To analyse

Ukraine: questions around the vital issue of nuclear security

A Russian tank in Donetsk REUTERS - ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO

Text by: Arnaud Jouve Follow

8 mins

Never has a country so strongly nuclearized had to undergo on its soil a situation as dangerous as a war, capable of threatening the security of its installations.

Even if at present, none of the fifteen reactors in operation seems to be in difficulty, worrying measurements of radioactivity have been reported on the Chernobyl site, since fighting put the site under the control of the Russian army.

Advertising

Read more

Ukraine is the eighth nuclear power in the world: 50% of its energy comes from it.

Its fleet, which currently aligns fifteen reactors in operation, spread over five power plants, requires a very high level of security.

However, these five sites are confronted with war, exposed to bombardments and all kinds of attacks which can create catastrophic situations at any time.

Heavy fighting took place on the afternoon of February 24 at the very vulnerable former nuclear site of Chernobyl.

Today, the site is under the control of the Russian army, and several sensors installed on site would indicate very high levels of radioactivity throughout the area. 

Why did Russia fight to take control of the Chernobyl nuclear zone?

Simple stage on the road to Kiev, recovery of a symbolic place or takeover of a site rich in radioactive waste that could be used to manufacture a dirty bomb?

Several hypotheses are put forward, but nothing at this time can answer.

One thing is certain: the place is sadly famous for having experienced the greatest nuclear disaster in history in 1986, which marked the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). 

Chernobyl, irradiated area

110 km north of the city of Kiev, at the border with Belarus, on April 26, 1986 at 1:23 and 45 seconds precisely, reactor 4 (type RBMK 1000) of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant experienced the most serious accident in the world's civil nuclear history.

An explosion throws the 1,200-tonne lid of the reactor into the air and many extremely radioactive products are scattered outside the entire enclosure.

Reactor 4 melted and turned into a magma called corium, which has since migrated underground.

The fire caused by this disaster released millions of radioactive particles into the atmosphere for several days, which circled the Earth several times, contaminating vast territories, directly and indirectly causing very many victims.

Moreover, this disaster could have generated, without the sacrifice of hundreds of miners, firefighters, workers, etc., other even more serious developments.

The Chernobyl disaster obviously had health and ecological consequences, but also economic, social and political ones.

This site is still heavily contaminated today and will remain so for a very long time.

It would take 48,000 years for all the radioactivity to run out.

This so-called exclusion zone, forbidden to any human presence, extends over 2,200 km2.

A condemned territory where we find the abandoned workers' city of Prypiat and a vast area where waste from the power station, which is still highly radioactive, has been stored in multiple places. 

Area where the Chernobyl power plant is also located, which includes three shutdown reactors, including the cores, which are being cooled, and the famous fourth damaged reactor, which still requires significant monitoring.

This is why the site is covered with sensors that continuously measure radioactivity in multiple places.

All of this information is transmitted and operated by the Ukrainian State agency in charge of the security of the exclusion zone and this data can be consulted on the Internet.

Levels 600 times greater than natural radioactivity

Following the fighting on the Chernobyl site, where the Russian and Ukrainian armies clashed on the evening of February 24, 2022, the radioactivity figures for the exclusion zone communicated by the Ukrainian State agency indicated very higher than they were the previous days.

These levels, which continue to be high several days later, and which are also given by other sensors located several tens of kilometers to the west of the Chernobyl power plant, together indicate a level of radioactivity twenty to thirty times higher than before the fighting.

These levels of radioactivity correspond to 65 microsieverts per hour, a rate 600 times higher than that of natural radioactivity.

Important figures, but which remain subject to caution, as explained by physicist Bruno Chareyron of Criirad, the Independent Research and Information Commission on Radioactivity:

The question that arises is: is there really an increase in radioactivity in the area around Chernobyl?

Or is it a measurement artifact, a sensor malfunction, a cyberattack to infiltrate this network and disseminate erroneous results?

For the moment, we do not know, but we are really very vigilant about this particularly worrying situation.

These are very significant levels of radiation and if confirmed, this means that not only are people in this area subject to significant direct radiation, but they may also be subject to contamination from the air. .

So all of this needs to be cleared up as soon as possible. 

A Geiger counter measures the level of radiation at a fire site in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, outside the village of Rahivka, Ukraine April 5, 2020. REUTERS/Yaroslav Yemelianenko

Chernobyl vulnerability

These figures, if confirmed, would indicate that there was, probably following the fighting, a release of radioactive products outside the containment enclosures.

This could confirm information that has been circulating since that a nuclear waste storage site has been damaged, because the area is still extremely vulnerable. 

Not only are there dozens of radioactive waste storage locations that are absolutely not designed to withstand bombardment, but there is also concern about the spent fuel that has been taken out of reactors 1, 2 and 3 of Chernobyl.

For Bruno Chareyron, “ 

 ”

A large part of these fuels are still stored under water, and there has been a project for years now to transfer them gradually to a storage facility that would offer better security conditions.

But these irradiated fuels are for the moment for the most part still in storage in pools.

If ever the technicians who take care of the safety of this site were no longer able to guarantee the cooling of these fuels, this could lead to something truly catastrophic.

In addition, there is also the question of the corium from reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl power plant, the one from the 1986 disaster, still glowing, which is inside an old sarcophagus, itself enveloped by a new provisional sarcophagus.

As Bruno Chareyron comments, “ 

 » 

Nuclear power, a technology that requires great security

The violence of the Russian offensive suffered by Ukraine throughout its territory is causing a great deal of damage beyond military sites, with an impact in particular on its infrastructure, as evidenced, according to Ukrainian media, the bombing of a hydroelectric power station north of the country's capital, Kiev.

A very worrying security situation for the Ukrainian nuclear industry, which is particularly vulnerable.

In general, the nuclear industry needs security at all times.

Even if the reactors are shut down, they must be able to be cooled in good conditions and this requires permanent sources of water and electricity supply and the presence of competent personnel.

If because of the war, its power sources were interrupted, if the personnel could no longer intervene or go to the site, if the plant suffered a voluntary or involuntary missile attack, a bombardment, an airplane crash or sabotage, it could lead to a major nuclear catastrophe.

Not to mention the risk of diversion of radioactive materials for malicious purposes.

So many situations that can have dramatic consequences.

Already in times of peace, very significant means are necessary to be able to guarantee the safety of nuclear installations, therefore in times of war, all these questions arise more brutally.

And the information on the increase in radioactivity in Chernobyl, info or intox, inevitably sends us back to all these questions. 

►To go further: All our articles dedicated to Ukraine

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

• Ukraine

• Nuclear

• our selection

On the same subject

Advance of Russian troops and shelling: the war in Ukraine at a glance

The world in question

Ukraine: Vladimir Putin's obsession

[SLIDESHOW] War in Ukraine: the first day of the Russian invasion summarized in pictures