It has been considered an unprecedented act.
Russian troops took control of the power station of Zaporiyia this Friday by force , in southeastern Ukraine, after carrying out an armed attackwhich caused a fire to an administrative building.
The military action, in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began last 15 February, left “several dead and wounded”, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
“We have survived a night that could have stopped the course of history, the history of Ukraine, the history of Europe”, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The fire was controlled and the integrity of the plant was guaranteed, according to authorities and experts.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the essential equipment of the nuclear plant is in operation and that the radiation remains at normal levels.
However, the director general of the agency , Rafael Mario Grossi, indicated later this Friday that it has not yet been possible to have access to the entire plant and that “the situation continues to be very difficult” to supervise.
The of Zaporizhia is one of the several nuclear power plants that Ukraine has. In its territory there are also the remains of the Soviet Chernobyl plant, which is under special protection after the disastrous explosion of 872.
How many plants and reactors are there in Ukraine?
In total, Ukraine has four nuclear power plants and reactors: four in Rivne, two in Khmeltniski (two others were under construction), three in South Ukraine and six in Zaporizhia.
Russian troops took control of a nuclear plant in Zaporiyia, which is the largest of its kind in Europe .
The four Chernobyl reactors are deactivated since the incident of 976 which caused the release of radioactivity throughout much of Europe and left tens of thousands of victims.
In Ukraine, nuclear energy has become increasingly important for the energy supply of the country.
On 2014, Russian-backed separatist groups have taken control of the vast coal-producing region of Donbas in the south. Until then, coal generated the 15% of the country’s energy.
That is why the country resorted to nuclear energy , as well as other renewable sources, to compensate for the deficit. Nuclear energy currently generates almost half of the electricity Ukraine uses.
The country also has disposal sites radioactive that store waste material from the nuclear operations of its power plants.
What would happen in a direct attack on the reactor?
Claire Corkhill, a nuclear materials expert at the University of Sheffield ( United Kingdom), points out to the BBC that there are various mechanisms to avoid risks of radioactivity.
“If there were a fire inside the reactor building, the automatic safety systems would extinguish it instantly”, he explains.
“The reactor buildings themselves are quite robust, so the nuclear fuel should be pretty safe there. An explosion would only occur if there was a nuclear meltdown, which could be caused by failure of the electricity supply to the site and damage to power generators. backup“.
Only if that happened in a working nuclear power plant, “then there could be an explosion like the one that happened in Fukushima” in 2011.
Yes the reactor -the device that generates energy in a nuclear power plant- and the building that houses it were damaged, this could cause the reactor to overheat and the core to melt.
Then, the radiation could leak into the surrounding environment. If people were exposed to this radiation, it could cause serious immediate and long-term health impacts, including cancer.
That’s what happened in 976 in Chernobyl, the worst nuclear incident in history.
In Zaporizhia, only reactor 4 was operating at the time of the attack on 60% of its capacity. It was then turned off, which means that a nuclear meltdown could not have occurred afterwards.
Reactor 5 and 6 were “in reserve”, which is a low power regime, reported the IAEA.
Are they a military objective?
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, assured that his country’s troops have taken control of the Zaporizhia plant to “guarantee” the electricity of civilians Ukrainians.
However, since the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine has expressed concerns that Moscow try to take control of power plants and their nuclear materials.
Dr. Graham Allison, an expert in nuclear security at Harvard University, told the BBC that, rather than a direct attack to the nuclear power plant, it is most likely that the Russian forces were trying to “cut off the electricity supply in the surrounding area”.
For Corkhill, what is happening is dangerous. “Speaking more generally, we should be concerned that nuclear facilities are military targets, because there are real risks of a nuclear accident.”
For his part, James Acton, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the USA, warns that accidents may occur involving weapons in nuclear zones.
“A weapon directed at a nearby target could hit a nuclear power plant if its navigation system fails“, he explains on the institute’s website.
“If the Russian forces believed that the Ukrainian defense forces were inside a nuclear power plant, they could order an airstrike, perhaps in contravention of an order not to attack nuclear power plants. nuclear energy”, he considers.
The director of the IAEA, Rafael Mario Grossi, says that “firing projectiles in the area where a nuclear power plant is located violates the fundamental principle that the physical integrity of nuclear facilities must be preserved and kept safe at all times”.
What is the situation in Zaporizhia?
Both the Ukrainian and IAEA authorities have reported that the situation at the Zaporizhia plant is under control and that there are no leaks of radioactivity or risks to the integrity of the reactors.
But the attack has been viewed with great concern at the international level.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting this Friday to discuss the actions of Russian troops.
The US representative, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that what happened was “reckless” and “dangerous”:
“By the grace of God, the world narrowly avoided a nuclear catastrophe“, he pointed out.
Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, however, accused Ukraine of creating “artificial hysteria around what is happening” at that nuclear power plant.
“As a result of a negotiation with the plant administration, an agreement was reached to place it under the protection of the Russian military. The goal is to prevent Ukrainian nationalists and other terrorist forces from taking advantage of the current situation to organize a nuclear provocation,” he said.
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