Ian Fairlie (CND) & Ukraine

Posted: 13th March 2022

 CND’s scientific adviser Dr Ian Fairlie writes a guest blog on the dangers presented by Ukraine’s nuclear power stations: “For many years, NGOs and nuclear critics have warned that nuclear power stations pose dangerous threats during wars, as they provide tempting targets for military attacks. These concerns were routinely fobbed off by the government as being unrealistic and unthinkable. But now the unthinkable has actually happened. On March 3 and 4, Russian troops shelled and occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Apparently, little damage was done to the reactors as, thankfully, radioactivity levels were not increased. The shelling caused a fire in a nearby administrative building that was later extinguished. Two people were reported injured. The dangers of uncontrolled releases of the vast amounts of radioactivity contained in the Ukrainian reactors and their unprotected fuel stores should not be underestimated. The explosion and 10-day fire at Chernobyl in 1986 resulted in many thousands of cancer deaths and in 42% of the land area of Western Europe (including most of the UK) being contaminated withradioactivity. Although Ukraine’s reactors are dissimilar in type to the RBMK reactors at Chernobyl, this is of little comfort in view of the quite different threats of indiscriminate shelling, aerial bombardment (including by nuclear weapons), and sabotage that may occur during the current war in Ukraine. CND 8th March 2022  https://cnduk.org/nuclear-power-stations-during-war/