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The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is at risk.

As Russias buildup on the Ukrainian border continues, few observers note that an invasion of Ukraine could put nuclear reactors on the front line of military conflict. The world is underestimating the risk that full-scale, no-holds-barred conventional warfare could spark a catastrophic reactor failure, causing an unprecedented regional nuclear emergency.

The threat is real. Ukraine is heavily dependent upon nuclear power, maintaining four nuclear power plants and stewardship of the shattered nuclear site at Chernobyl. In a major war, all 15 reactors at Ukraines nuclear power facilities would be at risk, but even a desultory Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine is likely to expose at least six active reactors to the uncertainty of a ground combat environment.

The world has little experience with reactors in a war zone. Since humanity first harnessed the atom, the world has only experienced two major accidentsChernobyland JapansFukushima disaster. A Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency Level 7 accidents in a matter of days. Such a contingency would induce a massive refugee exodus and could render much of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades.

Turning the Ukraine into a dystopian landscape, pockmarked by radioactive exclusion zones, would be an extreme method to obtain the defensive zone Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to want. Managing a massive Western-focused migratory crisis and environmental cleanup would absorb Europe for years. The work would distract European leaders and empower nativist governments that tend to be aligned with Russias baser interests, giving an overextended Russia breathing room as the country teeters on the brink of technological, demographic, and financial exhaustion.

Put bluntly, the integrity of Ukrainian nuclear reactors is a strategic matter, critical for both NATO and non-NATO countries alike. Causing a severe radiological accident for strategic purposes is unacceptable. A deliberate aggravation of an emerging nuclear catastrophepreventing mitigation measures or allowing reactors to deliberately melt down and potentially contaminate wide portions of Europewould simply be nuclear warfare without bombs.

Such a scenario cant be ruled out. Russia has repeatedly used Ukraine to test out concepts for Gray Zone warfare, where an attacker dances just beyond the threshold of open conflict. Given Russias apparent interest in radiation-spewing nuclear-powered cruise missiles, robotic undersea bombs with a radiological fallout-oriented payload, destructive anti-satellite tests and other nihilistic, world-harming weapons, Russias ongoing dalliance with Gray Zone warfare in Ukraine may, for the rest of Europe, become a real matter of estimating radiological grays, or, in other words, estimating the amount of ionizing radiation absorbed by humans.

UkrainesZaporizhzhia nuclear power plantis a particular risk. It is the second-largest nuclear power plant in Europe (essentially tied with a French reactor complex near Calais), and one of the 10 largest nuclear power plants in the world. The site has little protection, and the sixVVER-1000pressurized water reactors could easily be embroiled in any Russian invasion.

If war comes, the fight will be close by. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located only 120 miles from the current front line in theDonbass regionand is on the hard-to-defend east bank of the Dnieper River. Aside from the geographical hazards, the power plant provides about a quarter of Ukraines total electrical power. Given the importance of the electricity, plant managers will be reluctant to shut it down, securing the reactors only at the very last possible second. Ukraines desperate need for energy only compounds the opportunities for an accident.

Outside of direct battle damage, cyber and other Russian-sourced grey zone mischief could make the plant unmanageable even before the battle arrives at the reactor gates.

Though unlikely, direct bombardment could cause serious damage to reactor containment structures. While the reactor structures themselves are strong, warfare at the plant could kill key personnel and destroy command-and-control structures, monitoring sensors or critical reactor-cooling infrastructure. And, as an operating power plant, the reactors are not the only threat. Dangerous spent fuel rods are sitting in vulnerable cooling ponds, while older fuel sits in the sites167 dry spent fuel assemblies.

If the reactors suffer any operational anomalies, crisis management is not going to happen. Support infrastructure needed for safe reactor management will collapse during conflict. Plant security forces will disappear, operators will flee, and, if an accident occurs, mitigating measures will be impossible.

It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilized trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any liberated power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japans Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone.

Again, the risks are very high. The world has never dealt with an unmanaged meltdown at a large nuclear power plant. The very real prospect of an extended and unmitigated incident at a six-reactor powerplant in a war zone is worth urgent and immediate consultations throughout Europe and NATO.

Nuclear disasters are rarely localized events. When Chernobyl occurred, Putin was enjoying a KGB posting in East Germany. He certainly must recall that the accident released a stew of dangerous radioactive contaminants into the air, spreading contaminationand fearacross Europe. One dangerous contaminant, caesium-137, spread thousands of miles, though most fell out of the atmospherewithin 200 miles of the stricken plant, creating large no-go zones in areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

The same would be true of Zaporizhzhia. If the reactors are damaged in late December or early January, the prevailing winds are from Siberia, and weather patterns can be expected to push dangerous levels of caesium-137 and other contaminants directly to the west. The fallout will contaminate Ukraines key waterway, Europes breadbasket, and potentiallydepending on the contamination types and weather patternscompromising drinking water supplies across Europe.Of course, nature is a fickle partner, and, if Putins invaders spark an uncontrollable meltdown, the winter winds will eventually change, pushing radiation over the Donbass region and into Russia.

