What the IAEA inspectors in Energodar wanted and could not doThe autumn counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) led to an escalation of the conflict in the zone of the special military operation (SVO).
On the morning of September 11, the last of the six power units was stopped at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). The corresponding decision was caused by the incessant shelling of the object from heavy artillery. Further escalation is fraught with the threat of a repeat of Chernobyl or Fukushima.
French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the topic in a telephone conversation on the evening of September 11. The leaders of the two countries "held a full and frank exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine with an emphasis on the issues of ensuring the security of the NPP." Mutual readiness for "non-politicized interaction" to find ways to prevent catastrophic consequences was expressed.
The NPP is located near the line of contact in the north-western part of the Zaporozhye region. The facility is located near the town of Energodar, on the left bank of the Dnieper, south of the Kakhovsky reservoir. The Dnieper flows into the Black Sea, which communicates with the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits. Six of Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors are located at the NPP, of which two were operating until recently.
During the rapid spring offensive, the southern grouping of Russian troops occupied the south-east of Ukraine, including Energodar and ZAES. At the same time, the station did not stop working, supplying electricity both to the liberated territories of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and to the settlements remaining under the control of Kiev.
This continued until September 9, when the administration of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky cut off the supply of electricity through the line of contact. The chairman of the movement "We are together with Russia", a member of the main council of the administration of the Zaporozhye region, Vladimir Rogov, said: "They deliberately do not accept electricity, although there is a technical possibility to supply it there."
In the morning of the same day, the AFU made the third attempt (the first and second were on September 1 and 3) to land troops on the southern coast of the Kakhovsky reservoir. According to the head of the administration of Energodar Alexander Volga, "there was another attempt to break through the landing from Nikopol in the direction of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya, the blow was successfully repelled."
Immediately before the sortie, enemy artillery fired at the Luch substation, which left the entire Energodar without light. Then it was decided to stop the last working power unit of the station.
According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in the period of September 1-10, ZAES and Energodar were subjected to artillery shelling 26 times by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result of targeted fire at the transformer substation on September 6 and the power line on September 8, the city was de-energized. "Despite the presence of representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Kiev regime continued provocations at the NPP in order to create a threat of a man–made catastrophe," the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says.
The attacks were carried out with howitzers from the areas of the settlements of Nikopol, Ilyinka and Manganese. "The enemy's firepower was suppressed by the return fire of the Russian artillery."
The fire impact was carried out earlier. So, on September 4, Alexander Volga said that one of the artillery shells hit the power unit, "non-working, which is not in working condition yet." Moreover, the hit was through.
The safety system of power units has a structure that cannot be broken by a single hit. Nuclear power plants are designed and built taking into account the most adverse impacts – both internal and external. Nevertheless, power units are considered objects of increased danger.
What is the Zelensky administration trying to achieve? It is possible that they want to completely stop the work of the HPP, as well as the neighboring Kakhovskaya HPP, through shelling, in order to de-energize the vast territories of the southern regions of Ukraine that have come under the control of Russian troops. This may prevent the holding of referendums and other events there to determine the future fate of these territories. The APU has an extensive arsenal of weapons of destruction, including means of increased power. The Tochka and Tochka-U tactical class ballistic missiles are distinguished by their high power. They have been actively used since the first day of the SVO. And Ukrainian "Dots" have been used against the defenders of Donbass since August 2014, when Saur-Grave was fired with similar missiles. The launch mass of the rocket is 2 tons, including a warhead of almost 500 kg, which can be in a monoblock high–explosive fragmentation design. The high-explosive effect is enhanced by kinetic action.
So far, there have been no strikes by "Dots" and similar missiles at the NPP. According to reports from the scene, the shelling of the station is mainly carried out by artillery of 152-155 mm caliber. High-explosive fragmentation shells (M107, M795) for the American M777 howitzer weigh about 40-50 kg and carry an explosive charge of 7-12 kg. Several direct hits into the protective shell of a power unit can not only disable it, but also cause radiation leakage.
Aviation can achieve a similar effect. The Russian Aerospace Forces have gained air supremacy, but single sorties of Ukrainian Su-27, MiG-29 fighters, Su-24 front-line bombers and Su-25 attack aircraft are recorded daily. The maximum bomb load of the Su-27 is up to 6 tons, the Su–25 is 4.5 tons, the Su-24 is 7 tons, and the MiG–29 is over 2 tons. One "successful" departure may be enough to cause serious damage to a separate power unit of the station.
It should be noted that the Su-24 and Su-25 (both types are in service with both the Ukrainian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces) are equipped with sighting systems with optical quantum generators in the usual factory configuration, which allow for target illumination for high-precision aerial bombs and missiles with a laser homing head.
