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Ukraine war: How worried should we be about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?

  • December 28, 2023



Ukraine war: How worried should we be about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?

It’s the largest nuclear power plant in Europe the Russian controlled Z and it’s situated in the middle of a battlefield isolated on the front line in eastern Ukraine do we risk a repeat of the chob disaster or are we casualties in a frenzied information War it is just

Terrible it is an emergency situation that we’ve never seen before fearmongering irresponsible it just isn’t Real it’s difficult to imagine a worst place for a nuclear reactor let alone six of them it’s a huge piece of infrastructure and the ukrainians and the Russians have both been fighting for control but is that something we really need to worry about well some people people say a

Major incident at the facility could be catastrophic people like the staff who work there it will be so bad that I don’t know even how to explain to you how bad it will be the level of radioactive pollution and most importantly the contamination will spread across thousands of square kilometers of land and

Sea the war in eastern Ukraine has consumed a landscape populated by agricultural towns and industrial cities and a sprawling facility that generated more than 20% of Ukraine’s electricity an early Target for the Russians it was seized in the first few days of the invasion heavy fighting was captured on

The power plant CCTV system as the Russians approached in an armored column employees begged them not to use weapons Ukrainian troops retreated to the other side of the Deno River and the plant remains on what is effectively the front line artillery shells have hit secondary buildings at the site and electricity

Lines have been targeted with missiles safety experts say they’ve never seen anything like it we need to be very worried um it is this situation is completely different from anything in terms of how it’s supposed to be with a nuclear power plant and you know ukrainians who work at the plant are

Worried they told us there’s nothing in the manual to help them deal with something like this we spoke to a number of them anonymously it is an emergency situation that you’ve never seen before it’s not written up in the documentations and it’s already too late to write the rules

What can I say unfortunately human history already has disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima Ukrainian know more than most about nuclear disasters the trauma at Chernobyl has left a terrible scar in 1986 a meltdown in reactor number four caused an explosion and a fire that would contaminate a large sway

Of Eastern Europe the number of deaths and related illnesses aren’t fully known still the whole setup at zapia is different starting with the fact that they’ve taken the reactors and they effectively mothball them they’ve turned down the dial to low there are six nuclear reactors at the plant and five

Of those reactors have been put into cold shutdown because of the war they’re not producing power the other ones in hot shut down so it could produce a small amount of electricity if required unlike Chernobyl these reactors are enclosed in thick concrete shells right round from top to bottom and the reactor

Vessel which which contains the nuclear fuel rods is wrapped in a steel shell I think it’s clear the design that the buildings at saparia they’re safer than Chernobyl the experts agree on this however the plants reactors need to be cooled with water as does the used fuel

Kept in these ponds and storage areas 2,000 tons of this radioactive material is stored here the cooling system is powered by electricity and they’ve already had a number of blackouts but there are Engineers who think the risk of an explosion is low I read a senior Ukrainian person saying the plant could

Explode any day that’s um fear-mongering irresponsible it just isn’t real and if the plant were to suffer the worst accident one can think of someone drops a real military bomb on it it’s still hard to compare it even to Chernobyl it’s just not going to be like that it

Might be like Fukushima which to enjoy anybody all right does that mean the risk of a radiation leak or or even a radiological disaster has been eliminated well not exactly the Russians have been using the power plant as an army base in the knowledge that the ukrainians are unlikely to Shell it much

Of the complex repurposed for war say employees with some 2,000 soldiers camping on the premises they occupied the industrial technical spaces subsidiary spaces they deployed their stuff in corridors they put their sandbags and made their positions and fortifications there many of the plants Ukrainian staff have left or fled and

Those who remain are struggling to maintain it and they’ve got to deal with their new supervisors Russian soldiers and officials from Russia’s Atomic agency and you know these people have a reputation we have a lot of workers of the station who have been taken to the base

Who have been tortured it can be psychological torture when people in balaclavas come and talk to you and there are people who have been interrogated using electricity it is just it is just terrible it doesn’t sound good does it I mean no wonder people are frightened remember when the Russians

Were accused of putting objects resembling explosives on the roofs of several reactors well that set off alarm Bells around the world we start with the development in Ukraine Moscow in turn has said kib is planning to attack the facility it has been a nerve-wracking night for all of

Ukraine but when inspectors from the un’s atomic energy agency searched the area they couldn’t find anything so how do we assess all the information and the misinformation I mean at times it seems deliberately scary here a panelist on Russian TV suggests the destruction of the reactors would work to Russia’s

Advantage but when it comes to destruction the unthinkable has already happened the kovka dam was designed to withstand almost anything imaginable but the structure was brought down many blame the Russians because the dam was under their control could the same happen at zapia well some say yes there

There is too much Focus focus on thinking of the issues in technical terms what is the degree of intention and viciousness on the side of of the occupiers what is it that they want to achieve and this can of course be very spontaneous plant workers agree they say they’re Russian Masters are

Unpredictable I don’t exclude the possibility that when they leave the nuclear power station they will try to do as much damage as possible will this cause a radioactive emergency I know but I don’t believe they are very sensible a major nuclear power facility in the middle of a war zone operated by

People from both sides in the conflict sounds like a nightmare right well a lot has already been done to reduce the risk and international inspectors have been given access to the site but if we’ve learned anything from this conflict the unthinkable doesn’t mean impossible

It’s Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – and it’s situated on the frontline of the Ukraine war.

It is difficult to imagine a worse place for six nuclear reactors – but how worried should we be about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?

