When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked attack on Ukraine, one the first regions Russian troops captured was the partially destroyed Chernobyl nuclear power plant 55 miles north of the capital of Kiev. A nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl plant, then part of the Soviet Union, exploded in 1986, spewing massive amounts of extremely dangerous radiation into the air and soil which was later detected around the world. The nearby town of Pripyat was abandoned and a 1,000-square mile exclusion zone around the plant was created to prevent people from being exposed to lethal doses of radiation.
Now, as one of the largest wars erupts in Europe since World War II, journalist, author and anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman reminds us that Ukraine is home to 15 nuclear reactors that the nation depends on for more than half its electricity. All but two were built by the Soviet Union, that now mostly rely on Russia for critical maintenance and nuclear fuel.
Early on in this conflict, international monitors reported that Russian missiles struck Ukrainian facilities containing nuclear waste. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Harvey Wasserman who warns that damage to any of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, either by targeted or accidental military action, could result in “catastrophe with unspeakable health, ecological, and financial impacts.”
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Because of these 15 reactors, this is the most dangerous moment in human history since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And I do not exaggerate. These 15 reactors are scattered in four different spots in Ukraine. They are totally vulnerable to any kind of military attack. Vladimir Putin could wake up in the morning and say he’s going to blow up one or more of these reactors and cause a horrifying apocalypse.
We saw, of course, in Chernobyl, which is, of course, in Ukraine, that the explosion at unit four on April 26, 1986 carpeted the planet — certainly Ukraine and Belarus with atomic radiation, according to a 2007 study done by three Russian scientists who compiled more than 5,000 studies of the downwind impacts of Chernobyl. That accident killed more than a million people and the death toll from any attack on any nuclear plant in Ukraine would be apocalyptic.
There are six reactors. It’s the biggest reactor site in Europe. Zaporizhzhia which is near Russia, about 100 kilometers from much of the initial war zone. Anything that would happen at that reactor site that could take down the six reactors would be indescribable in its impact on the human race and actually put the survival of the entire human race at risk.
And we’ve seen four reactors explode at Fukushima. The amount of cesium that was released at Fukushima was more than a 100 times more than the amount of cesium that was released as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we’re on that level. One errant shell that they didn’t mean to shoot could lead to an apocalyptic event. That’s how dangerous the situation is.
SCOTT HARRIS: In discussing what the potential danger is here — it’s possible that in a war zone where these nuclear power plants are operating, conflicts in those areas could actually result in the nuclear engineers and the people operating the plant being forced to leave, which means that nobody’s watching these plants. And there is enormous potential for them to go haywire. A meltdown, possibly. It’s hard to say what the consequences are in each individual plant with a conflict, an active conflict going on in the neighborhood surrounding these plants. What could the world do to ensure that these plants remain safe, as safe as possible?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: They’re not safe. The prospects for a nuclear catastrophe at this point in time are somewhere between highly likely and virtually certain. And, you know, these reactors have to be shut. That’s not enough, by the way. Just shutting them is not enough. But at least it’s a start. I mean, you could you could have a loss of coolant. You could have, if the grid, God forbid, goes down and they lose backup power, as they did at Fukushima, that could happen.
You know, at Fukushima, the plant workers were running out into the parking lot, taking batteries out of their cars to run the control room. And, you know, and this could all happen by accident, which is, you know, the likelihood of which is magnified a thousand-fold by being in a war zone. And you’re right. You know, we don’t we’re not guaranteed that the crews are going to stay in these reactors.
You know, why would they? Well, you know, they know what’s involved. They know what the stakes are. But if the Russian army is marching down the road and these guys know that the army is going to kill them, are they going to stick around? And if they don’t? As you say, what’s going to happen to the reactors? It’s not pretty.
SCOTT HARRIS: Harvey, is there anything at this point that the international community can do, the United Nations or other entities, other organizations to safeguard or do what they can to safeguard these power plants so that they’re not involved in the conflict and they are not accidentally shelled or otherwise damaged — that would release a hellish radiation fallout on Ukraine in the world?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: I have no easy answer for that. I wish I did. I cannot imagine what the international community could do. Shy of a massive airdrop, you know, of troops to surround and protect these reactors, but they can’t be protected by mere troops. You know, you can’t even protect the waste dump of the Chernobyl that blew up in 1986. We are totally at the mercy of the gods of war and the goddesses of chance.
This is a completely unsustainable unimaginable disaster here. You know, I wake up every morning hoping to God that I don’t have to read about something that happened in these reactors. And then the media will not cover it. You’re the only media person on this planet right now that’s entertaining a show discussing this reality, which is the most serious reality of all.
It’s more serious in many ways than the nuclear weapons. Someone is going to have to decide to use those nuclear weapons. These power plants are completely at the mercy of chance here, and the chances look worse every day.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Harvey Wasserman (21:12) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
