Stealing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Aaron Stein 0:20

And I'm Aaron Stein. I'm the chief content officer at War on the Rocks and Metamorphic Media. And it's good to be back with you on the show, Jeffrey. Thank you. Ah, Aaron, so good to talk to you. How you been, man? Yeah, I've been good. I've been good. You know, new job, new life. Also finishing a house, so my life's been pretty crazy this summer.

How's your life been?

Jeffrey 0:43

Equally crazy. Spent a good portion of the summer in upstate New York, and now I'm getting ready for the semester to start back in Monterey. So it's going to be not quite as hot and muggy for me in about a week.

Aaron 0:56

Different background from where you're reporting to. You'll be moving from the home office or the sort of like East Coast home office back to the bunker that is your office at the Monterey campus. Oh, that's the plan anyway. You know, bunkers could come in handy. I was about to say, I was setting you up for a bunker joke.

Do we all need to get into bunkers because we're at the threat of a second Chernobyl in Europe? I think it's at the center of a lot of our listeners' minds about the future of nuclear power in Ukraine.

Jeffrey 1:29

Yeah, it turns out that having an incredibly destructive and violent conflict rage around a nuclear power plant really gets people's attention.

Aaron 1:39

Yeah, I think we should give ourselves some credit. A pat on the back is that we did an episode at the front end of this conflict about... You know, the risk that the conflict would pose towards Ukraine's nuclear industry. And I think that this is coming into, and this was right around the time of the shelling, you know, when that was playing out on a live stream.

And we have another incident similar to this at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and concerns, questions about what exactly is happening there. So perhaps we should just try and dive into those and explain what we think is happening there.

Jeffrey 2:14

Yeah, I mean, there have been a number of stories in recent days, all of which I think are centered around the concern people have, but which are slightly different. The one that I have been mostly interested in, because it lends itself to the kind of open source work we do, are increasingly credible reports that the Russians are stationing military forces at the reactor, you know, as a way to basically shield them from attack.

By the Ukrainians because if the forces are sitting at the reactor, then they're using the reactor really as a hostage and in a way, holding the entire area hostage because a serious military attack could generate a nuclear accident.

Aaron 3:03

Yeah. I think it's pretty indisputable that the Russians are That they have put armored vehicles, trucks, and all sorts of military equipment in buildings close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or part of the entire structure of it. I think there was the video that was going around online that open source analysts were able to verify themselves.

And I think today, although I haven't been on Twitter as much as I usually am, that the UK Ministry of Defense put out a slide that had sort of an angled satellite photo that you were able to look under some awnings and see that the trucks were in fact there. Do I have that right?

Jeffrey 3:39

That's exactly right. There was a video that showed vehicles parked inside a variety of buildings, but also there had been statements from the Ukrainians that the Russians were parking vehicles underneath some elevated structures very close to the reactors. Planet took a highly oblique image that was able to look under those structures, right? The reason you park something underneath the structure is so when you're looking straight down, you can't see it.

But if you take the image relatively low in the sky, you can peek under and sure enough, there were a number of trucks and what looked like some armored personnel carriers sitting there. It was the UK MOD that did the analysis and released the commercial image taken by planet. Although I will say the analysis the UK MOD did was great, the actual processing of the image left a little bit to be desired.

And so I think if you looked at the MOD slide, the armored personnel carriers just looked like sort of indistinct blobs. And you really have to process the image to bring out some of the detail.

Aaron 4:48

Was that a pitch for the UK MOD to start sponsoring this podcast? They can come on and we can be like, this is a basic and free tutorial about how to best put out your images for the open source community because we're not all MOD analysts.

Jeffrey 5:05

I mean, as a serious observation, I think that there is a really interesting policy issue that arises in this modern environment we find ourselves in where this kind of information is available and analysts are continuing to do really excellent work. But they're used to, I think, having internal conversations. And so I think the public presentation of this information is not always as adroit as it could be.

And so I know why they were able to look at those blobs and say, yes, those are armored personnel carriers. But I think illustrating that for a broader audience requires a slightly different skill set. And I would add one more thing, which is it's probably a mistake to imagine that senior policymakers are somehow more like the analysts than they are the public.

I actually think it's the other way around. Time and again, we see that politicians and presidents and senior officials really struggle to remember what they saw in the newspaper versus what they saw in classified briefings. And they have to be experts on so many different things. They really aren't imagery analysts. And so... Thinking carefully about how to present information to the public probably also makes you a little bit better at presenting that information to your principal.

Aaron 6:25

I would say that one government, at least one head of government that has mastered, like, information, the sharing of information in the social media age has been President Zelensky of Ukraine. I'd say that he's won plaudits and people who admire him for his use of the iPhone selfie video to make sure that he's still in Kiev during the initial phases of the conflict.

