Reports of an increase in the radiation background at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant turned out to be information stuffing. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the radiation indicators are normal. This was confirmed by the IAEA – the radiation levels at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are low, there is no threat to the population, said the director general of the organization Rafael Grossi. Moreover, the territory of the station is patrolled jointly by the armed forces of Russia and the Ukrainian security battalion. The station staff is working normally.
In general, everything is clear with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Much more questions raise the nuclear ambitions of Kyiv, unequivocally expressed by Zelensky. Even the appearance of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine means a strategic threat to us. That’s what he was talking about Vladimir Putin in his appeal. How big are the chances that Kyiv could get a nuclear arsenal?
In his address on the start of a special operation in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin named one of the reasons for this decision – the claims of the Ukrainian authorities to possess nuclear weapons. There were direct threats from the Ukrainian president when he allowed Kiev to revise the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine, Russia, the US and the UK signed this treaty back in 1994. Then Nezalezhnaya abandoned the nuclear bomb.
“The lead to the Budapest Memorandum was the position of the United States. It was the Americans and Europeans who put pressure on Ukraine at one time so that they would not have nuclear weapons. Because they perfectly understood that a monkey with a grenade is more terrible than a monkey without a grenade. And when, I apologize, this monkey with a grenade is at your side, right at your western borders. Nobody needs this,” says Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis.
In theory, if such a goal were set, Ukraine could create an atomic bomb. Thanks to the Soviet legacy, enterprises with the necessary competence have been preserved in the country. There are experienced nuclear physicists. Also the Soviet scientific heritage.
“If we are talking about a classic nuclear bomb made on the basis of enriched uranium, then nominally Ukraine can make such a device, but it will require the construction of a large technological center for uranium enrichment,” said Maxim Shingarikin, deputy of the State Duma of the fifth convocation, an expert on nuclear nonproliferation, expert of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.
Such a project requires large investments and a lot of time to implement. However, it is possible to take a simpler path, for which Ukraine will have enough forces and means. Do not forget that there are five nuclear power plants in the country. In total – more than a dozen power units.
“In any reactor that runs on uranium, plutonium is inevitably formed – due to the presence of uranium-238. In any spent fuel of a uranium reactor – a research reactor – there are in Kharkov, in Kyiv – nuclear power plants, of course, there are more reserves of plutonium,” he says. Andrey Ozharovsky, engineer-physicist, expert of the program “Safety of radioactive waste” of the Russian Social and Ecological Union.
To begin the extraction of plutonium, several international legal treaties will have to be broken. And it’s not just about the Budapest Memorandum. On November 6, 1994, Ukraine acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. as a nuclear-free country. For getting out of it, Washington and London will definitely not be praised.
Anything can be expected from the regime in Kyiv. It is clear that there is neither money nor the necessary infrastructure for high-tech weapons. But a primitive design can be used.
The “dirty bomb” is the simplest version of a radiological weapon. It is no coincidence that it is also called “the atomic bomb for the poor.” In order to create a real nuclear warhead, you need resources, research laboratories, high-tech production, and finally, weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, which Ukraine does not have! But a dirty bomb can be made literally on the knee.
To deliver the charge, the Ukrainian Armed Forces can use Soviet Tochka-U missile systems. The firing range is up to 120 km, which, if necessary, can be increased to 300 or even 500 km! It remains to fill the rocket with radioactive isotopes. They are now used quite widely: in industry and energy or in medicine. The most dangerous for humans are strontium-90 and strontium-89, cesium-137, zinc-64. Ukraine, in particular, is capable of collecting uranium from spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. The main damaging factor of such a self-made bomb is not so much a destructive shock wave as a serious radiation contamination of the area. The radioactive dust that settled after the explosion turns vast territories into a kind of Chernobyl exclusion zone for many decades.
Perhaps all Zelensky’s statements about a nuclear arsenal and withdrawal from international agreements are nothing more than political blackmail. But the threat from nationalist groups is quite real.
It is even hard to imagine what could have ended for Europe and the world if they had access to nuclear fuel.