Ukrainian intelligence claims to have reliable information that Russia has mined the energy units of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. How big are the risks of a nuclear accident in the ZNPP? Are there opportunities for objective control by the IAEA? DW News Show hosts Alexander Plyushchev and Tatyana Felgenhauer talked about this with an expert on nuclear energy issues, former board member of Ukraine’s State Inspectorate of Nuclear Regulation Olga Kosharna.

– Many experts believe that the situation around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant seems uncontrollable. Is that so, in your opinion?

Olga Kosharnaya: What the Russian Federation, its military and Rosatom representatives have been doing in the ZNPP in recent days is, of course, nuclear terrorism of course. On August 5, the station was bombed twice, the first bombing destroyed the power line and one of the operating reactors had to be shut down urgently. At night, they fired on the industrial area within the controlled perimeter and hit the nitrogen-oxygen station, where the electrolysers operate, which produce the hydrogen needed to cool the working turbogenerators. Hydrogen, as you know, is a flammable explosive gas, in a certain proportion with air it is very flammable.

On August 6, a site containing a dry storage facility for spent fuel in concrete containers was bombed. 174 containers. A nuclear plant employee was injured. On August 7, the Russian military fired mortars from the boarding house of the Zaporizhzhya thermal power plant towards Energodar. There are records of this on local Telegram channels, so it is impossible to blame the Ukrainian military for this: the time between departure and arrival (of a projectile – Red.) – three seconds. This is terrorism of course.

The only thing that still hasn’t happened is that the Russian terrorists haven’t made any demands. But Russia needs a complete and functional Zaporozhye station. In May, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government Khusnullin said that Russia plans to move the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and the windmills in the Kherson region to Crimea. In fact, the situation is such that two new thermal power plants in Crimea operate on gas – it was obtained from fields stolen by Russia in 2014 located on offshore platforms, the so-called “Boyko Towers”. And since they were bombed in June, this feature no longer exists.

Russia has been restoring the power line since May, and according to the government of occupied Crimea, it has now been restored from Chongar to Kakhovka, and in principle it is technically possible to switch the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. So, on the one hand, Russia does not make any demands, and on the other hand, it is a nightmare for Ukraine and all international organizations, and Europe with the threat of nuclear catastrophe, they say, the Ukrainian military is now undermining the ZNPP And on August 8, Vasiliev, this military gauleiter on Energodar (head of the RF Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological protection troops, Major General Valery Vasiliev, who now commands the garrison of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. – Red.) already said that either there will be Russian land, or a desert devastated with radiation.

– How real is the threat of a serious accident at the station?

– I don’t think Russia will shoot the reactor compartment. The area around the ZNPP was mined long ago. Immediately after the capture, the Russian military began to mine the coast of Kakhovka around open shields, switchboards, build trenches, caponiers… They will not shoot. But there is a danger of a radiation accident. Because, first of all, Ukrainian operators who have a license from a Ukrainian regulatory body have been working in a stressful situation for five months. His colleagues who worked at nuclear power plants were killed, kidnapped, and this does not contribute to peace of mind. And since up to 70% of operational events – so called by the terminology – typically occur due to human error, the risk of human error in reactor management is now even greater.

After the Fukushima accident, Ukraine modernized nuclear power plant units, taking these lessons into account. There was a hydrogen explosion due to the fuel melting in the core, and after that we have all sorts of technical stuff. First of all, unlike the Fukushima nuclear power plant and, moreover, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there is confinement at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant – this is a very strong dome, which has also been strengthened. There are new filters that, in the event of a major meltdown accident, will bleed the radioactivity slightly. And most importantly, there are hydrogen recombiners – they are catalysts that eliminate hydrogen, because it is dangerous. Therefore, a radiation accident is possible for several reasons. But there won’t be a nuclear accident like Nagasaki or Hiroshima. I still think they won’t allow it.

Many people have already talked about nuclear terrorism in the Russian Federation. This must be proven in court. There is the convention “International Counteracting Acts of Nuclear Terrorism”, which, incidentally, was initiated by the Russian Federation. She was the one who wrote the first text of the convention in 1998. And then there’s Article Two, which lists literally everything Russia has done and qualifies as nuclear terrorism. But this is being proven in the International Criminal Court. And Ukraine, I think, is going to file a lawsuit.

– Unfortunately, we will have to wait some time before the trial, but it is already alarming at this point. Can we talk about some means of objective control? At least from the IAEA? The Russian side promised to let the inspectors in. But they are still words. What can the international expert community do now?

– I think the situation has reached a point where everyone has already spoken. Anthony Blinken (US Secretary of State – Red.) On August 1, at a briefing during the ongoing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, he recalled the Budapest Memorandum and said that the Russians were using the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant as a military base and nuclear shield, and that an IAEA mission was urgently needed. Then Josep Borrell (EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – Ed.), and Chief of Staff of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak.

Zaporizhzhia is Ukraine, ZNPP personnel work under Ukrainian license, so the IAEA mission must also get permission from Ukraine, because we are the owners of this nuclear power plant. Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of the IAEA’s mission. But this is a UN structure – that they take peacekeepers with them, get mandates for them.

I believe that not a single citizen of the Russian Federation should be on this mission. We know that many Russian citizens work in the IAEA, including the main department of nuclear energy, which is headed by Mikhail Chudakov and which includes the nuclear safety division. So, according to my sources, there are also a lot of Russians or Russian agents there.

Ukraine must impose conditions that Russian personnel do not have access to the preparation of this mission and that there is not a single Russian representative in this mission. And this mission will be combined. It should include not only inspectors for the accounting and control of nuclear materials, but also specialists who can assess nuclear and radiological safety.

As a rule, in a normal situation, each country commissions specialized missions for operational safety, includes specialists from different countries who deal with the reliability and physical protection of the plant, the assessment of the regulatory system in the state and so on. And now it must also be a single mission, which will be made up of different specialists, because the specialists always work in a very narrow field. But this was supposed to be an international mission, and from the beginning I advocated that it arrive as early as possible.