The situation at Zaporozhye nuclear power plant

 Via a comment in ‘Moon of Alabama’ in 

Ukraine Open Thread 2022-133

Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is analyzing the development of the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

Since July 18, 2022, the station has been subjected to systematic shelling by the armed forces of Ukraine from multiple rocket launchers, barrel artillery and using unmanned aerial vehicles.

As of August 18, 2022, 12 attacks were carried out, during which more than 50 artillery shell explosions and 5 kamikaze drones were recorded on the territory of the NPP and the city of Energodar.
The Russian Defense Ministry conducted an investigation and found that the strikes were carried out from the direction of the settlements of Manganese and Nikopol.

As a result of the shelling, the auxiliary support systems of the station were damaged, as well as the life support facilities of the city of Energodar.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the Ukrainian side, together with their curators from the United States, is trying to play the card, causing, in their opinion, a minor accident at the nuclear power plant and thereby disrupting the normal and safe operation of the nuclear power plant, blaming Russia for this.

The Ukrainian side has repeatedly stated that the strikes on the plant are carried out by the Armed Forces of Russia, and Russian heavy weapons are placed on the territory of the NPP, from which shelling is carried out on the objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

We are ready to present to the IAEA real pictures with very high resolution, the sample is placed on a slide, which shows that we do not place weapons, especially heavy ones, on the territory of this station. The Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation said this to UN Secretary-General Guterres.

We know that in the presence of a large number of military and commercial foreign satellites, the same information can be presented to the world community by the American side.

At the same time, the United States suppresses objective data on the shelling and the situation at the nuclear power plant, thereby encouraging the impunity of the Kiev regime and contributing to the possible development of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe.

It is no coincidence that the conclusions of specialists of the American Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament (Washington, DC) and a number of other similar institutions of Western countries, and not the IAEA, which has the right to such conclusions, are widely quoted in the media that the occurrence of a large-scale disaster at the NPP seems unlikely.

In their opinion, the thickness of the concrete shelters of its nuclear reactors is 10 meters, in addition, the station was designed and built taking into account the need to overcome the consequences of incidents such as the fall of a civilian aircraft.

At the same time, it is not excluded that a direct hit of large–caliber artillery shells into the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel will lead to radioactive contamination of the area within a radius of up to 20 km, and an emergency situation at a nuclear reactor is up to 30 km maximum. At the same time, it is emphasized that the risks of radiation spreading on the territory of European countries are assessed as minimal.

Thus, according to American experts, the consequences of the nuclear incident at the Zaporozhye NPP will be limited and will not affect the territory of European countries.

I would like to remind the UN Secretariat and the entire world community that the principal cause of the accidents at the Chernobyl plant and the Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite the fact that in the first case there were experiments with a nuclear reactor, and in the second case – an earthquake and tsunami, is the failure of supply systems, disruption of power supply, partial and complete de–energization cooling systems, which led to overheating of the nuclear fuel and destruction of the reactor.

As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the territory of more than 20 European countries was contaminated with radioactive isotopes. About 4 thousand people died from direct exposure to radiation, tens of thousands of cases of genetic deformities in newborns and hundreds of thousands of oncological diseases were recorded. Not counting the consequences of forced evacuation, up to 100 thousand people and more than 5.5 million people received an increased dose of radiation.

At the Fukushima nuclear power plant, only at first glance it may seem that the consequences are insignificant. Up to 500 thousand people were subjected to gradual forced evacuation, and descendants will feel the consequences of dumping radioactive water into the ocean.

One gets the feeling that this has been forgotten.

According to our experts, due to the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a similar situation may arise at the Zaporozhye NPP.

Thus, in case of failure of backup diesel generators and mobile pumps, in case of an emergency, the core will overheat and, as a result, the destruction of reactor installations at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe with the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere and their spreading for hundreds of kilometers.

Such an emergency situation will cause mass migration of the population and will have more catastrophic consequences than the impending gas energy crisis in Europe, which is confirmed by the forecast of a number of European specialized organizations.

In addition, according to available information, as part of a trip to Ukraine from August 17 to 19, 2022, UN Secretary-General Guterres plans to visit the city of Odessa. By this date, the Armed Forces of Ukraine intend to stage a provocation of a man-made disaster at the Zaporozhye NPP, which consists in the leakage of radiation, destruction of the integrity of the nuclear waste storage and the withdrawal of the NPP reactor into a state of abnormal operation.

All this, according to their plan, should be a consequence of the military actions of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of the nuclear power plant, the incompetence of Russian specialists involved in the operation of this nuclear facility.

In order to stage the AFU, it is planned to deploy radiation monitoring posts to the compounds, military units and units stationed in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, which are part of the united group of forces "Dnepr", to provide 100 percent of the military personnel with means of chemical and radiation protection, to conduct training on chemical and radiation protection and other security measures for the purpose of staging the AFU. In particular, the units of the 44th separate artillery brigade were ordered to be ready to act in conditions of radiation contamination of the area by August 19. In the same place, in the area of the Zaporozhye NPP, units of the 704th separate regiment of the RCB protection of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being transferred.

Artillery strikes on the NPP are planned from the city quarters of the city of Nikopol.
This "performance" will be accompanied by alerts to the population about the increase in radiation background and other "special effects". The staging is carried out in the interests of influencing the UN Secretary General and the international community to cover up decisions beneficial to Kiev.

The ultimate goal of the provocation is the creation of an exclusion zone of up to 30 km, the introduction of international forces and foreign observers into the territory of the NPP, as well as the accusation of the Russian Armed Forces of nuclear terrorism.

As a conclusion from the above, we draw your attention to the fact that with the continuation of the negative development of the situation related to the shelling of the nuclear power plant by Ukraine, the issue of the withdrawal of 5 and 6 power units to the "cold reserve" may be considered, which will lead to the shutdown of the Zaporozhye NPP.