And one such recent video he put out was, you know, Question that's been going around which is the actual power plant itself being connected to the power grid because as anybody who paid attention to Fukushima at the time or any other nuclear power plant you need electricity at the place to keep the power plant running it's kind of important

Jeffrey 7:13

Yeah, you know, this is a place where I would give a pitch for the way the IAEA has been updating everybody on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which I'm just going to call ZAPO from here on out. It's really nice. On the IAEA website, there are a series of updates that they have consistently provided throughout the war on really the whole universe of things that they have to be worried about.

But for the August 25th one The DG, Rafael Grossi, said that Ukraine told the IAEA that the plant had at least twice lost connection to the power line during the day, but was currently up again. And then it remained connected to a power line from a nearby thermal power plant that could provide backup electricity if needed. So there's this constant sense that it's getting disconnected from the grid and then it's coming back online.

And You know, it's hard to know what really the status is because all that information is coming from the IAEA or coming from the Ukrainians or the Russians and the IAEA can't actually get in there to check it out.

Aaron 8:27

I think we're going to come back to that. I mean, I think the Russians and the Ukrainians have dueling messages about the actual reasons for the power supply disruptions. I think it's clear that there have been disruptions, but the Ukrainians are, I think, rightfully pointing out that this could lead to catastrophe, whereas the Russians seem to be pointing out that this is a result of Ukrainian shelling.

So what do you make of how this is all taking place?

Jeffrey 8:55

Yeah, my suspicion is that the Ukrainians aren't... It's not the Ukrainians who are knocking the plant offline. I suspect that the Russians are manipulating this risk basically to justify what they plan to do ultimately, which is disconnect this power plant from the Ukrainian grid. And connect it to the Russian grid. And I think that they will say that they're doing this as a safety and a security measure, but we all know that just like Donald Trump wanted to steal Iraq's oil, Vladimir Putin wants to steal Ukraine's energy.

Aaron 9:34

You can see how that would fit a broader political objective of this war, which is that, hey, if you can't take the capital because we screwed up the invasion, But you want to annex territory in sort of these faux referendum and then start granting people passports. It's like, well, the reactor is actually ours now. And so I completely agree with you.

It's that they're prepping the environment to unplug it from the Ukrainian grid and then plug it back into the Russian power grid, which means that basically the Russians would provide a power. And then second, all the power would be pumped into a quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes on Zoom, Russian territory, although in Ukraine. Right.

Jeffrey 10:14

Yeah, that's right. You can sort of imagine Ambassador Ulyanov defending it right now. It's not really all that much of a stretch, you know. I mean, after all, this was the man who said no mercy to the Ukrainian population and then added that he meant that the West was showing no mercy to the Ukrainian population.

Aaron 10:36

I'm sure he was just asking questions. I mean, just asking questions. It's the theme of this new podcast, just asking questions.

Jeffrey 10:42

I mean, it's possible he's that dumb, I suppose. But I think it's not that hard to imagine the justification that they'll come up with and they'll just say like, well, you know, this is all the Ukrainians that keep shelling and it's not our fault and it's just safer. And I mean, we're going to give the power to Ukrainians anyway.

They're just the Ukrainians that are in the denazified part of Ukraine. You know, I mean, it's hardly going to be the most ridiculous lie these clowns have told in the course of this war.

Aaron 11:12

No, and I think we should give a shout out to a friend of the podcast, Shell Rofer, who has this on her blog. Hold on, let me pull it up here. On her blog, Nuclear Diner, where I think she comes to a similar conclusion that we had, is that the Russians are, quote unquote, trying to steal this power plant.

Jeffrey 11:29

Yeah, I really like that piece. I think she did a really nice job, and really just generally has done a really nice job of maintaining, I think, about the right balance between Being concerned about the reckless behavior that's on display, while at the same time recognizing that to some extent, both the Ukrainians and the Russians are manipulating the global sense of fear about this reactor for their own domestic political purposes.

So it can be, I think, quite difficult in this conversation to be both reassuring, because there is a certain amount of scaremongering going on by the parties, While at the same time pointing out that there are also a number of things that are occurring that are irresponsible, possibly war crimes, and should stop.

Aaron 12:20

Completely. You know, I think that should be like sort of like the bumper music for this show is like what the Russians are doing is appalling here. And so like us expressing skepticism about the Ukrainian sort of like hyperbole around this is not to excuse what the Russians are doing, because when you stack them up against each other, one sort of like, hey, OK, we understand versus your parking trucks in a place and you're going to steal a nuclear power plant on the other end.

