessel for spent fuel, which would maybe locally aerosol some radioactive material, but it wouldn’t be anything catastrophic … or hard to clean up,” Kelly said. 

The reaction to the fighting at Zaporizhzhia, however, was widely one of worry for what could come next.

“We call on Putin to cease these reckless actions immediately, including conflict around nuclear power plants,” tweeted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “We will continue to monitor the situation and we’re united against Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.”