ZNPP

• Recent reports of a series of drone strikes on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) have demonstrated the serious safety and security concerns at Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
• It has not been confirmed who is responsible for the strikes.
• Both Russia, which occupied ZNPP in March 2022, and Ukraine have pointed the finger at each other.

Drones strike targets

• Attacks have included a drone strike on the oxygen and nitrogen production facility, two on the training centre and a drone shot down above a turbine hall.
• It is clearly part of the power plant, yet is isolated and likely contains little to no nuclear material, meaning the risk of resulting nuclear accident is relatively low.

• The IAEA has repeatedly stated that there can be no benefit to any party from a nuclear disaster at the plant.
• Ukrainian personnel still working at ZNPP have claimed that Russia has turned the plant into a military base.
• The IAEA continues to call for restraint and for all military activity to be halted in the vicinity of the plant.

A risky restart

• This means the cooling water in the reactor is below 100°C and at atmospheric pressure.
• This is safer than the previous state of “hot shutdown”, but a restart would be far worse than either of these.
• Putting ZNPP, a plant still on the front line of an armed conflict, into operation would therefore be highly risky.
• Chernobyl Remembrance Day commemorates the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which occurred in 1986 in what is today Ukraine.

Ross Peel is affiliated with the Centre for Science & Security Studies at King's College London.