The Threat Of A New Chernobyl

The NPP in Astravets, constructed by Russia, is a potential nuclear bomb.

When the Chernobyl Prayer (also known as Voices from Chernobyl) by Svetlana Alexievich was published in 1997 it didn’t draw a lot of attention. It was only after the author was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, that her books were revisited by publishers, and Chernobyl became visible in the world, both as a book and as a major global catastrophe that happened on the territory of the former USSR.

Alexievich tells the story of the unbearable suffering of the people after the explosion at Chernobyl and her book contains a powerful message, calling for vigilance to prevent similar preventable, man made disaster.

The HBO series “Chernobyl” that became a world sensation, also paints a horrifying portrait of a system that made such disasters possible, and then tried to cover up its mistakes and faults at the expense of the lives of its citizens.

The main character in HBO series is “Comrade Lie”, who is a symbol of the system and its functionaries. On every level of the Soviet communist system: whenever human lives could be saved by truth, they opted to lie.

They lied about ideology and the technical achievements of the Soviet Union. They lied about safety of their technologies and they covered up major accidents. And when the truth came out in the West (where else?) they lied about the scale of the damage.

Moreover they lied to each other, to their colleagues, to their families.

A lie is as dangerous as radiation, and they are both not immediately visible.

Chernobyl is still very much with us, and the effects of the disaster will remain for thousands of generations. The half-life of plutonium-239 that was released by the reactor is more than 24 000 years. The aftermath is still scary and was not dealt with properly in the former USSR, nor in the countries that regained independence after its collapse, which were also affected by radioactive fallout: Belarus, Ukraine, Russia. Even the concrete sarcophagus that was built to stop radioactive fallout, is on the verge of collapsing. It needs to be dismantled, which is a very dangerous process.

Despite all the dangers, past, present and future of that nuclear facility, another potential Chernobyl is being constructed today on the territory of Belarus that suffered most from the fallout.

Furthermore, it is being constructed by the same “specialists” from Russia, “Rosatom”,  that built and put into operation the nuclear power plant (NPP) in Chernobyl, and carelessly experimented with it in  a way that led to the tragedy.

The NPP is not an issue here. Many countries have these facilities and live safely with them.

The issue is that “Comrade Lie” has come back, in all its notorious glory, both in Russia -which is responsible for the construction of this new NPP- and Belarus, where Lukashenka’s regime, against the will of the people, has eagerly provided territory for yet another dangerous Russian nuclear experiment. Both in Russia and Belarus, there is no free press to help monitor the construction and compliance with standards. Neither in Russia or Belarus is there transparency in matters that are of concern to the people.

The Kremlin already warned several times, that it might use nuclear weapons in Europe. Russia also violated Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the former Soviet Union and the United States which led to its collapse.

The possibility of a nuclear accident close to European Union borders is as frightening as the potential use of nuclear weapons. The location of the Russian built nuclear facility was chosen to be as far away from Russia, and as close as possible to the territory of the European Union on the border with Lithuania, only 50 km from its capital Vilnius.

They say that the type of the reactor to be used in Belarus has already had some unexpected shutdowns on Russian territory. Accidents, with the yet uninstalled reactor, have been reported on the territory of Belarus. Allegedly it was damaged during transportation and was either repaired or substituted.

There were accidents at nuclear facilities that use reactors of the same type that was delivered to Belarus (namely the Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reaktor – Water Power Reactor). Last July, three of the four power-generating units at the Kalinin nuclear facility were taken offline after a short circuit accident. Only a week before that accident the nuclear facility in Beloyarsk had to be shut down over an unspecified malfunction.

We don’t know the facts: the truth will be hidden, because the successors of Soviet state remain in power both in Minsk and in Moscow with their renewed policy of lies.

It took almost two years to attribute a mysterious radiation cloud formed as a result of a sizable release of radioactive ruthenium-106 and detected in Europe in October 2017, to the Russian Mayak nuclear facility – a reprocessing plant in the Southern Urals. The Kremlin denied that it happened on its territory and lied about the nature of the accident.

According to Putin the “Kursk” submarine just sank. According to Lukashenka, the political opponents the regimes murdered, just ran away.

One of the heroes in the Chernobyl series, says that the core of the reactor exploded because of… “lies”.

The construction of the NPP in Astravets,  violates several international agreements and conventions, yet no real concern has been expressed by the international community. Except Lithuania, no other European state seems to care.

The NPP in Astravets, constructed by Russia, is a potential nuclear bomb that technologically will be controlled by Kremlin, (making it a large, open target for cyber attacks – ed). It is Moscow’s strategic objective, to tie Belarus even closer to Russia and use the NPP as a threat to neighboring countries. It has little to do with the energy security of Belarus, since it makes it more vulnerable and dependent on Kremlin.

The HBO series might be a visionary warning to stop this madness on the territory of Belarus,  which already suffered major damage after the Chernobyl meltdown. It’s not too late yet as Lithuania suggests, which would still be better than to go out searching for Geiger radiation counters later.

When this text was ready to be published there was another nuclear accident in Russia on August 8.

The failed test of a nuclear-propelled cruise missile, allegedly a “SSC-X-9 Skyfall” missile, known in Russia as the “Burevestnik”, has been hailed by President Vladimir V. Putin as a major asset of Moscow’s arms race with the United States. The failed missile test ended in an explosion killing five atomic scientists last week on Russia’s White Sea in the Arkhangelsk region

According to international experts the accident was a serious one causing 20-fold increase in radiation in the city of Severodvinsk.

The Kremlin, following its tradition, first tried to cover up the accident, then lied about its consequences.

The accident is yet another proof of how dangerous the Putin is with nuclear weapons – along with Lukashenko, who badly wants them -  not just for their countries and people, but also for the world and international security.

Andrei Sannikov, UPNORTH

Andrei Sannikov is an exiled opposition politician and former political prisoner who ran for president in 2010. He served as deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus in 1995-1996