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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