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Volume 7, 2023/1, Feb 27, 46 pages  ♦  pdf format

Sabine Riedel

NUCLEAR DEALS AND NUCLEAR ARMS IN UKRAINIAN WAR

An Annotated Documentary on the Military Conflict around the Zaporizhzhya NPP

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CONTENT:

The 46 pages contain:
Documentation with 24 illustrations and sources (linked) with quotes.

INTRODUCTION

The coverage of the Ukraine war presents us with the image of a showdown between a democratically minded president and one who is obsessed with power. The causes of the conflict and the international context are just as much ignored as the economic interests driving the war. This documentation aims to fill the information gap and contribute to a reassessment of the current war situation:

Russia’s military intervention, which violates international law, is based on the accusation that Ukraine is conducting dual-use research into arms of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. It is certain that Kiev has lost control of its atomic material and that research is being carried out in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear ruins. Moreover, the storage facility built with EU funds to protect the damaged reactor has been turned into the world’s largest radioactive waste dump.

Until now, Russia has been the uranium supplier and buyer of the expired fuel. Since 2014, however, Ukraine has wanted to become the world’s largest nuclear power producer with the help of the US companies Westinghouse and Holtec and loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Moscow thwarted these plans with the military occupation and takeover of the Zaporizhzhya NPP, however, escalating the conflict to the brink of nuclear war: 

The Ukrainian energy company Energoatom has repeatedly called for its recapture by force. Since the beginning of August, there are said to have been about 300 grenade impacts on the NPP site. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is celebrating the worldwide return of “clean” nuclear energy. … [p. 1]

Andrei Sakharov:

“Nuclear war might come from an ordinary one. The latter, as is widely known, comes from politics.“ 

(de.rbth.com)

According to official interpretation, the Ukrainian war was triggered by Russia’s recognition of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. But this alone does not explain why the Chernobyl nuclear ru-ins and the Zaporizhzhya NPP, the largest nuclear facility in Europe, were among the priority targets of the Russian military occupation. With their conquest at the end of February 2022, Moscow took major security risks, including that of a nuclear accident with direct consequences for its own territory. 

The Russian accusation that Kiev is secretly researching nuclear arms there has not yet been sufficiently investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). What is certain, however, is that reactors 1-5 of the Zapo¬rizhzhya NPP were shut down immediately after their occupation. Its term should have ended in 2015/ 2020 but was extended to 2025/2028 after a stress test. Block 6 was initially used for the self-supply of the nuclear plant, until it was also taken off the grid for safety reasons.

On 10.7.2022, for the first time, the Ukrainian company Energoatom called on its own military to take back its nuclear power plant by force. Officially, it blames Russia for the shelling in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear reactors. The Western press adopted this narrative from the beginning, without examining the accusations of the Russian defence ministry, possibly to cover up the complicity of NATO and the EU. For the bombardment of nuclear facilities is an absolute no-go under international law, even in the case of defence. 

In doing so, Western governments have incurred a great deal of guilt, which will be included in the overall balance sheet after the end of the Ukraine war. But if there should be a nuclear accident in Zaporizhzhya, it will cause biological and ecological damage of unimaginable proportions for Europe. The EU’s open military support for Ukraine is incompatible with neither climate protection nor the energy transition. Rather, it has become clear that environmental protection requires an active peace policy. [p. 21 …]

This part of the documentary refers to discourses on a peace order that could contribute to the end of the Ukraine war. Is it a coincidence that the danger of a military confrontation between the nuclear powers is increasing at a time when the global ban on atomic arms has won a victory? At the beginning of 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) became part of international law: 

A majority of UN members had initiated this global disarmament process in 2017, which prohibits the use, production and stationing of nuclear weapons. The nuclear powers and their allies, whose national security is based on the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, meet this initiative with rejection, disregard and resistance. This is because the 91 signatory states have since formed a strong, knowing that international humanitarian law is on their side.

If the ongoing shelling of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhya NPP triggers a nuclear accident, the Ukrainian government, in addition to Russia, will have to answer to international courts for the violent recapture of its nuclear facility. Ukraine is a co-signatory of Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions (12.8.1949) on Protection in the Event of Armed Conflict. 

Article 56 explicitly prohibits the attack and shelling of dams and nuclear power plants (fedlex.admin.ch, 1982, citation below). From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a legal discussion has already been initiated on permissible exceptions, which are stated in the protocol. Proponents of the nuclear deterrence doctrine have since adhered to the narrative that nuclear power plants are not taboo in military conflicts “under certain circumstances” (dw.com, 1.10.2022). [p. 43 …]