Russia’s nuclear blackmail

‘Dear Ukrainians! And all people of the world: everyone! I emphasise this,’ Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised speech yesterday. Russia, he said, is planning a ‘terrorist attack’ using radiation leakage at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest. Ukrainian intelligence repeatedly warned that Russian forces have sown mines in the plant, as it appears that they did with the Nova-Kakhovka dam. Ukrainians are gripped by an unsettling sense of déjà vu, fearing that the nuclear plant, which is under Russian control, will inevitably suffer the same fate.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has been under Russian control since last March and has served as a safe facility for weapons and ammunition storage. Ukrainian forces wouldn’t dare to shell the nuclear plant for fear of turning the region into a second Chernobyl. Now Kyiv is afraid that Russia will blow up the plant to frustrate the Ukrainian counter-offensive. However, Ukraine’s allies, apart from expressing condemnation, have yet to take the actions that the president appealed for in further speeches.