CND Press Roundup, Friday 25th February, 2022
Posted: 25th February 2022
Invasion of Ukraine
All outlets have been reporting on the capture of the Chernobyl nuclear facility by Russian forces, according to Ukrainian government sources. The Telegraph, quoting a Russian official said that securing the facility was to ensure “that terrorist groups or nationalist forces will not be able to take advantage of the situation and pull off a nuclear provocation.” Kiev insists the Russians will use their control of the facility in order to “blackmail the West.”
Ukraine’s nuclear agency has warned of increased radiation levels at the Chernobyl site said to be in Russian control. The agency didn’t give precise radiation levels but noted that this was “due to the movement of heavy military equipment in the area lifting radioactive dust into the air,” according to Reuters.
In a rather grim way to shift real estate, The Star has a story on the safest place to have property in to escape nuclear bombs dropped on mainland British military targets such as naval bases and airfields. In short, the Scottish Highlands, Cumbria, mid and north Wales, as well as pockets of southern England like Cornwall and Kent are in the clear.
Politico has a piece from ICAN director Beatrice Fihn on “Putin’s Nuclear Option” and the risk it poses to years of non-proliferation progress. “A good summation of nuclear weapons’ conventional wisdom for decades has been: trust that cooler heads will prevail…We are now seeing that it is not a gamble we should be taking with the fate of the world. To put this all in context, new deployments of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe could station US and Russian nuclear weapons closer than at any time in history. This would not be a second Cuban Missile Crisis but a far more volatile situation.”
Iran Nuclear Deal
The Wall Street Journal has a breakdown of the ongoing discussions to reinvigorate the Iran nuclear deal. It gives an overview of the original 2015 agreement, the current state of Tehran’s nuclear programme, what are the current talks in Vienna hoping to achieve, and the problems if they fail to reach a new agreement.
Meanwhile, the Guardian gives some coverage to the Israeli government’s opposition to the talks with Iran, and how a new deal would be worse for the country than the 2015 one – which former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once boasted he helped convince former US President Donald Trump to ditch. As Iranian regional influence has grown in the years since 2015, Israel believes once frozen assets “will be funnelled to Iran’s proxies across the region, and the international legitimacy conferred by the nuclear accord could encourage the Islamic Republic to be bolder in its regional ambitions.”
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Japan’s Prime Minister has ruled out that his country will ever seek to use nuclear weapons to strike enemy bases. Speaking at a budget committee meeting, Fumio Kishida said: “The three non-nuclear principles (of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons) are our national policy. There are no options of using, or possessing nuclear arms.” The government is expected to decide later this year if it will seek the capabilities to attack enemy bases as part of an overhaul of its National Security Strategy.
Meanwhile South Korea’s main opposition leader said the Russian invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if Ukraine had maintained its nuclear weapons. Hong Joon-pyo made the comments when asked what he would have done if he was President of Ukraine. “The Ukraine crisis was caused by its denuclearization after independence,” Hong said. His comments come as a new pollfound that nearly three quarters of South Koreans backed acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
UK Nuclear
The UK’s Environment Agency has opened a public consultation on the variation to the existing permit to extend the boundary of the permitted area for radioactive substances activities at BAE Systems’ Barrow Shipyard in Cumbria. Rona Arkle, Nuclear Regulator for the Environment Agency said “the consultation is giving residents and businesses the opportunity to comment on the application to vary the permit for the Barrow Shipyards site in Cumbria.” The consultation will run from 23 February to 22 March 2022.
Blackburn-based property developers have taken a legal opinion on part of a 94-acre countryside site near the city, despite fears by campaigners that the land was used to dump radioactive waste. It’s feared the waste was dumped down old mine shafts on land between Belthorn and Guide in the 1950s. Despite these concerns, Blackburn with Darwen Council has greenlit a plan which includes the impacted area for commercial and job development.
Pádraig McCarrick
Press and Communications Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament