The Russian war against Ukraine continues with no end in sight.
There is daily exhaustive coverage of the terrible toll, shifting battle lines, military and civilian casualties, damaged infrastructure, and more. There is also extensive coverage of global consequences, including disruption of energy supplies to Europe and potential famine in Africa.
Our focus is on nuclear threats arising from the war. In this article we discuss the nuclear risk imposed by the war on Ukraine’s nuclear power facilities (NPFs). In Part 2, we discuss the increasing likelihood Russia might use so-called “tactical nuclear weapons” in Ukraine, and the potential global consequences of such an action.
Let’s start with the local. The most immediate concern is safety of the Zaporizhzhia NPF, the largest in Europe with 6 VVER pressurized light water reactors fueled with uranium-235 and previously generating 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity.
On March 4, after a brief weapons exchange, Russian troops took control of Zaporizhzhya. Anticipating the attack, operators shut down several reactors as a safeguard. The other reactors have now been put in safety mode, decreasing, but not eliminating the risk of an accidental radiation release.
Shutting down a fueled nuclear reactor doesn’t mean you flip a switch and walk away. The nuclear fuel is at high temperature, and the cooling system needs to operate to prevent the fuel from melting, as happened at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.
Energy to operate the cooling pumps comes from redundant sources.
It can come from electricity generated by the facility, but this is no longer possible with the reactors in safety mode. It can also come from electricity fed into the facility from the Ukraine electrical grid.
However, power lines leading into the reactor complex have been knocked out on several occasions by missile strikes. Whether this is intentional or collateral damage is unclear.
Lastly, electricity can be produced on site by diesel generators. Unfortunately, there is only about a 10-day supply at Zaporizhzhia, and it’s unclear whether Russian troops are diverting some of it to power their vehicles.
It’s also unclear how this fuel can be resupplied in the midst of shelling surrounding the facility.
A more fundamental problem is continued operation of the Zaporizhzhia NPF by Ukrainian technicians under the control of Russian soldiers and Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear power company.
Essentially the technicians are prisoners of war. This cannot be good for morale or operational safety. Recently, the Ukrainian director of the NPF was arrested.
He has just been released and fired. Rosatom is threating to disconnect the Zaporizhzhia NPF from the Ukraine electrical grid.
Soon after seizing control, Russian army units set up a military base at the reactor site, installing self-propelled rocket launchers and other weapons. This was followed by a Ukrainian army drone attack, which killed or injured several soldiers and facilities personnel.
Russia is now using the Zaporizhzhia facility to launch missile attacks against Ukraine, believing the Ukrainian military would be reluctant to return fire and risk a nuclear disaster whose primary victims would be Ukrainian civilians.
Essentially, the Russians have turned the Zaporizhzhia NPF into a nuclear shield, a dangerous strategy in what might be considered an act of nuclear terrorism by some and a war crime by others. Both designations are controversial. On Aug. 11, the facility was shelled several times, with each party exchanging blame.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the UN visited the site on Sept. 1, expressing serious concern for continued safe operations. Suggestions to make the facility a demilitarized zone have been declined by Russia which has veto power in the IAEA General Assembly and UN Security Council.
A recent meeting at the Security Council made no progress to resolve these issues.
Two recent developments further complicated any safe resolution of this dangerous situation.
First, Russia recently has annexed the Zaporizhzhia region, claiming sovereignty and making bilateral de-militarization negotiations meaningless.
Second, this week Russia claimed ownership of the Zaporizhzhia NPF and plans to make the Ukrainian technicians sign contracts with Rosatom. Whether they will do so or simply resign and leave the facility is unclear.
Given the modifications of the Zaporizhzhia reactors following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it is unlikely Russian technicians could immediately operate the facility safely. And the Zaporizhzhia NPF is not the only Ukrainian NPF at risk.
There are three others. Recently, there has been shelling near the South Ukraine NPF.
We recently reviewed potential medical consequences of a terrorist attack on a NPF.1 Results of a state-sponsored attack would be similar, or most probably worse.
First, there would be immediate deaths from blast forces from weapons used to destroy the reactor complex, chemical releases and thermal injuries.
Next, there could be deaths of persons at the facility and immediately nearby from high radiation doses, if the reactor containment was breached.
Evacuation of the surrounding population might be needed like at the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi accidents. Depending on the amount and distribution of radionuclides released, one might anticipate increased cancers over several decades, not only where the reactor is sited, but wherever the radioactive plume spreads.
Estimates of excess cancer deaths after Chernobyl range from 4,000 to 59,000. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, many lives were lost because of disruption of normal healthcare services.
Lastly, a large area of radioactive contamination would result in huge social and economic consequences affecting human health, as happened after prior accidents.
For example, an event in Ukraine would further disrupt the global supply of grains and could cause famine and deaths in Africa.
Lest readers see this threat as confined to Ukraine, recall the radioactive cloud which spread initially over Europe and Scandinavia and eventually over the Northern Hemisphere after the Chernobyl NPF accident in 1986. (The Zaporizhzhia reactors are of a much safer design than the Chernobyl reactor, such that consequences from each Zaporizhzhia reactor would be less, but the combined effects of 6 reactors could be the same or greater.)
In a worst case scenario, an attack could precipitate a world war.
For example, recently, representatives of the U.K. and the U.S. indicated a radiation release resulting from a deliberate attack against Zaporizhzhia which caused casualties in NATO member states would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5 and activate a coordinated NATO military response.
The threat we discuss is not limited to Ukraine. North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, Israel and Iran and others have nuclear facilities at risk of war.
The 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits using a surrounding population as a shield to protect a military force operating from a civilian nuclear reactor.
Article 56 of Additional Protocol I identifies NPFs and dams as “installations containing dangerous forces which shall not be made the object of attack if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”
However, Article 56 also states: “Parties to the conflict shall endeavor to avoid locating any military objectives in the vicinity of the works or installations (a NPF).”
Unfortunately, to endeavor is not to prevent.
The U.S. has not ratified Protocol I, and the Russian Federation withdrew ratification in 2019.
Almost all other countries have ratified the protocol. Failure of the U.S. to ratify Additional Protocol I limits our ability to criticize Russian actions at Zaporizhzhya.
The present concern is the war in Ukraine, but we would be short-sighted if we fail to recall the U.S. has 55 operating NPFs in 28 states and gets 20% of its electricity from sources .
An direct attack on a NPF or using a NPF as a shield is a global humanitarian threat. As we discussed after the Chernobyl accident: A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere.
As physicians we need to support a solution to the potential use of nuclear facilities as military targets. What’s needed is a universal provision prohibiting targeting civilian NPFs or militarizing them, as is happening at Zaporizhzhia.
It may be too late to reverse the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPF, but we need to look to the future. Prevention is always the best medicine.
Reference
- Gale RP, Armitage JO. Are We Prepared for Nuclear Terrorism? N Engl J Med. 2018 Mar 29;378:1246-54. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsr1714289. PMID: 29590541.
