Shelling a Nuclear Power Plant Nothing but Suicidal

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UN inspectors are warning the Russians on Monday that it’s really not a great idea to start shelling a nuclear power plant. Politically neutral scientists are trying to get access to the region. It’s crucial they have a look at any damage suffered by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex in Ukraine. It might not appear all that obvious to untrained soldiers.

Stop shelling the reactor

Shut up, stop pointing fingers at each other and for God’s sake stop shelling the nuclear reactor, before we have another Chernobyl on our hands, top scientists warn. They’re jumping up and down as they’re doing it. Don’t the Russians realize a meltdown is serious?

Vladimir Putin is flirting with nuclear disaster and the United Nations doesn’t like it.

According to Reuters, “any attack (on) a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at a news conference August 8.

If the shelling keeps up, we’re in for “a Chernobyl-style catastrophe,” he promises. That’s why the area around the plant needs to be called a “demilitarized zone” right now.

Russians have control of the plant but they have nervous Ukrainian plant operators working at gunpoint with limited supplies and no spare parts. The area around the plant is crawling with Ukraine counter offensive forces. Two intense days of shelling have nuclear experts chewing their fingernails. Even without a direct hit, these complexes aren’t meant for rough handling.

Rockets hit the power line

As the Ukraine counter-offensive in the southern region digs in, Russian troops have been forced to concentrate their forces “on gains made in the area, resulting in the fighting around the plant.” Shelling isn’t the only hazard, either.

On Friday, rockets blasted a high-voltage power line. On Saturday, crews at the plant thought they were done for. That’s when their dry storage facility was blown away.

Shelling, reports note, “damaged radiation-monitoring sensors near the facility.” It isn’t terrible but that’s still not a good thing.

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A spokesperson for Ukraine’s state nuclear power firm Energoatom told the press, “this time a nuclear catastrophe was miraculously avoided, but miracles cannot last forever.

Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball warned that “buildings around a nuclear facility are not designed to withstand military strikes.” Shelling disrupts sensitive parts of the reactor.

This, he adds, “is particularly dangerous because these buildings are not built with the same kind of reinforced concrete that the reactor containment building is.” Everyone assumes they are designed as “fortresses against external missile or artillery strikes” but they’re not.

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