Status: 08/24/2022 10:22 a.m
At the beginning of February, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant ruins were occupied. Another plant is now in focus: the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant – which is repeatedly being shot at. How safe are the facilities and what role do they play in the war against Ukraine?
It only takes a few hours on February 24 for Russian troops to reach Chernobyl. Without a fight, they can take over the site of the decommissioned nuclear power plant – the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters to date.
To this day, the site is surrounded by a 30-kilometer exclusion zone – even 38 years later, the area is still uninhabitable. And yet people still work here. They are technicians or security guards and are taken hostage by the Russian occupiers at the beginning of the war. So did Mikhail Pobedin. He worked in Chernobyl until the end of March:
I didn’t believe that this scenario is possible, that an occupation of a nuclear power plant is possible. What are they doing? They used the nuclear power plant as cover. There was so much military technology there, many soldiers. You lived there. It was like a shield for them because they wouldn’t be bombed or shot at there. You have relaxed and rested. They used that as a shield – a nuclear power plant.
The Ukrainian government and international observers are alarmed. The ruins of the exploded reactor block shine to this day. There is great concern that radioactivity could leak out of Chernobyl again.
The irresponsible and unprofessional actions of the Russians are a serious danger – not just for Ukraine, but for hundreds of millions of Europeans, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereschuk complained at the end of March: “That’s why we’re demanding that the UN Security Council take measures to demilitarize the Exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a special UN mission there to prevent the risk of a repeat of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe through the actions of the Russian occupying forces.”
Fear of nuclear catastrophe
The Russians are in Chernobyl for five weeks – then they withdraw. And yet many people in Ukraine today are once again afraid of a nuclear catastrophe. Again, a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant is in focus – Zaporizhia. This time the largest nuclear power plant in Europe with six reactor blocks. Again, many in Ukraine find it hard to believe, like Anna Korolewska, director of the Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv:
This is the only nuclear power plant in Ukraine where nuclear waste from the power plant is stored. They are not taken anywhere, they are still there. If this area is turned into a military base, trenches are dug on the outskirts and the site is mined – what is that?
Nuclear bombardment is not the only danger
The Ukrainian government accuses Russia of terrorism. Because from the direction of the nuclear power plant, soldiers shoot at the other bank of the Dnieper. Because of the nuclear danger, one cannot shoot back, claims Ukraine. But the nuclear power plant is still being shot at. Russia and Ukraine blame each other.
But shelling is not the only danger, explains Kiev nuclear expert Olga Kosharna: “The risks are also increasing because the staff has been under stress for six months and errors are increasing. The fact is that in peacetime statistics show that 70 percent of system failures are due to human error.”
“They kidnap people, beat them, torture them”
Natalia also worked in the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant – as a cleaner. Now she is sitting in a tent for refugees from the occupied territories. She reports that the Russian soldiers attacked the employees. “Personally, I had no contact with them. But I know that they kidnapped and beat the section head shortly before we left. I don’t know why, they don’t explain it. They kidnap People, beating, torturing. Eyewitnesses say they even use electric shocks. It’s really scary what’s going on.”
Russia is capable of anything in this regard – that is the tenor of many experts and politicians in Ukraine. Despite all the dangers, expert Kosharna does not go that far. According to Kosharna, the Russian army would use the nuclear power plant as leverage in the war. “It’s blackmail. They’re forcing negotiations. They want to establish the status quo in the areas they’ve already occupied,” says Kosharna.