I do want to point out is that there has been concern about an increase in radiation. This is another thing where there's these sensors where you can pop this out and this sort of the fear of radiation. And I think that that's also easily explainable if you really sort of step back. But perhaps I'll set you up to explain it because when you explained to me, I didn't quite realize that coal ash was slightly radioactive.

Jeffrey 13:13

Yeah, because there are these thermal plants, there are big piles of coal ash nearby. I don't really know exactly how close. Somebody else geolocated it. And there have been some fires. And the fires apparently are at some risk of disturbing the coal ash pit. And that, you know, just basically raises the possibility that some of the ash is going to start drifting away.

And I think people just don't realize that coal ash is slightly radioactive. I did, for example, and this is – You know, it's – I mean, it's not, you know, it's not Chernobyl here. But, you know, like, the stuff is not great for you. And it varies. And, you know, this is something that I think has been more recognized as our environmental standards go up.

But I think the possibility that some of this ash might get blown around has, like, Morphed into a kind of general concern with what's going on at the reactor. And, you know, there's some – somebody else was looking at some of the satellite images. It looks like they're trying to hose it down to keep, you know, keep stuff from blowing away.

But this is – I would not regard this as like the biggest problem that locals are facing. I mean, much more serious, I think, is the possibility of a catastrophic loss of power to the plant.

Aaron 14:42

Yeah. You know, so like – We weren't clear enough about that. You're right. Like that is the biggest concern is that you lose power because if you lose power, you lose your pumps. If you lose your pumps, stuff gets too hot. If stuff gets too hot, stuff starts to melt. Right. And if stuff starts to melt, it's bad.

So you want to keep the heat down. And that's why the power is so important.

Jeffrey 15:06

I have to say, Grossi has these seven pillars of security or safety. What does he call them? He calls them the seven pillars of nuclear safety and security. Really helpful in terms of thinking about this both individually, but then as a group right and the seven are one the physical integrity of the facilities to the functionality of all the safety and security of systems Three the ability of the staff to fulfill their duties for off-site power supply Five, uninterrupted logistical supply.

Six is the effectiveness of on-site and off-site radiation monitoring systems. And seven is communication with the regulator and others. And I think if you step back, like all that boils down to is like, let these people do their f***ing job.

Aaron 16:05

That's right. Don't hinder the experts who run this thing. Exactly.

Jeffrey 16:10

Right. And... I think that when we start talking about things like the interruption of power supply, nuclear reactors are just – you can't turn them off. They're not made to just sit there and not be controlled. And so the seven pillars, I think, are a pretty good way of thinking about just the idea that it might be hard to quantify the individual risk of any particular – Compromise of one of those pillars.

But what you know is that when you don't have those, things get dangerous.

Aaron 16:45

Totally. And I think that that also shouldn't... And to bring this back to sort of like which side is worse here, you know, it is the Russian side that at each level of those pillars is interfering with the folks who are trying to do their jobs, right? Power supply, the sort of push and pull on the personnel who are running it.

It's just on and on and on. And so it is the Russians, when you stack up those pillars, which are helpful, that are trying to knock them down. Do we want to get into the containment dome at all? Because I've seen some speculation that even if the shelling were to fly around and some shells were to hit the containment dome...

You know, there was a lot of studies done on this after 9-11 is that, you know, if you have a certain level of thickness of the reactor domes that they could withstand missile strikes or even like small plane crashes. I'm genuinely skeptical about anything plowing into a reactor dome if it isn't like a bug. And so I think we get lost sort of in the technical details about this where you just don't want shelling around the reactor and

Jeffrey 17:59

Yeah, I mean, I hate to be so flip about it, but I spent some time looking at different academic papers trying to assess the strength of the VVER-1000 containment domes, both from external and internal phenomenon. And I mean, the answer is it kind of matters, right? Like it depends on stuff. And, you know, if you don't really know what the – What the particular event is likely to be, right?

You don't know what kind of missile is going to slam into the dome and you don't know where in the dome it's going to hit. And, you know, you know that it's concrete and steel and so it should probably be fine, but you don't really know, like, well, I mean, you know, like what was sort of, you know, 80s, 90s Soviet slash Ukrainian concrete like, you know, I think I kind of walk away from it saying, you know, it's definitely a better dome than the one over Chernobyl.

I'm glad that they have that dome. And I, you know, like I'm not super excited against like stress testing it against like a variety of Russian and Ukrainian missile types.

Aaron 19:10

Yeah, no, totally. It's something. Before we turn to like the IAEA role, Is this like, because the show also touches on missiles, and this popped into my head, is the fact that they have to hide their trucks in a nuclear reactor like an indirect endorsement of Lockheed's HIMARS system?

