ON 7 April, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in southern Ukraine was targeted by drone attacks, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, IAEA, reported. Ever since the breakout of the Ukraine War in February 2022, the nuclear security experts have been pondering danger of a radioactive leak-cum-disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with six reactors. Now, the Ukrainian officials have charged that Russia has rigged the plant with explosives, while Russia, the occupier of the ZNPP claims that Ukraine planned an attack on the nuclear facility. Foreseeable, the nuclear analysts intermittently warn of a Chernobyl–like nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia site, if proper nuclear safety and security measures are not applied.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) present at the ZNPP — which has been under Russian occupation since March 2022 shortly after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began — confirmed that the drones targeted one of the site’s six reactor buildings where there was surveillance and communication equipment. “This is a major escalation of the nuclear safety and security dangers facing the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Such reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident and must cease immediately,” IAEA Director General Grossi said. “For more than two years now, nuclear safety and security in Ukraine has been in constant jeopardy. We remain determined to do everything we can to help minimize the risk of a nuclear accident that could harm people and the environment, not only in Ukraine,” Director General Grossi added.
‘’Fallout is the radioactive particles that fall to earth as a result of a nuclear explosion. It consists of weapon debris, fission products, and, in the case of a ground burst, radiated soil. Fallout particles vary in size from thousandths of a millimetre to several millimetres. Much of this material falls directly back down close to ground zero within several minutes after the explosion, but some travels high into the atmosphere. This material will be dispersed over the earth during the following hours, days (and) months. Fallout is defined as one of two types: early fallout, within the first 24 hours after an explosion, or delayed fallout, which occurs days or years later.
Notably, most of the radiation hazard from nuclear bursts comes from short-lived radionuclides external to the body. Three types of radiation damage may occur: bodily damage (mainly leukaemia and cancers of the thyroid, lung, breast, bone and gastrointestinal tract); genetic damage (birth defects and constitutional and degenerative diseases due to gonadal damage suffered by parents); and development and growth damage (primarily growth and mental retardation of unborn infants and young children).
Arguably, be it an advertent or an inadvertent nuclear accident, which can be occurred in the Ukraine war, there appear harrowing risks of a radioactive fallout. One can hardly refute the thesis that, the ongoing war in Ukraine is the first in which nuclear weapons feature has been galvanized to an immeasurable extent. Despite the calls for caution on both sides—the West and Russia, and despite the fact that escalation has so far been avoided, one should not underestimate the situation. Being moved by any strategic need, should the Kremlin pull the trigger, it will encounter a hazard that no invading army has ever faced before: 15 nuclear power reactors, which generate roughly 50% of Ukraine’s energy needs at four sites—entail haunted risks of a radioactive fallout amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Moreover, according to the four risk-of-use scenarios: a) doctrinal use of nuclear weapons, i.e. the use of nuclear weapons as outlined and envisaged in declared policies, doctrines, strategies and concepts ;b) escalatory use, i.e. the use of nuclear weapons in an ongoing situation of tension or conflict; c)unauthorized use, i.e. the non-sanctioned use of nuclear weapons by a non-state actor ; d) accidental use, i.e. the use of nuclear weapons through error, including technical malfunction and human error( as has been the case of Indian launch of Brahmos missile on March 9, 2022, inside the Pakistan territory , Mianchano, which clearly endorsed India’s irresponsible behaviour as a nuclear state).
Consequent upon the Chernobyl nuclear mishap in 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) in its report in 1987, summarized existing research into the impacts on health and health services of nuclear detonations.’’ The report noted inter alia that the blast wave, thermal wave, radiation and a radioactive fallout generated by nuclear explosions have devastating short- and long-term effects on the human body and that existing health services are not equipped to alleviate these effects in any significant way. Since then, the body of evidence of the immediate and longer-term humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use and testing, and of the preparedness and capacity of national and international organizations and health systems to provide assistance to the victims of such events, has been growing steadily
Still, seen from a geopolitical and military angle, any direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could pose risks of a nuclear war. Should a nuclear war break out in Ukraine, it will consequentially affect the Ukrainian, Russian and the European communities while also affecting the surrounding humanity at large– the victims of this disaster—coming from a radioactive fallout. The truth is “we can’t predict the physical consequences of such an attack confidently,” writes Edward Geist, a policy researcher: “What we think of as ‘nuclear weapons effects’ such as blast and fallout are incredibly complicated physical phenomena that result from the interaction of the radiation and materials emitted by the detonating weapon with the matter in the surrounding environment.” Though the IAEA officials have intermittently warned, to prevent the risk of a nuclear fallout, it is incumbent on the part of Russia and NATO to avoid any direct confrontation.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law. He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
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