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 think tank will warn.
Vladimir Putin’s troops seized control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in spring 2022 in an attempt to disrupt Ukraine’s energy supply, and have used the site to create fear in the nearby Ukrainian-held city of the same name by setting off nuclear drills.
A new report from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), 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.
Mr Trump’s proposals, according to US media, include essentially giving the facility to the US, or placing it in neutral hands but using it to supply energy to Ukraine and Russian-occupied Crimea, which is Ukrainian territory. But either scheme would undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.
There have also been numerous attacks by Russia on Ukraine’s other nuclear power stations – notably the South Ukraine plant in Pivdennoukrainsk, in the Mykolaiv oblast.
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 facilities.
The “dual-use” status of nuclear power stations – meaning they qualify as both civilian facilities and military targets – has caused deep concern.
The Rusi report, compiled by Darya Dolzikova, warns that nuclear power plants – which are seen by many as a green alternative to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity – may be targeted more widely as a result of what has happened in Zaporizhzhia.
There are 166 nuclear reactors in Europe, according to the European Nuclear Society. At the top of the list of reasons for tightening security is that they can be used to instil the 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 Russian citizenship.
Russia blew up the nearby Kakhovka dam, which supplied cooling water from the Dnieper River to the ZPP, in an attempt to further cripple Ukraine’s infrastructure. Blowing up dams is a violation of the laws governing modern warfare.
But the status of nuclear power stations as “dual-use” objects means that international humanitarian law is ambiguous on whether they can be targeted.
Doing so to create no-go zones for humans – like the contaminated areas around Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor in northern Ukraine that failed in 1986 – 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 their 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 warns.
Israel and the US have repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities 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 Iran’s only civilian nuclear power plant at Bushehr in the Arabian Gulf.
European intelligence agencies have warned of increasing Russian attacks across the region, including 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 cyberattacks as well as conventional long-range missiles and sabotage, Rusi is expected to say.
