Anna J. Davis
April 26 marked the 39th anniversary of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. A few days prior, on April 24, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was surrounded by “loud bursts of gunfire” and a “drone threat” (Energoatom; IAEA, April 24). This is the latest incident demonstrating that nuclear disasters remain a very present threat to Ukraine so long as Russia’s war against the country continues.
Speaking of the 39th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, Energoatom head Petro Kotin argued that the risks of radiation accidents remain high at ZNPP because of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Russia has occupied ZNPP, the largest NPP in Europe, since March 4, 2022 (see EDM, November 22 [1] [2], 2022; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, March 4; Energoatom, accessed April 27). Kotin claimed that Russian forces, who have occupied that plant since the start of the full-scale invasion, have turned ZNPP into a military base and disregarded all international security norms (Facebook/@Energoatom, April 26). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently claimed that ZNPP is “in safe hands” and is being run by Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, April 27).
Moscow has long characterized the Chornobyl disaster, which occurred under the authority of the Soviet Ministry of Energy, as a Ukrainian problem (Kasperski, February 18, 2020). This narrative has allowed Russian officials to question Ukraine’s legitimacy as a civil nuclear power and blame Kyiv for attacking its own nuclear facilities (Davis, October 2023; Interfax, July 12, 2024). Sergey Mironov, a deputy in the Russian State Duma, told the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti on April 26 that “the world community [needs] to do everything to ensure that the Chornobyl tragedy is not repeated due to the fault of insane Ukrainian politicians. In order for the peaceful atom to remain peaceful, it should not be in their hands” (RIA Novosti, April 26).
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