CND Press Roundup Friday 12th August 2022

War in Ukraine / NATO

• The Times has video which reportedly proves Russian troops were responsible for shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant it has been in control of since February. The director of Ukraine’s nuclear provider Enorgoatom, Petro Kotin, told the paper that the brief gaps between the sounds of the outgoing and incoming rounds, coupled with the apparent forewarning, showed that the Russians were shelling the plant from a short range. He also said troops had tried to sever the plant’s connection to Ukraine’s power grid by using explosives. “They provided us with a plan for reconnecting the nuclear power plant to Crimea, which at the moment is within the Russian power system,” he said. “Now we’re working with the European system, you cannot just switch one system to another. But this is their goal.”

• A Ukrainian minister said Thursday that the government is preparing for a tragedy at the Zaporizhzhia plant. “The plant is as of today not only in the hands of the enemy, but in the hands of uneducated specialists who could potentially allow for a tragedy to happen,” Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky told Reuters in an interview. “Of course, it’s difficult to even imagine the scale of the tragedy which could come into effect if Russians continue their actions there,” he said.

• The UN Security Council met on Thursday for an emergency meeting to discuss the shelling at the plant – with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for both sides to stop fighting in the immediate area. “The facility must not be used as part of any military operation. Instead, urgent agreement is needed at a technical level on a safe perimeter of demilitarisation to ensure the safety of the area,” he said.

• At that meeting, the UN’s nuclear watchdog reiterated their call to be allowed to visit the site. “This is a serious hour, a grave hour and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] must be allowed to conduct its mission to Zaporizhzhia as soon as possible,” the agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, told the emergency session.

• The Telegraph talks to locals and officials living near Zaporizhzhia, with many fearing a nuclear catastrophe. Olena Kravchuk, who lives several kilometres from the plant said she was worried “nuclear war could happen.” Meanwhile, Oleksandr Starukh, who heads the region’s military administration said: “It won’t be another Chernobyl because this station is even bigger. It will be even worse.”

• Ukrainian workers at Zaporizhzhia have told the BBC that they were held at gunpoint and threatened with kidnap by Russian occupying troops. “The psychological situation is difficult,” Svitlana said via text. “Soldiers are walking everywhere with weapons and everyone is actually kept at gunpoint,” adding that the internet and landline phones had been switched off and that food was available in just one room.

• Ukrainian government official Andriy Yermak writes in the Guardianon the failures of the Budapest Memorandum and Kiev’s plans to make new proposals to the international community: “Although Ukraine’s long-term goal remains Nato membership, we recognise that Russia’s current belligerence makes that difficult. In the meantime, however, we need legally binding guarantees by our allies for the provision of weapons, exchange of intelligence, the support of our defence and the protection of our economy. We plan to present our recommendations to the global community in the near future. Some influential voices, even within our allies’ governments, still believe it is impossible to stand up to Russia. Their position can best be likened to that of a child confronted with a difficult challenge. Rather than closing their eyes, sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming for the problem to go away, these people need to open their eyes and see Russia for what it is.”

When the Wind Blows

• Jeff Sparrow writes about the death of author Raymond Briggs and the impact of his nuclear war parable, When the Wind Blows. Has society forgotten how devastating a nuclear conflict would be today?: “The cold war of the 1980s terrified people – but it also made them angry. A widespread sense that the leaders of both east and west would risk the fate of the planet to preserve their own power spurred a powerful movement. In London, 250,000 marched against the bomb in London in 1981. In the US, the nuclear disarmament rally of 1982 brought a million people to New York’s Central Park. In Australia, the annual Palm Sunday peace rallies mobilised perhaps 300,000 people in 1984 and 350,000 the following year. Those huge marches – and the mass membership of groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – acted as a constraint on politicians, and so ensured that the grim scenario in Briggs’s book remained entirely fictional. By contrast, today Peter Dutton can tell us to ‘prepare for war’ and Nancy Pelosi add to tensions by visiting Taiwan, safe in the knowledge that the antiwar movement has never been weaker. A nuclear exchange would, quite obviously, devastate the environment. But the environmental crisis also makes war more likely, as the great powers reposition themselves in the context of an energy transition. It’s a good moment to re-read When the Wind Blows – not to scare yourself but to get inspired to fight!”

UK Nuclear Energy

• Construction on the third and final offshore tunnel for the cooling system of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant has been completed.

• Residents living near the shut Hunterston B nuclear station in Scotland have been invited to give their thoughts on the plant’s decommissioning. Consultations will be held in The Garrison in Millport between 10am and 5pm on August 13, and in West Kilbride Village Hall from 1pm until 8pm on August 16. They will also be held in Barrfields Theatre in Largs from 1pm until 8pm on August 17, and in Fairlie Village Hall from 1pm until 8pm on August 24.

• British energy customers are paying twice as much than the French for energy, according to this article in The Telegraph. A price cap imposed by Emmanuel Macron means the state owned nuclear firm EDF can only increase French bills by only 4 percent – meaning a rise of €38 to €988 a year. However, EDF customers in the UK “are preparing for bills to rise by more than 80 per cent to around £3,582 in October.”

Nuclear Energy

• The Washington Post has an editorial calling for Germany to keep and expand its nuclear power industry: “For its own sake and for the sake of the broader European economy, Germany must reverse course and retain nuclear power. As an initial step, that would mean keeping its last three remaining reactors, which still produce about 6 percent of the country’s total electricity, in operation past Dec. 31. Then Berlin must find ways to increase its nuclear energy capability, which in March 2011 consisted of 17 reactors, producing one-quarter of all German electric power.”

North Korea

• Speaking from South Korea on Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN remains committed to a denuclearised Korean peninsula. “There’s a fundamental objective to bring peace, security and stability to the whole region,” Guterres told South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol.

Trump

• Documents on nuclear weapons were among the classified material sought by the FBI during Monday’s raid on Donald Trump’s Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago, sources close to investigation told the Washington Post. They did not specify what kind of documents or whether they referred to the US arsenal or another country’s. Trump has said the raid was politically motivated.