The reports, amplified by President Zelensky, that Russian may be turning the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) into a giant nuclear booby trap was predicted in a paper produced by Scottish CND in April.
“The military and humanitarian implications of the presence of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, ZNPP, in a war zone are greater than is usually discussed”, says Bill Ramsay, author of Castle Zaporizhzhia Scottish CND paper published in April 2023.
“It appears that western military commentators have a reluctance to discuss the reality of the nuclear dimension of the war in Ukraine.
“Comments by Ukrainian Generals appear not to be enough forcing, it seems, President Zelensky himself to ring alarm bells.
“The recent example of the destruction of the Kakhova dam is a case in point.
“That a few weeks ago Oleksiy Danilov, President Zelensky’s top security official, said that the world needs to pay attention to the Russian Federation’s deliberate weaponisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), is effectively what I predicted in my paper published by Scottish CND in April this year.”
Discussing the reality of the presence a nuclear power plant in a dangerous war zone has been somewhat muted so far.
But the threat is immense.
From time-to-time, particularly as the war drags on, some stories around the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) have popped up, but tend to quickly disappear.
This lack of focus on the ZNPP has been deliberate, partly because it will be seen to feed into a Russian narrative, but also because it throws up a potentially much longer-term danger, the implications of the proliferation of Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s) as a so-called solution to global warming.
However, the recent statement by President Zelensky makes it increasingly difficult to avoid speaking about the nuclear dimension not only in the current conflict but, potentially, of future conflicts caused by climate change.
The full title of Bill Ramsay’s paper is ‘Castle Zaporizhzhia: War fighting implications linked to the proliferation of nuclear power as a part solution to climate chaos.’