Tactically, radioactive plumes would make nearly every civilian nearby flee, degrading Ukrainian defensive efforts. The fallout could even force the three reactors at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plantbarely 160 miles downwindto shut down, further weakening Ukraines electricity supply and its defenses.

The world has never experienced war that threatens active nuclear power infrastructure, and world leaders may be underestimating the peril conventional warfare presents to these powerful and perilous assets.

On the other hand, heedless purveyors of gray zone warfare may be underestimating the risk themselves, all too eager to determine just how degraded nuclear infrastructure might serve as a less risky surrogate for nuclear conflict.

To them, its not nuclear war, but just a series of unfortunate nuclear accidents.

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A Ukraine Invasion Could Go Nuclear: 15 Reactors Would Be In War Zone - Forbes

International partners know that it is useless to even try to put pressure on Ukraine on issues that do not meet the interests of the state, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

According to Ukrinform, he stated this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

"The possibility of 'insistently asking for' something or putting pressure on Ukraine regarding something that does not meet its interests - such an option is not on the table, it has been removed from the agenda. Our partners know that you shouldn't even try to do that," Kuleba said.

He noted that Ukraine is now an active subject and an active participant in international politics.

"Sometimes we even literally impose our vision, our position. Russia is also in this situation now, because it is not able to break Ukraine without such an escalation, as other means do not work. It is the inability to deprive Ukraine of support from partners that forces Russia to raise the stakes," Kuleba said.

When asked what Ukraine's proactive position in the story with security guarantees is, Kuleba recalled that U.S. Department of State official Karen Donfried was in Kyiv before traveling to Moscow and receiving these documents there, and the United States was the first to discuss the content of those documents with Ukraine.

As an example of such a position, he noted that giving Russia any role in relations between Ukraine and NATO is a priori impossible.

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Partners know it is useless to put pressure on Ukraine - Kuleba - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

KYIV, Ukraine Nations have chosen their leaders from among many fields, including the military and academia, but Ukraines government might be the first to draw heavily from television and film comedy.

Before turning to politics, President Volodymyr Zelensky was a television actor and comic, and he has placed allies with similar histories in key positions throughout the government, including top advisers, legislators, administrators and even an intelligence chief.

At a time when Russia has built up forces on Ukraines border and fear of an invasion is running high, Mr. Zelensky has surrounded himself with people drawn from his comedy studio, Kvartal 95. Few have any experience in diplomacy or warfare.

There is that risk of people not having the gravitas, and not having experience, Orysia Lutsevych, the director of the Ukraine studies program at Chatham House in London, said in an interview. I wouldnt want to be in the room when there are just a couple of guys who know how to produce videos. This is not a peaceful time. This is a time of war.

Mr. Zelensky was elected as an outsider to Ukraines dysfunctional, often corrupt politics two years ago, and, trying to bypass its bitter feuds and opaque motives, he ushered in a government as unorthodox as he was. He appointed fellow comedy industry veterans, relying on personal loyalty rather than expertise or building coalitions in Ukraines fractious democracy, political analysts say.

Bihus, a Ukrainian investigative news site, has counted three dozen people with ties to Mr. Zelenskys comedy studio and his family who are now in government, including in national security positions at the defense intelligence agency, which is tasked with monitoring the Russian buildup.

Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly rejected accusations of frivolity, and allies say his comedy background and wry humor are actually political assets.

Ukraine has been at war against Russia-backed separatists since 2014, long before Mr. Zelensky took office.

Today, Russia has amassed troops to the north, east and south. The United States has disclosed intelligence showing that Russias military has a war plan envisioning an invasion with as many as 175,000 troops that Ukraines military, despite U.S.-provided equipment and training, would have little ability to stop.

American officials have said it is unclear whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has decided to invade.

Russia has demanded that NATO pledge to refrain from any eastward expansion, that Ukraine cease deployments of NATO weaponry and that Kyiv bend to Russian terms for a settlement in the war in eastern Ukraine.

The buildup places Mr. Zelenskys government in a crucible of diplomacy and military posturing, which has included U.S. and European military flights near Russias borders in the Black Sea and a video call between President Biden and Mr. Putin.

Military analysts have described a range of scenarios for conflict, including a limited use of force by Russia. But a full invasion would become the largest military action in Europe since World War II, harden the continents East-West divide and kill an untold number of soldiers on both sides, as well as civilians in Ukraine.

