Recently, Zaporozhe nuclear power station has been back in the news. It is the biggest such installation in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world. But that is not the reason for its current prominence. That, instead, stems from the fact that it is inside a war zone and at risk of a serious accident. Or, to be precise, an incident. For if something is finally going to go terribly wrong at Zaporozhe, it is virtually certain that it will not be an accident but the result of a deliberate policy. And to be even more precise, of Ukrainian policy.

The essence of the power plant’s dangerous situation is not hard to sketch. Built in the 1980s under the Soviet Union, when Russia and Ukraine both belonged to it, the Zaporozhe nuclear power station came under Russian control in March 2022. By fall of that year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) started visiting the plant. Throughout, it has repeatedly been at the center of major – and well-founded – scares because military action has been getting far too close to it. While the plant is essentially shut down and not used to generate power, it needs constant maintenance. In particular, its six reactors require constant cooling. For that, they need to stay connected to the electrical grid. Moreover, the territory of the power station features various sources of potential nuclear contamination.

Now – and not for the first time – the IAEA, an organization........

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