As of the morning of August 12, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is operating at risk of breaking norms of radioactive fire safety, notifies “Enerhoatom.” It is now apparent that because of Russian attacks on the powerplant, the emergency safety measure on one of the power units was activated and one of the three power units was disconnected.
The situation at the ZNPP was discussed on air with Oleksiy Orzhel, the former Minister of Energy:
«If we are talking about the scenarios planned by the occupiers for the Zaporizhia NPP, they planned to reconnect it and synchronize it with their own system, their own workload and, accordingly, provide power to the occupied territory of Crimea… If we say that, now, they are ready to blackmail the whole world with a nuclear threat, that is, that they are implementing a scenario of nuclear terrorism, then in this case there is a question: What can they cause, or, how can they change the situation? We are now discussing the level of operation of the second circuit, which is the cooling of the reactors (the first circuit is where the nuclear reaction is directly carried out), then there is an issue precisely regarding its physical condition. This is very serious, and it concerns the work of the staff.
As far as I know, there were no shifts regarding rotations, and the staff is under pressure from machine guns. It is impossible to work like that because this can cause a critical error in the human factor, which brings us to another important element — the ‘excess of the executor’ on the part of the Russians. This happens when they start blackmailing their military, while there are also representatives from Rosatom who understand how to operate the Underwater-Water Energy Reactor (UWER). At the same time, they (Russian forces — ed.) will act somewhat suicidal, to bring the situation to a point where the cooling of the reactors does not take place and conditions emerge that can possibly cause a nuclear catastrophe.
The excess of the executor — actions of a perpetrator of a crime that is not covered by the intent of other accomplices. This is if the perpetrator’s actions form an independent component of the crime or if their actions are significantly different from the actions planned by other participants.
So at the ZNPP there is «executive excess» because of the military personnel who are not allowed at the facility», the workload on Ukrainian personnel, and in this case, a critical situation can really occur at any moment on the individual level under such conditions.»
According to the ex-minister, if «the “crazies in the Kremlin decided to blackmail the whole world with a large-scale nuclear disaster, they might want take out something from this equation.»
«However, a real tragedy can happen if those who are orchestrating this scenario go through with it» says Oleksiy Orzhel.
It is noted that, in fact, at the political-military level of the aggressor country, the intention was to steal electricity. However, if we are talking about people who are vital to the implementation, about the people who are in the military and with weapons, then, as practice shows, it is impossible to control this situation:
«If the crazy terrorist in the Kremlin (Putin — ed.) wants to lift sanctions, then another terrorist with a machine gun can start shooting in opposition. This can deliberately lead to a critical situation. We can talk about the fact that we are trying to understand them (Russians — ed.) from the point of view of sound logic, but as their activities have shown, they kill civilians, women, and children. They are simply terrorists who do not have any limits.”
Recall that on August 11th, Russian troops once again shelled the Zaporizhian nuclear power plant.
The ISW reported that Russian forces are believed to be storing explosives and mines in and around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and may have mined parts of the plant.
Earlier, the American Institute for the Study of War assumed that Russian forces were using the captured nuclear power plants in order to play on the West’s fears about a nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
The European Union condemned the military actions of Russian troops near the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
On August 5, at around 2:30 p.m., the Russian military shelled the Zaporizhzhia NPP three times. They aimed at the high-voltage communication line of the 330 kV VRP autotransformer of the Zaporizhzhia NPP — Zaporizhzhya TPP and damaged it. Emergency protection was activated at one of the power units, diesel generators were switched on. This unit was unloaded and disconnected from the power grid.
On the evening of August 5, the Russian military shelled the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant for the second time with multiple rocket launchers.
The IAEA stated that the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya NPP did not lead to a «direct threat to nuclear safety.»
Because of the shelling of the ZNPP, the UN Security Council was convened to propose the creation of a demilitarized zone around the power plant, but Russia refused.