CND Press Roundup Tuesday 26th April 2022

War in Ukraine

• The rise in radioactivity around Chernobyl as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine could lead to a repeat disaster, the head of an aid organisation has told The Times. Speaking on the 36th anniversary of the nuclear meltdown at the plant, voluntary chief executive of Chernobyl Children Ireland, Adi Roache, likened the invasion to holding the world to ransom. “Who’s to say that the madness will not return to that most fragile of places? Or, if a stray shell were to hit that sarcophagus that was built to try and protect the world from any more emissions of radioactivity, you could be looking at, potentially, a massive catastrophe,” Roache said. She added: “Chernobyl is not something from the past; Chernobyl ‘was forever’, Chernobyl ‘is forever’; the impact of that single shocking nuclear accident can never be undone; its radioactive footprint is embedded in our world for ever and millions of people are still being affected by its deadly legacy. The recent military activity at Chernobyl is further proof that Chernobyl remains an unfolding disaster.”

• Independent Catholic News reflects on Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day and the ongoing concerns surrounding nuclear energy. It looks at the immediate dangers posed by the war in Ukraine, as well as Boris Johnson’s plan to bet big on nuclear power – arguing that genuine renewable alternatives such as energy efficiency, solar, and wind would be a better avenue to explore.

• Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused NATO of engaging in a proxy war in Ukraine – raising the prospect of a nuclear confrontation. Lavrov was answering questions to state media on whether the current tensions were akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the possibility of World War III. “The risks now are considerable. I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it. NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war,” Lavrov said.

• “I told him what our response would be, and he said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Really’...I threatened him like he’s never been threatened before,” recalled ex-US President Donald Trump, of a conversation he had with Vladimir Putin over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. Trump was speaking to Piers Morgan of his time in the White House, where he also commented on the Russian leader’s fondness for the ‘N-word.’ Trump said: “He uses the ‘N-word’, the nuclear word, all the time. That’s a no-no. You’re not supposed to do that. He uses it on a daily basis.” Bullish as ever, Trump said he didn’t let Putin intimidate him telling Morgan: “I would say, ‘we have far more than you do, far, far more powerful than you and you can’t use that word ever again. You cannot use the nuclear word ever again… And if you do, we’re gonna have problems.”

• Newspapers in Finland and Sweden have reported that both countries could submit NATO applications at the same time. Support for NATO membership among the population in the Baltic states has grown since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning decades of a non-alignment policy in Europe. The move has prompted the Kremlin to threaten to beef up its military presence in the region including the deployment of nuclear assets.

• Beyond Nuclear writes on the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and the implications the war in Ukraine has on the decommissioned plant.

• The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a list of four enduring reads on Chernobyl, with a fifth looking at the recent occupation of the plant by Russian forces.

• Nuclear safety in Ukraine has been “seriously jeopardised on several occasions,” warned the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi. “So far, the worst-case scenario has been avoided. But we need to intensify our efforts to make sure that remains the case. The IAEA will do everything it can to help prevent the conflict from also leading to a nuclear accident, in addition to the vast human suffering and major destruction it has already caused,” Grossi said in a press release.

North Korea

• North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to speed up the development of its nuclear weapons programme, during Monday’s parade to commemorate the founding of the country’s armed forces. “The nuclear forces of our Republic should be fully prepared to fulfil their responsible mission and put their unique deterrent in motion at any time,” Kim told the gathering according to North Korea’s state news agency. “The fundamental mission of the North’s nuclear force is to deter war, but its use can never be confined to the single mission,” Kim added

• Experts speaking to The Financial Times warn that Kim Jong-Un is looking to use his nuclear arsenal to exert control over the entire Korean peninsula. Professor of History at Seoul’s Kookmin University, Andrei Lankov, said while North Korea’s nuclear programme was at one time defensive, this has now changed. “They were afraid, correctly, that without nuclear weapons they would be invaded. But now it is clearly overkill from a defensive point of view. They don’t really need intercontinental ballistic missiles and they don’t really need a thermonuclear device. This leads me strongly to suspect that their ultimate dream is to assert their control over South Korea.”

UK Nuclear Energy

• A nuclear power station at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey “is going to happen,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a recent visit to Wales. “We need to get the right type and we need to make sure that we go ahead with the right model. We want to make sure we get the right deal for the UK taxpayer. But we also want to have something that’s really ambitious, and that is going to do justice to the scale of that Wylfa site,” Johnson told state broadcaster, BBC. While Johnson claims “a couple” of reactors could be located at the site within the next few years, Labour has expressed doubt on the plan. Shadow Wales Secretary Jo Stevens said Johnson’s comments were “another U-turn in a series of U-turns,” and expressed doubt on whether the plan would ever come to fruition.

• Cumbrian nuclear safety group Radiation Free Lakeland has handedin a petition to the Trading Standards at Lancashire County Council on the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The petition is calling for the word “clean” to be dropped from the UK’s nuclear fuel manufacturing plant.

European Nuclear Energy

• Two politicians from Luxembourg have written to France’s nuclear watchdog over concerns about corrosion found at the Cattenom 3 reactor in northern France, about 10 kilometres from the Luxembourg border. The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) haven’t commented on the matter but did confirm that corrosion at the plant had been found.