The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, that of Zaporozhye, in the south of Ukraine, was hit on Friday March 4, in the night by a fire, after it was bombarded by the Russian armed forces.

According to Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), no leaks have been reported.

But faced with the threat of a nuclear accident, he declared himself "ready" to go there as well as to Chernobyl to inspect the installations that had come under Russian military control.

The situation is "unprecedented", also reported Rafael Mariono Grossi, before alerting: "The situation could have been dramatic, we know what is at stake."

It is indeed the first time that such a nuclearized country has experienced a war on its soil. 

The park of Ukraine, which represents the eighth nuclear power in the world, has fifteen reactors in operation, spread over four sites, in Zaporozhye, in Rivne, in Khmelnytskyi and in southern Ukraine in Yuzhnooukrainsk, in the oblast of Mykolaiv, to which in addition to the four reactors at the shutdown of the old Chernobyl power plant.

A "significant" panel of nuclear installations, notes Karine Herviou, deputy director general in charge of the crisis unit of the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) contacted by France 24.

Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors, spread over four sites.

© France 24

Concrete containment enclosures

The majority of the Ukrainian nuclear fleet consists of pressurized water reactors of 1,000 electric megawatts of Russian design.

Relatively recent, they represent the "main risk" of nuclear accidents, according to Karine Herviou.

The standards adopted to secure them are "comparable to those adopted by France and Europe", develops the specialist.

They are protected by steel-reinforced concrete confinement enclosures, which make it possible to confine the radioactivity in the event of deterioration of the reactor core.

Designed to withstand different types of missiles, they can nevertheless be degraded if they are deliberately targeted.

The Zaporijie power plant, located 80 kilometers from Kiev, thus continued to operate normally this night, despite the fire started by an unidentified Russian projectile.

Only one of its six VVER-1000 reactors is currently in operation and the other five continue to be cooled "normally", according to information communicated by the Ukrainian safety authority to IRSN

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which adds that the usual Ukrainian operators were still responsible for managing the control room.

Only two smaller reactors, those of the Rivne power plant, in the south-west of Ukraine, are not equipped with such a containment enclosure.

Put into service at the end of the 1970s, they can present more risks in the event of an attack, even if the security measures surrounding them have been reinforced in recent years.

"The Rivne reactors are the most vulnerable, reports Dominique Grenêche, doctor in nuclear physics and international consultant, contacted by France 24. If their hearts melted, we could find ourselves in a situation comparable to that of Fukushima, which was not equipped with such an enclosure." 

Radioactive waste

Who says nuclear power plants also says radioactive waste.

Ukraine has several cooling pools to accommodate the spent fuel used by the reactors of the various power plants, radioactive nuclear waste storage sites and dry storage facilities.

There are also research and low-power reactors.

Unlike extremely secure reactors, these dozens of storage locations are not all designed to withstand bombardments.

Their attack could cause leaks of radioactive waste.

“A new Chernobyl is impossible,” says Dominique Grenêche.

"It's scary to hear that the Russians have taken a power plant, but even if they fight inside, there is little chance that they will cause an accident. Protection is never absolute but the risk nuclear accident is unlikely.

There remains the risk of an intentional attack by the Russians against a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.

"A common-sense thinking is to think that a deliberate attack to destroy reactors makes absolutely no sense as a tactical objective. This is far too great a risk that the Russian military would pose to their own men and to their own territory", notes Benjamin Hautecouverture, senior researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, interviewed by France 24. "It seems obvious that the control of the 15 reactors which make up the entire Ukrainian power fleet, and which about half of the country's electricity production, could be a reasonable objective of the current military operation [if one can put it that way], but obviously not their destruction", he concludes.

06:06

The master researcher nevertheless remarks that by choosing to bomb the Zaporozhye power plant, Russia deliberately violated the principles it had undertaken to respect as a member of the AEIA.

It is indeed strictly forbidden to attack civilian nuclear sites.

The country has also flouted the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, adopted in 2005 by the UN on a proposal… from the Russian Federation.

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