CND Press Roundup Friday 6th May 2022

War in Ukraine

• Several UK news outlets picked up this story from The Moscow Times – that Russia conducted a simulation of a nuclear attack in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. The announcement came on Wednesday, the 70th day of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Quoting a defence ministry statement, the MT said the exercise saw forces practise “electronic launches” of nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile systems near Kaliningrad’s borders with Lithuania and Poland.

• However, on Friday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman Alexei Zaitsev insisted that Russia would not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Zaitsev told reporters the use of nuclear weapons by Russia – a risk that Western officials have publicly discussed – was not applicable to what Moscow calls its special military operation in Ukraine.

• The Guardian runs an opinion from Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft – who argues that Ukraine can eject Russian troops from the country without risking a nuclear confrontation. Lieven argues that the logic which kept Cold War warriors from pressing the nuclear button still rings true if NATO enforced a no-fly zone over Ukraine as a result of one of its members being attacked: “We would then be faced with a prospect that, during the cold war, eight US presidents took great care to avoid: Russia and Nato firing missiles into each other’s territory, and a direct conflict in Europe between two nuclear superpowers, with the ability between them to destroy humanity. US presidents did not exercise this restraint out of sympathy for the Soviet Union, but from a cold calculation of the terrible risks involved. And running these risks is unnecessary, given the strategic defeat we have already helped to inflict on Russia.”

• The head of the Wilson Centre writes on the challenges facing Joe Biden’s administration in assessing (or second-guessing) Vladimir Putin’s chances of using nuclear weapons. On looking beyond the war in Ukraine, Washington it says, is likely to revert to early Cold War tactics: “the Biden administration and US NATO allies are already considering a revived version of diplomat George Kennan’s containment strategy to deter and balance Russian power on its periphery, whether Putin continues to rule in the Kremlin or not. Kennan’s advocacy in 1947 of a strategy of the “long-term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” resonates today. As during the Cold War, such a strategy should pragmatically allow for engagement with Russia on strategic stability to avoid the prospect of unconstrained and destabilizing arms competition.”

• The Week has a more sombre tone on the prospect of nuclear war – saying it’s only a matter of time until our luck runs out.

Trident

• Anti-nuclear activists will be staging a protest camp on the Rosneath Peninsula in Scotland from 6th June – as part of a disarmament week of actions against nuclear threats. Members of Trident Ploughshares and XR Peace will travel from Bristol and camp at Peaton Glen Wood, close to the Coulport armaments depot where Trident nuclear missiles are loaded onto Royal Navy submarines.

AUKUS / Asia-Pacific / Fukushima

• Boris Johnson hosted Japan’s Fumio Kishida at Downing Street on Thursday – where the pair ate popcorn produced near the defunct Fukushima nuclear power plant and inked a new defence pact. It coincides with the announcement that a bonfire of post-Brexit red tape on the radioactive levels in produce has paved the way for fish and vegetables from Fukushima to be be freely sold in Britain. Nuclear nori aside – defence officials agreed a new defence pact which would allow British and Japanese troops to deploy together for training, joint exercises and disaster relief activities. Also agreed was a partnership to collaborate further on the project to replace the UK’s fleet of Tornado fighters – the Future Combat Air System programme.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Eastern Daily Press covers the announcement that 1,000 apprenticeships will become available if the plant to build two nuclear reactors at Sizewell C in Suffolk goes ahead.

Nuclear Energy

• The Financial Times covers a flurry of recent activity in uranium markets – including the launch of two European-listed uranium exchange traded funds and a $1 trillion dollar acquisition of a uranium mining firm. “The speculative activity has been led by Sprott Asset Management, which gained notoriety last year, after its Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SPUT), which launched in July, began stockpiling so much uranium that there were fears it could corner the market and choke off supplies to power stations.”

• Nuclear power will be part of Japan’s future energy policy – Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida said during a trip to London on Thursday. With elections slated for July amid a growing energy crisis, Kishida said the country would address the “vulnerability of our own energy self-sufficiency” by broadening where it buys energy from, promoting renewables and using nuclear power to diversify its sources of generation. “We will utilise nuclear reactors with safety assurances to contribute to worldwide reduction of dependence on Russian energy,” Kishida added.

Fukushima

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has welcomedprogress on Japan’s preparations to release millions of tonnes of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. In its first report on the plan, the nuclear watchdog praised overall progress in the technical preparations for the water discharge. The report compiled the initial findings from the IAEA task force’s first review mission to the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in February of this year. The report is the first in a series, as the task force carries out more missions to Japan in the coming months and years to assess the water discharge against IAEA safety standards.

North Korea

• A US Department of Defense official has labelled North Korea’s ballistic missile programme as a “serious threat to international peace and security” that was undermining “the global non-proliferation regime.” The official was responding to questions from South Korea’s Yonghap news agency on Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities. They added that Washington will “focus on reducing the threat to the United States and our allies, as well as improving the lives of the North and South Korean people. We remain committed to the denuclearization of North Korea.”

Three Mile Island

• Those of you with a Netflix subscription can tune into a new 4-part docuseries on the 1979 nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island. While the first half of Meltdown: Three Mile Island looks at how close the plant came to a Chernobyl-size disaster, the latter episodes looks at the ensuing billion dollar clean-up operation, and how that phase almost led to a second disaster – with the truth only coming to light due to whistleblowers. The Guardian has a good review on the series and you can watch the trailer here.