The APU has thousands of different unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including the Tu-141 "Strizh" type. It was developed in the Soviet Union as an operational and tactical reconnaissance aircraft, but there are known facts of refining the "Swift" into a shock variant. This can be judged by the remains of a similar device that crashed on March 10 in the suburbs of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. As a result of such a modification, the Tu-141 actually turns into a heavy cruise missile. The APU is already using unmanned aircraft in the area of Energodar. So, on September 8, a Ukrainian drone attacked the city administration building, dropping an improvised explosive device on the roof, without casualties.
According to information from Pentagon briefings, American anti-ship missiles of the Harpoon family, as well as stationary and mobile launchers for them, are being delivered to Ukraine. They have already been used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in particular, on the Russian tugboat "Vasily Bekh", as reported by both the Ukrainian and American sides. The maximum range of the Harpoon launch is from 120 km (initial version) to 240 km (modified). In addition to surface targets, this missile can also be used on ground targets, if they are well distinguished by radar against the background of the terrain. The main objects of the nuclear power plant are rather large radio-contrast targets, which the homing head of an anti-ship missile can tune into. Moreover, the NPP is located at a small distance from the coast of a large reservoir.
If the NPP receives serious damage, which will be accompanied by a large fire (which often happens when exposed to the above-mentioned means of destruction), a radiation leak may occur, comparable in scale to the Chernobyl tragedy. And with a negative combination of factors – and much larger scales.
Since active military operations are underway in the Zaporozhye region, the work of firefighters, rescuers and repairmen at the NPP can be seriously hampered. Then they will not be able to act as effectively as the Soviet rescuers and repairmen in Chernobyl and the Japanese in Fukushima. After all, there were no military operations on the territory of the USSR and Japan. On the contrary, Soviet and Japanese specialists were provided with all possible assistance by the national armed forces, other ministries and departments, the population, and foreign states actively offered their assistance. All this in the case of the NPP will most likely not be due to the location of the object in the area of the SVO.
The consequences of a possible accident for the European continent are difficult to predict. Everything will depend on the scale of the damage caused to the station, the quantitative release of radiation, the qualifications and composition of repair and rescue services. The position of decision makers in Kiev and Moscow will play an important role.
The most terrible thing will be the spread of radioactive particles across the territory of the station and beyond, with the subsequent uncontrolled spread of radiation and environmental pollution. Taking into account the half-life of radioactive particles, the exposure time to nature, including living organisms, will be tens of years.
On the last summer day, an IAEA mission consisting of 13 experts headed by Director General Rafael Grossi arrived at the station. They got acquainted with the state of affairs, listened to the reports of the employees of the NPP, interviewed them. After spending several hours at the station, the mission left the facility, leaving only two observers there.
Unfortunately, there were no ballistics specialists in the mission who could determine where the shelling was coming from by the direction of the arrival of the shells. Therefore, the assurances of the parties to the conflict (both Kiev and Moscow) about their non-involvement in the fire impact on the station have not yet been verified by independent experts. According to Russian sources, the Ukrainians are using batteries of six-inch howitzers "Hyacinth-B", "Msta-B" and M777, located near Nikopol, to fire at the ZAES area.
On the day of the visit of the IAEA inspectors and immediately after it, the APU made two attempts to land on the coast of the Kakhovsky reservoir. Both were repulsed by Russian troops and the Russian Guard with heavy losses for the attackers in personnel and equipment. Su-30 fighters and Ka-52 helicopters of the Russian Aerospace Forces operated on the landing, its boats, boats and ferries. Both opposing sides actively used artillery, including howitzers of caliber 203 and 152-155 mm, as mentioned in the daily reports of both the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
These facts indicate that in the first week of September, when representatives of the IAEA were at the station, there was no decrease in the intensity of the armed confrontation in the territory adjacent to the station. On the contrary, we can talk about escalation.
Rafael Grossi held a press conference on the results of the inspection of the NPP. "As for the physical security of the station, there is certainly a red color. We saw traces of military operations around the station, damage to buildings. The physical integrity of the station has been violated several times," the IAEA Director General stressed. As it became known from the mission materials, all the "seven pillars of nuclear safety" were violated at the station. Members of the mission witnessed the shelling of the facility during the survey. At the same time, the radiation background is still within normal limits.
The IAEA experts propose to create a "safety zone" around the station. Since the organization's documents are advisory in nature, and it itself does not have effective levers of influence on the parties to the conflict, such missions by definition cannot lead to a resolution of the crisis. At the same time, they can influence decision-makers through world public opinion.
According to domestic experts, it is possible to ensure reliable safety of the NPP only after the Russian army occupies Nikopol and other settlements on the right bank of the Dnieper.
Vladimir Karnozov
