As the bombardments continue in Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is convening an emergency meeting of the Board of Governors this Wednesday morning "to examine the current situation" on the spot.
At the center of concerns: Ukrainian nuclear installations.
Not only Chernobyl where a large quantity of nuclear waste remains stored, thirty-five years after the disaster.
Ukraine also has four nuclear power plants in operation, including the largest in Europe.
Accidental firings, power failure, personnel stress… If Russia should not make these installations a military target, they still remain under threat from the fighting taking place around them.
Intensifying bombardments on Kharkiv, the country's second city.
A 60 km long Russian military convoy heading towards Kiev.
And Moscow, which assures, through the voice of Sergei Shoigu, its Minister of Defense, that the fighting will continue "until the objectives set are achieved"...
The tension did not drop a notch in Ukraine on Tuesday and, unsurprisingly, the toll of the conflict is increasing.
The bombardments in the center of Kharkiv killed at least ten civilians during the day, according to the Ukrainian emergency service.
But the more the bombardments intensify, the more another threat looms on the horizon: that of a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine.
“The first time such a conflict has arisen in a nuclear country”
"This is the first time in the world that a nuclearized country has been subjected to aerial bombardments of such intensity and to the other disorders of modern warfare", invites us not to forget Jacky Bonnemains, president of Robins des bois, environmental association specializing in nuclear safety and security issues around the world.
Ukraine draws almost 50% of its electricity from the atom, thanks to its fifteen pressurized water nuclear reactors distributed in four power stations.
Including the largest in Europe, near Zaporijia, in the center of the country, with its six reactors.
Proof that the threat is taken seriously, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convenes this Wednesday, at 11 a.m., an emergency meeting of the Board of Governors “to examine the current situation in Ukraine”.
"An accident affecting nuclear facilities in Ukraine could have serious consequences for public health and the environment", recalls its president, the Argentinean Mariano Grossi, in the daily update that the IAEA has been doing since the start of the conflict. on the safety of Ukrainian nuclear facilities.
The threat of accidental shooting?
Among them, we immediately think of the site of the former Chernobyl power plant, in the north of the country, located a few kilometers from the border with Belarus, which serves as a rear base for the Russian army in this conflict.
Roland Desbordes, spokesperson for the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD), describes the site as “a huge storage of nuclear waste”.
"Some were hastily buried nearby, so that radioactive elements can be easily resuspended," he says.
Is that what just happened?
The Chernobyl site came under Russian control overnight from Thursday to Friday.
An increase in the radiological environment was noted in the wake of the Ukrainian safety authority,
which explains this resuspension of the contamination by the passage of tanks in the area.
The French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) says, for its part, to remain cautious about these measures at this stage.
For Jacky Bonnemains as for Roland Desbordes, the risk that the conflict in Ukraine will lead to a nuclear disaster does not weigh so much on Chernobyl as on the four power stations currently in operation in the country.
“It seems inconceivable that Russia should make these nuclear installations targets to hit, at the risk of isolating itself a little more on the international scene”, launches the first.
On the other hand, they remain exposed to accidental strikes, from one side or the other.
It has already happened since the beginning of the conflict.
Missiles have reached a final disposal site for radioactive waste in Kiev, according to the Ukrainian safety authority, which warned the IAEA on Sunday.
“The building had not been damaged and no release of radioactive materials had been reported”, specifies the latter.
Stroke of luck ?
“The Ukrainian nuclear fleet is comparable to those of other countries, including France, recalls Jacky Bonnemains.
In other words, their reactors are aging and the adjoining cooling pools [where spent fuel is stored awaiting reprocessing or final disposal] were not at all designed to withstand a missile impact or of artillery.
» **
Loss of power supply and staff stress
Accidental shooting is not the only potential cause of an accident.
Jacky Bonnemains also insists on the fear of a loss of electrical power to the reactors, "if the pylons or the lines themselves are destroyed by intentional or accidental bombardments".
The risk would then be "to endanger the active cooling of reactors and spent fuel pools", abounds Jan Vande Putte, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace Belgium, in an interview
with Les Echos
, Monday.
A major issue, as the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan reminded us in 2011. to remain in a safe state”, indicates the IRSN in an information note published on Friday.
The institute specifies that these means of relief have been reinforced since Fukushima.
Not enough to reassure Jacky Bonnemains.
The Robins des Bois spokesperson identifies a third risk: that of the psychological stress to which the personnel in charge of these nuclear installations are subjected.
"These employees can also be physically affected by the conflict, lose loved ones, want to flee," he lists.
An issue that Mariano Grossi does not ignore.
In the IAEA Daily Updates, he stresses that "staff at all nuclear facilities should be able to work and rest" and asks those in effective control of these sites "not to take any action that could compromise their safety or to subject them to undue pressure.
White flags at nuclear sites
So what to expect from this emergency meeting convened by the IAEA on Wednesday?
“Not much”, slice Roland Desbordes, who does not see how the agency can influence the current fights.
For his part, Jacky Bonnemains hopes for at least one thing, more of a symbolic order.
"That the IAEA orders all its member countries, including Russia, to recognize the inviolability of nuclear sites in theaters of war when there is a legal void in the treaties and conventions which today govern use of war", he insists.
It missed ?
The draft resolution which will be submitted for consideration on Wednesday does not go so far, according to Reuters, which was able to consult it.
The text condemns "in the strongest terms" the Russian intervention.
It also expresses "deep concern" over Russian actions which "significantly increase the risk of a nuclear accident or incident, which endangers the people of Ukraine, neighboring states and the international community". .
It also calls on Russia to cease all military action in the area of the Chernobyl power plant and elsewhere, "so that the competent Ukrainian authorities can maintain or quickly regain full control of all nuclear installations".
This version could be watered down to gain more support, diplomats said,
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* In its information note published on Friday, the IRSN indicates that currently, "more than 20,000 m3 of solid and liquid waste are stored on the site of the Chernobyl power plant".
** In an October 2017 report, Greenpeace France pinpointed the fragility of French fuel pools by qualifying them as agricultural sheds.
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