by Lorenzo Cremonesi
In front of the Energodar nuclear power plant, where one wonders: How long will it take for the radiation to reach our homes? “40% of residents displaced”
Radiation: a danger unseen yet overwhelming, looms. The residents of this city on the Dnieper know that too, where the river widens into a lake and yet on the other side, seven kilometers away, the Energodar nuclear power plant towers in plain sight. A Russian Grad rocket fired from the power plant site takes 15 seconds to travel this way: how long for radiation? “It depends on the wind, we don’t know for sure: the only thing that’s certain is that we always have plans ready for the evacuation of civilians,” explains 45-year-old Alona Muhina, head of the Nikopol Municipality , who spent almost 5 hours accompanied to inspect the damage caused by the bombing. In the last three weeks Nikopol has been hit more than 200 times, ten dead, more than thirty wounded. “More than 40 percent of the 106,000 inhabitants are displaced. At night, those who stay on the upper floors go to the shelters, many choose to sleep in the car for the fields outside the city area,” Muhina elaborates. The Russian shots appear to have been fired randomly: in the apartments on the upper floors, on the Soviet memorial to soldiers of World War II, in a supermarket.
memory of the disaster
But to help us understand what the specter of nuclear power really means for the Ukrainian people, the conversation with Irina and Vladimir, a 70-year-old couple, who met in Corso Viktor Uzov in front of the ruins of a three-storey house that was bombed last night, was fundamental. “Of course we’re scared of the Grads. The Russians bombed mainly around midnight and between three and four in the morning. Every evening we sleep in the basement as a precaution, the sirens always wail too late,” they say.
Still, they add the most interesting part of the argument, for them the specter of Enerhodar immediately brings back to the Chernobyl disaster 36 years ago and the fundamental decisions that lead them today to renew their loyalty to the Ukrainian government against the possibility of over the muscular return of the Russian regime: “On that accursed night of April 26, 1986, the Soviet authorities were silent. The communist regime, which claimed to be acting on behalf of the people, betrayed the people themselves. In the Ukraine, we only found out about the Chernobyl accident and its very serious consequences a few days after the reactor catastrophe, and from Western sources at that. Moscow hid, lied, while the radioactive cloud spread through the air, polluted the water, cultivated fields, entered hospitals, burdened our children. It was a terrible shock. The USSR also broke up because of Chernobyl and today Putin wants to retake Ukraine, still haunted by the specter of a new disaster in Enerhodar, which everyone claims is a much more powerful and therefore more dangerous power plant with its six reactors.
cross allegations
Thus, the uncertainties of the conflict add up to those of the potential nuclear catastrophe. Almost half a year after the beginning of the war, the visit to Nikopol leads directly to the core of this difficult phase of the war. In fact, already during the fighting in early March, the power plant was quickly captured by Russian troops advancing from Mariupol and Crimea. Even then, both sides made very serious allegations about the responsibilities of gunfire, cannon fire and rockets that could hit the reactors. And today, with the unleashing of the Ukrainian counter-offensive aimed at recapturing the Kherson region up to Enerhodar and Melitopol Oblasts, these accusations, accompanied by renewed fears from the international community, are becoming more serious than before.
Since late July, Kyiv has accused Russian commanders of using heavy weapons, including cannons, rocket launchers and Grads, that would “shield” from reactors to fire at Nikopol and other river towns with impunity. «Moscow repeats its nuclear blackmail. We consider any Russian soldier who shoots at the installation or uses it to shield himself as a war criminal and he needs to know that our selected units consider him a special target,” Volodymyr Zelenskyi thundered himself in the last few hours.
Mykhailo Podolyak, the president’s personal adviser, adds to the dose by accusing the Russians of already demolishing the power plants and damaging the lines that carry electricity to southern Ukraine. The Russian nuclear agency Rosatom sends the allegations back to the sender and replies that the Ukrainians would instead shoot at the facilities to point the finger at Moscow. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ pleas for calm, who wants to set up a demilitarized area around the power plant, are of no use, with the immediate deployment of an International Atomic Energy Agency commission.
Aug 14, 2022 (Modified Aug 15, 2022 | 00:17)
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