It is hardly a lighthearted moment, and yet comedy was integral to Mr. Zelenskys political ascent and persona, and his supporters defend its relevance in crisis.

On television, he played a schoolteacher whose tirade against corruption is filmed by his students, winds up online and goes viral, propelling him to the presidency.

In a campaign of life mimicking art, Mr. Zelensky named his political party after his television show, Servant of the People. Actors, filmmakers and media executives led the party and followed him into power.

The chief of the presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, was a media lawyer and movie producer. The head of the domestic intelligence agency, Ivan Bakanov, had been the director of the Kvartal 95 studio. A chief presidential adviser, Serhiy Shefir, was a screenwriter and producer whose major credits included a hit romantic comedy film, Eight First Dates, and a television series, The In-laws.

Roman Hryshchuk headlined a comedy show called Mama Busted Up before winning a seat in Parliament with Mr. Zelenskys party. Like the other comedians in power, he is unapologetic.

Humor is a sign of intellect, he said in an interview. A sense of humor is a gift.

In Ukraines international relations, its really an advantage, he added. In diplomacy, humor is always an instrument. You can set the right tone with a joke.

But the view that only comedians run the government is a stereotype promoted by opposition parties, Mr. Hryshchuk said, noting that many non-comedians also serve. To avoid playing into this criticism of Mr. Zelensky, he said he has not told a joke in public for two years and in the interview, he sternly declined to do so.

It would be used against us, he said.

Mr. Zelensky has joked, sometimes at tense moments. In what was perceived as a threatening gesture in July, Mr. Putin wrote an essay describing Russia and Ukraine as essentially one nation, a text suggesting a justification for uniting the countries.

It described fraternal bonds. Mr. Zelensky replied, like Cain and Abel.

He also quipped of Mr. Putins roughly 5,000-word treatise delving into medieval history that the Russian president seemed to have a lot of time on his hands.

They think differently, Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former economics minister, said of comedy studio veterans. They think in terms of dramaturgy. They think, Who is the villain, who is the hero, what is the roller coaster of emotions?

Behind closed doors, Mr. Zelensky and his associates are typically serious in meetings, former aides and ministers said in interviews.

The comedy veterans joke, but no more than others in the room. They are just of a better quality than when I try to make a joke, said Mr. Mylovanov, whose specialty in economics is the theory of contracts.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlins position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATOs eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscows military buildupwas a response to Ukraines deepening partnership with the alliance.

Serhiy Prytula, a comedian and host of the television show Ukraines Got Talent, said the problem was not comedy, per se, but Mr. Zelenskys reliance on loyalists.

We all worked somewhere, said Mr. Prytula, who has announced plans to found his own comedian-led political party to compete with Mr. Zelensky. The question is: Are you, as a politician, willing to surround yourself with people who are not just loyal but have expertise?

Beyond the general sense that Mr. Zelenskys aides are out of their depth, critics have pointed to what they call worrying blunders in national security.

Mr. Yermak, the former media lawyer, ordered an ill-considered delay in a sensitive intelligence operation in 2020 that might have captured dozens of Russian mercenaries, according to Bellingcat, an open source investigation group. The delay scuttled the operation.

And critics point to a decision this year to earmark money raised through government borrowing not for military spending but for Mr. Zelenskys signature domestic policy project, a road-building initiative called Big Construction overseen by Kirill Tymoshenko, a former director of a video production company, Good Media.

Volodymyr Ariev, a member of the opposition European Solidarity party, joked that this allocation would now serve to make the ride to Kyiv more comfortable for Russian tanks.

As Ukraine braces for possible war with Russia, worry has mounted that the inexperience of Mr. Zelenskys circle could have dire consequences, and not only for their own country. An amateurish misstep could become a pretext for war, which would significantly worsen the friction between Russia and the United States.

Dmytro Razumkov, who was ousted in October as the speaker of Parliament and replaced by a former comedian, Ruslan Stefanchuk said Mr. Zelenskys appointment of show business figures betrayed a campaign promise to balance his government with technical experts. Mr. Stefanchuk is also a lawyer.

We said, In those areas where we dont have expertise, people who do understand should step in, said Mr. Razumkov, who was an early supporter of Mr. Zelensky but has pivoted to criticizing him for bringing in hapless ministers and aides.

Appointments to senior posts are now based on loyalty to the president and his entourage, Mr. Razumkov said. Its a comfortable way to work for the president but not for the country at a time of military threat.

We came for a comedy, Mr. Razumkov said of Ukrainian politics under Mr. Zelensky, and wound up watching a horror movie. Its not funny at all.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kyiv.

