HOPES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

On September 1, the information pumping gave birth to an event: the IAEA mission, having overcome obstacles, arrived at the ZNPP, and the head of the mission, Grossi, sorted everything out in a couple of hours. The conclusions have been published, they will be politically colored at the UN Security Council, initiated by the Russian Federation on 06.08.22.

I think they slipped us a “doll”: a pack of cut paper covered with a couple of banknotes. Taking a nuclear power plant by terrorists is an unthinkable event, "it can’t be because it can never be." The IAEA action lowers the status of the event from “unthinkable” to “needs to be sorted out”,  which creates a new narrative. From now on, taking a nuclear power plant is something that needs to be “worked on”. Let's say that the NPP physical protection system is not “destroyed”, but “is at the red level”. Familiar handwriting, right?

Done very smartly. The IAEA is a purely technical body: all it has is the ability to select teams of the best experts to solve core tasks, in particular, to verify compliance with the basic principles of ensuring safety. Experts are selected so as to cover all parts of the task, a full check usually takes a month of work of two dozen specialists with full access to people and information. In our case, only some parts can be checked. And what kind of part is this - let's try to understand by the members of the team:

1) NPP safety system specialists (3 people)

2) Protection of nuclear power plants from entering by unauthorized persons (2)

3) Emergency preparedness and emergency response

4) Other: non-proliferation of nuclear technologies, physics of the active zone (2), materials scientist, ambassador, spokesman

The training and independence of each expert are indisputable. But their conclusions cannot go beyond the existing specialization. Let's see what we have here

Systems specialists have a deep understanding of security issues for all situations, except for one: the operation of a nuclear power plant when being taken by terrorists. This situation has never been analyzed and there is no experience from which we could’ve drawn some lessons. Knowledge by experts of a million rules for the “normal” condition of nuclear power plants does almost nothing; it is not even clear which of them should be applied. I would call their current work “collecting materials for research”.

Physical protection specialists are also in an unusual position: the protection was broken and restored by the attacker himself. I do not rule out that everything is well organized: access control, checking seals, monitoring fissile materials, etc. Only it is not the licensed owner of the nuclear power plant that does this, but someone unknown. There are no definitions on this matter, except for one: the licensee does not control the nuclear facility. To draw such a conclusion, there was no need to come to the nuclear power plant. And the statement “there is weak co-existence of the Ukrainian staff of the ZNPP and the nuclear experts and military forces of the Russian Federation” undermines the authority of the IAEA.

The emergency preparedness specialist probably found a maximum of violations - in general, everything was violated in the area of ​​his specialization. But in Grossi's report, it is said: “Everything else has "less of a degree of drama condition". And these are not some particulars, but “How will we put out the fire”, or “How to act in the event of a disaster”. Let me remind you that the entire USSR took part in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident, and today there are not even means of warning the population. To put out a fire at the nuclear power plant, 300 fire brigades with equipment and materials were quickly brought up, and today, at best, a dozen without anything. Of course, against the background of the previous statement about the presence of plutonium for military purposes at the ZNPP, this is not so egregious, but still, it is a shame.

I read everything I found about Grossi's report and I'm sure that the opportunity to solve some problems of the Zaporizhzhya NPP with the help of the IAEA is far-fetched: the Agency does not have the tools for this. But ordinary people do not know about this, and the mission will be used in the information war by those who initiated it. On the basis of an insignificant conclusion, the Russian Federation will try to introduce a narrative like the “Minsk agreements” and the world will accept the unthinkable: the Russian Federation is no longer a terrorist who seized the nuclear power plant, but a “party that ensures its security.” But another narrative should be avoided: “The IAEA is serving the enemy” due to the fact that the Agency does not meet our unfounded expectations. It's just that the Russian Federation was able to use it for its own purposes, but we are not. We need to learn lessons and think about how to seize the initiative and use the IAEA's expert power for our own purposes.

                                                                                                                     photo by Anadolu Agency

First, it is necessary to create a group of the best international experts to develop recommendations for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants in armed conflicts. No one has experience with such situations, so it is necessary to brainstorm solutions that will help ZNPP personnel to take obviously right actions and will not allow the invaders to interfere with them (for example, by giving them the status of international legal documents). Due to the lack of prepared and calculated scenarios, today decisions on the ZNPP are made on the fly, which led to the extremely dangerous condition of Units 5 and 6. During a couple of days, the station was in the partial loss mode of its own needs four times. Today, unless a miracle happens, we will lose them completely and switch to diesel, and this is the last barrier. Two units can be severely damaged by a cooldown and become out of service for a long time. We do not know who and which considerations they were guided by plugging blocks in the network after each shutdown, and the IAEA must take comprehensive actions so that this does not happen again.

Secondly, it is necessary to immediately create a headquarters for managing the ZNPP in matters of emergency response, which will coordinate the services of Ukraine and the world community to prevent a design basis accident and its development into a beyond design basis, as well as the creation of a response network in case this happens. Already now, the readiness of evacuation services and corridors, firefighters, and medical units, to pull together material and economic resources should be ensured, just as it was done at the Chornobyl NPP and was not done at Fukushima. Today, a headquarters has been set up in Ukraine to eliminate the accident, but its work is not supported: there are neither action scenarios nor emergency drills. There is an agreement with WANO to provide free expert assistance, but this is not to prevent an accident, but in case it actually happens. I believe that many agencies and even operating organizations would take up these issues - this is the budget, reputation, and opportunity to reach new heights. You just need to work in this direction ahead of the Russian Federation.