Nuclear power stations across the world are increasingly vulnerable to attack after Russia’s capture of Europe’s biggest facility during its invasion of Ukraine and the “normalisation” of such assaults, a leading thinktank will warn.
Vladimir Putin’s troops seized control of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in spring 2022 and have used the site to create fear in the nearby Ukrainian-held city of the same name by setting off nuclear drills, in an attempt to disrupt energy supplies.
A new report from the Royal United Services Institute due to be published later this week will warn that such targeting of nuclear sites is only expected to rise.
“As more countries become interested in pursuing nuclear energy as a source of clean and sustainable power, and as non-proliferation norms are increasingly challenged, the probability that nuclear installations will find themselves the targets – or unintentional victims – of the use of military force is likely to increase,” the report will say.
“Such military activity should not be normalised; however, political and military leadership must be ready to anticipate, mitigate and respond to potential future military attacks on nuclear installations.”
The Rusi study undermines proposals being considered by the Trump administration to take control of the Zaporizhzhia power plant (ZPP) as part of a plan to end the war.
Trump’s proposals include either essentially giving the facility to the US, or putting it into neutral hands but using it to supply energy to Ukraine and Russian-occupied Crimea, which is Ukrainian territory, according to US media.
But either scheme would undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and comes after numerous attacks by Russia on Ukraine’s other nuclear power stations – notably the South Ukraine plant.
The ZPP is the only nuclear power station to have been captured in a conflict. Many other nuclear sites have been attacked – notably by Israel – in Syria and Iran. But these have been nuclear weapons development programmes.
The “duel use” of strikes on nuclear power stations, seen by many as a green alternative to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, since ZPP has caused deep concerns.
The Rusi report, by Darya Dolzikova, warned that nuclear power plants may be targeted more widely as a result.
There are 166 nuclear reactors in Europe, according to the European Nuclear Society. Top of the reasons why security needs to be tightened is that they can be used to instill fear of nuclear war without the necessity of using a nuclear weapon.
“Such threats may be used as a ‘half-step’ between conventional and nuclear weapons,” Dr Dolzikova will say.
The ZPP has six reactors. They have all been shut down and are in nuclear limbo no longer generating any power. But Russia has a plant of about the same size near Kursk.
The region south of the power station has been the scene of bitter fighting after Ukraine took and then lost a swathe of territory over the last year.
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In Zaporizhzhia, Russia has been able to generate fear and also coerce Ukrainian workers to remain at the plant, forcing them to take out Russian citizenship.
Russia blew up the nearby Kakovka Dam, which supplied cooling water from the Dnieper river to the ZPP, in an attempt to further cripple Ukraine’s infrastructure. Blowing dams is a violation of the laws governing modern warfare.
But the dual use nature of nuclear stations means that international humanitarian law is ambiguous on whether they can be targeted.
Doing so to create a no-go zones for humans, like the contaminated zones around Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor which failed in northern Ukraine, would be illegal, Rusi suggests.
But the wider laws are vague which gives room for western nations, and others, to launch operations against the nuclear facilities of rivals and enemies.
“In instances where a state has decided that another state’s nuclear installations pose a critical threat – the state will likely find ways of justifying the use of military force against a nuclear site,” Rusi warned.
Israel and the US have repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites – on the basis that the sites are part of a programme to develop nuclear weapons.
Russia is working with Iran, which supplies Moscow with drones and ballistic missiles, to expand its only civilian nuclear power plant at Bushehr on the Arabian Gulf.
European intelligence agencies have warned of increasing Russian attacks across the region, include the targeting of critical national infrastructure.
Attacks by states, or other groups, have included cyber assaults. The US and Israel proved the concept that nuclear systems could be undermined this way with the famed Stuxnet cyber virus assault in Iran which broke centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium.
Countries need to boost their defences against cyber attacks, as well a conventional long range missiles and sabotage, Rusi is expected to say.