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As Russian Threat Looms, Ukraines Government Is No Laughing Matter - The New York Times

The Ukraine crisis should be a wake-up call for European nations to boost defense spending and finally take seriously Frances calls for European strategic autonomy. And yes, Americans should cheer them on.

Presently, Europe is heavily dependent on decisions made in Washington regarding whether or how to counter the Russian threat, largely because they lack the collective military heft to deal with Russia on their own. Washington, however, has good reason to dither; few have any appetite for a war with Russia, or for dying for Kyiv.

Europeans may feel the same way, but it should be up to them, and not President BidenJoe BidenFauci says CDC cut isolation time so people return to work faster Overnight Health Care CDC cuts isolation time for the asymptomatic Energy & Environment 2021's weather disasters cost 0B MORE and Congress. They have more at stake either way: They are more at risk in case of war, just as they are more likely to suffer the consequences of a policy of appeasing Moscow.

Why is Europe so dependent? It boils down to lacking the military wherewithal to take on Russia without significant U.S. assistance. Europes militaries are excellent but small. As a RAND study I co-authored argued about Western Europes most capable force, Frances, it could manage a full division, but France would have to send it into battle with nothing to spare in terms of replacement men, vehicles, ammunition and parts. The same is largely true of its air and naval forces: They are top tier, to be sure, but scarce. There would be nothing in reserve to absorb any sort of attrition or sustain the fight for very long.

The situation with Europes other top militaries the British, the Germans, the Italians and the Spanish is worse. Its all a question of spending, with most NATO countries spending well below the notional 2 percent goal, and a question of coordinating what they do spend. The whole of a bunch of small militaries can be worth much less than the sum of the parts. NATO exists in part to fix that and ensure that collectively the Alliance makes the most of what it has. But here the point is operating outside NATO, or at least without the Americans: What if Washington prefers to sit it out?

No sane person would argue for a war with Russia, but deterring such a war requires being able to respond proportionately to each threat, and also to avoid the worst-case scenario, wherein for lack of an appropriate conventional arm Europe has to decide between capitulation or nuclear weapons. Europe in fact needs to be able to do two things to avoid that horrible dilemma. One is mastering the kind of sub-threshold indirect and hybrid warfare at which the Russians currently have an edge. The other is being able to measure out conventional capabilities. Europe needs both, for both would give it options. It has neither.

Americans should welcome a European awakening. First, unless we really are up for dying for Kyiv, Kyivs fate, and Europes, should not be up to us. Second, a strong Europe would make it easier for all of us to deter Russia. We would not have to commit as much of our own force, and Moscow would know it has to contend with more than one major power.

Michael Shurkin is a former RAND senior political scientist who now is the president and founder of Shurbros Global Strategies as well as director of Global Programs at 14 North Strategies.

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Europe needs to step up to deter Russia in Ukraine | TheHill - The Hill

The number one thing we can do is real time actionable intelligence that says, The Russians are coming over the berm, said Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration. We tell them, and they use that to target the Russians.

She said that weve been nervous about that in the past.

One potential problem with providing actionable intelligence, American officials acknowledge, is that it could lead Ukraine to strike first the sort of scenario Western officials believe that Mr. Putin has been trying to sell to the Russian public.

This summer, Mr. Putin argued in an article that Russians and Ukrainians were one people and said that the formation of a Ukrainian state hostile to Moscow was comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.

He has continuously painted the Ukrainian government as the aggressor, backed by the West. But if Russian tanks are moving over the border, and Ukraine targets them, it will be hard for Mr. Putin to make that argument. Russian disinformation campaigns have attacked the Ukrainian government and accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of creating a humanitarian crisis in the countrys east, where Ukrainian government forces have been battling Russian-led separatists for years, Western officials said.

Last Friday, Mr. Putin codified what he has long been saying to American and European officials in meetings, demanding that the United States and its allies halt all military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in a Cold War-like security arrangement. That the demand came when Russian troops were at Ukraines border explicitly linked the deployment to a possible invasion, American officials said.

American and NATO officials privately dismissed the main demands of the Russian proposal, which came in the form of a draft treaty suggesting that NATO should offer written guarantees that it would not expand farther east toward Russia and halt all military activities in the former Soviet republics.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlins position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATOs eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscows military buildupwas a response to Ukraines deepening partnership with the alliance.

But the United States also set up talks with Moscow, for January, during which officials said they would tackle the range of complaints detailed by Russia. On Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Ukraine has sought NATO membership for years a move that would enrage Russia but despite the delay, the United States has balked at taking Ukraines accession off the table.

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U.S. Considers Warning Ukraine of a Russian Invasion in Real-Time - The New York Times