Sky’s John Sparks explains everything you need to know about the situation.

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43 comments

  3. It's all a bit of scare mongering by Zelensky to get the west agitated, but I wouldn't be surprised if Zelensky deliberately attacked it to drag us in further.

  6. "How worried should we be….?" I pour scorn on such questions that come without quantification guidance, say 10 impossible to be more worried and 0 totally not worried. Also the experts and comentariat should be able to just tell me how worried to be. What am I? Albert Einstein here?

  7. I am more worried about Zelensky just buying two private Yachts for £70million while our tax money is being given to Ukraine hand over fist without any accountability where it's going. And those " special needs " who want to say Russian bot, can get biblical at this time of year. " Go forth & multiply yourself "..

  8. It's been a threat since Russia first occupied it, we've seen so many incidents with this plant that I'm amazed nothing big has happened yet.

    We should be worried sure, but let's not overthink it. If Russia wanted to do something with it they would've done it by now. I could be wrong though, only time will tell.

  12. Lmao "There's really no risk now but… I mean psssh… Russia… Ya know… So we're just gonna worry about it anyway and use this time to talk crap about Russia".

    Ukrainian generals were talking about blowing the dam…

    Even if the Russians blew the dam at this point. It did almost nothing.

    This entire video is just an anti Russia hit peace. A bad one at that.

  14. I had a deep conversation with a history teacher earlier. Just to make it clear, before Moscow appeared in the 10th century, there was Kievan Rus, and Russia was not known by then. The first mention of Russia, as Muscovy, was in the 13th century. It's a sad fact that Russia has always been an aggressor. The whole world must wake up and unite to assist Ukraine.

  16. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky needs to offer the country another plan for winning the war, because the current one isn’t working, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Wednesday. Yes, today we are all for victory, for Ukraine, for territorial integrity,” she said in a video address posted on social media. “But head-on, as this battle is going on today, it will be very difficult for Ukraine to fight long-term protracted wars.”

    The former PM also addressed Zelensky’s proposal to draft up to 500,000 more troops, which would expand mobilization to the very young, the elderly, as well as individuals with disabilities.

    “It doesn’t solve the problem, it’s ineffective and it’s unconstitutional,” Tymoshenko said, noting that her party would vote against it. Instead of expanding the draft to 25-year-olds, she said, Kiev ought to send police to the front instead.

    “Keeping back (…) hundreds of thousands of people in the security forces who know how to fight, but don’t fight, is the wrong position,” she argued.

    The U.S. and the EU have abandoned their objective of “total victory” of Ukraine over Russia in favor of a negotiated settlement that might cede some territory to Moscow, Politico reported on Wednesday citing several anonymous insiders.

    American and European officials are now “discussing the redeployment” of Ukrainian troops away from the “mostly failed” counteroffensive and into a defensive posture, according to Hirsh’s sources.

    Hirsh also highlighted that Biden used to promise to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” but is now saying “as long as we can” instead. With the additional aid funding stuck in Congress, the U.S. government is pushing for “rapidly resurrecting” Ukraine’s own military industry.

    The anonymous White House spokesman told Politico that negotiations have always been the U.S. endgame in Ukraine, and that all the aid to Kyiv has been intended to give it “the strongest hand possible when that comes.”

    According to Politico, Biden wants a ceasefire in both Ukraine and the Middle East, as his endorsement of Israel’s offensive in Gaza is “costing him support” among the progressive Democrats, and he wants to “avoid bad headlines in an election year.”

    Biden “can’t appear to be handing the advantage” to Russia after spending almost two years proclaiming its full backing of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s objective of total victory, Hirsh noted.

    The White House “can’t back down publicly because of the political risk” to Biden, said a congressional official described as familiar with the administration’s thinking, who acknowledged that discussions about peace talks “are starting.”

  23. America is running a $2.25 Trillion budget deficit, paying $1 Trillion in interest repayments and has accrued $34 Trillion in govt debt, its reserve currency status is under stress from weaponizing the dollar for geopolitical games. Anyone that thinks the U.S. is likely to be in a position to afford reinforcing Nato in Europe after this, is living a complete fantasy. The Biden administration is a total disaster story for America and even more so for the Nato aligned states in Europe.

  28. They're using at as army base, 2k troops based there.

    Yeh because its not like they need any troops there to ensure they keep possession of it right ? I'm sure if they left only say a handful of troops there, Ukraine would jot attempt to seize it

  31. Can the Germans EU EC and Ukrainian s except the American and Russian plan for a united Ukraine excluding Crimea ? and without American defence what is the future for Ukraine only Russian partition of Ukraine in a much bigger scale to the Dnieper river and the future for the precedence of EU law above the 27 national parliaments ,and even Ukraine becomes a member of EU without a referendum will the Ukrainians except the precedence of EU law and lose control of their borders laws money land to the EU, when the Americans and Russians can unite their country that the EU failed to do since 2014

  38. Everyone knows about Chernobyl but I urge anyone concerned about this to look into Chelyabinsk. The level of concern that should exist about Zaporizhzhia cannot be overstated.

  39. The UK has been behind far more fear mongering on Ukraine than even the US. I was not expecting this because we are taught in the US that culturally the UK is supposed to be the far more restrained and diplomatic cousin.

  40. What is even the point in speaking to people anonymously and posting it hiding their faces. Anyone can act to a script and say that they work there. Total fiction. If the Russians wanted to destroy it they would have done it by now. Why would they destroy their own power plant that costs billions of dollars. Western media is stupid.

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