What happens if the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is blown up by Russia? With its six reactors in cold shutdown, much of the danger has been mitigated.
Ukrainian officials have been issuing warnings that Russia plans to blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest nuclear plant in Europe — for months, but those warnings have escalated in recent days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has even warned that Russia has placed objects that could be explosives on the roof of the power plant. In an interview with ABC News, Zelenskyy said Russia could stage an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to halt Ukrainian advances on the battlefield.
But experts say the cold shutdown of the plant’s six reactors has largely curbed much of the risk that could come from an explosion at the nuclear power plant.
„We’re actually very, very lucky. Any incident would not involve an active reactor, which could cause enormous environmental danger and damage and deaths,“ William Alberque, the director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, .
Russian troops stormed and took control of the plant on March 4, 2022. Despite Ukraine’s energy company still operating the power plant, Russia has at times limited access to parts of the plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Last October, the IAEA said there are mines along the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhia power plant, but not inside it.
On Friday, IAEA experts at the site of the power plant were given additional access to the plant and reported that they have not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives, according to Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. But, the IAEA said the experts still need additional access to the plant.
Alberque said that the IAEA has enough access to the plant to theoretically be able to see if Russia was taking steps to blow up the plant from the inside. However, he said warnings from Ukrainian officials should be taken seriously.
„Anytime [Ukraine and the U.S.] think that a false flag attack is going to happen, they talk about it early, often and loudly. And this is, I think, an attempt to deter Russia from doing something that they’re concerned may happen,“ Alberque said.
Experts say the threat should be taken seriously.
„It is a real threat in the same way that the warnings of the mining of the Kakhovka Dam turned out in the end to be realistic,“ Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at London think tank Chatham House, last month.