Jeffrey 19:34

I think so, yeah. I mean, I... You know, one of the fascinating little introductory moments of this conflict for me is I remember I had an argument with someone on Twitter about the value of Grom-2, which was the Ukrainian version of Russia's Iskander. And I said something like, boy, you know, Grom-2 would really be pretty useful right now.

And the person was like, I don't see what the Ukrainians could use it for. But boy, watching HIMARS in action, GMLRS is pretty good.

Aaron 20:14

Yeah, we built a good missile.

Jeffrey 20:17

Yeah, and I don't know. I don't mean to – I don't want to escalate things, but boy, the Ukrainians could have some fun if we gave them some ATACMs. Yeah.

Aaron 20:31

You know, sometimes it's self-reinforcing that we built good missiles. But that is not the theme of the show today. So if I were to pull this one back, as I led us on the tangent about HIMARS, is I think Grossi has done a good job. You know, I think it's... Popular to sort of crap all over our leaders in this case.

But I think Rossi's done a good job here. And I think the IAEA has wanted to get access to the site. And I think that that is something, regardless of if the Russians steal it or not, is something that should happen.

Jeffrey 21:08

Absolutely. I mean, the IAEA has wanted access to the site for a while now. So this isn't just something that is responding to the most recent events. The Russians have not provided that access. I know Macron asked Putin to provide that access and Putin seemed to indicate he would. Although, you know, like when the IAEA shows up, I'll believe it.

But it goes back to those seven pillars, right? The IAEA needs to get in there and see whether or not individuals have the electricity, logistical support they need, whether the safety systems are working, whether radiation monitors are working. You need the IAEA to be able to get in there to just assess the situation. Because if you look at all the information we have right now, it's the Ukrainians say this, the Russians say that.

And that's That is not really the firm basis, that seventh pillar of communication that I think you need to understand what's going on. Mark Hibbs wrote a great thing on the Arms Control Wonk blog about this very point, arguing that the IAEA has long wanted to get in and it would be a really important thing to have happen.

Aaron 22:27

Yeah, you preempted me to plug Mark's piece. It's actually written on the Arms Control Blog and it gets at this. It's the importance of the IAEA getting out there. And I can see criticism of people saying like if the IAEA goes out like say after the Russians steal it, it's like you're validating the Russians like theft. I would caution against that right now.

I would preempt that narrative right now. Sorry, junior fellow has joined us. No, that's fine. That's why we don't want that.

Jeffrey 22:59

Yeah, because as irritated as I am that the Russians, I think, are planning to steal the power out of the reactor, the reality is that no one has an interest in there being an accident at the reactor. And so... It stinks, but making sure the reactor is safe is an interest we share with the Russians, even if we are not really psyched about sharing any interests at all with them.

So I think getting the IAEA in is the most important thing. And while I do think that both sides are manipulating our sense of risk about this, I'm You know, modestly hopeful that the Russians understand it would not be in their interest either for there to be an accident at this site?

Aaron 23:50

Oh, no, I completely agree. And I think if I had to guess, if Putin does allow access, it will be once it's connected to the Russian power brick. But that would be to validate that at least it's in safe and operational order. And it's still worth it for the IAEA to go. If I was Putin, that's when I would let them back in.

But like, again, I also wouldn't like be living in the Urals with like Aeroflot waitresses.

Jeffrey 24:22

Well, and I think that the important thing to remember is when we are talking about the safety and security of the reactor, it becomes really easy to think about this as the Russians versus the Ukrainians and Putin versus Zelensky. But the people that we should be thinking about are the Ukrainian staff. Who are continuing to go to work every day in what are extremely difficult conditions.

And so regardless of how we feel about the decision of the Russians, which I think is coming to steal the energy from the plant, we need to make sure that those people have the support that they need to continue that reactor's operation as safely as possible.

Aaron 25:07

Do you know who doesn't need the support as much as the Ukrainians, but otherwise genuinely appreciates it because it helps buy us some cocktails at the end of the month?

Jeffrey 25:18

I have an inkling, Aaron.

Aaron 25:19

That would be us as hosts of the Arts Control Podcast. And we depend on you a lot like we depend on the Ukrainians to keep that plant pumping. The water pumping, I should say. So if you want to join this conversation where there's cool discussions in the Slack channel. Where the Slack channel, as a member of the Slack channel, you can be featured in the Washington Post and The Economist.

So head on over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast, and you can join this thriving community for $3 a month if you're a student, $5 if you are not. Jeffrey, I think we hit every note on our super secret cheat sheet. Did I leave anything out before we sign off here?

Jeffrey 25:57

No, I think we're good. Let's just not have a nuclear reactor accident, shall we?

Aaron 26:02

We can certainly accept the bar very low. So let's just try and keep that plant pumping. And so with that, thanks everybody for listening.