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The writer is a professor of engineering and international relations at the University of Southern California
Russia’s nuclear brinkmanship — a reckless gamble that began with its occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — has escalated into a crisis threatening the entire European continent. In early November, local ceasefires between Ukrainian and Russian forces controlling the ZNPP allowed repair crews to safely restore critical external electricity lines that had been severed. For a month prior, both the main and backup external power lines were down, forcing the plant to rely solely on emergency diesel generators for power vital to reactor cooling and safety. The International Atomic Energy Agency has characterised the ZNPP’s prolonged reliance on diesel generators as “clearly not sustainable”.
But emergency diesel generators were never designed for extended continuous operation. Industry standards specify preferred mission times of 24 hours. In the recent outage at ZNPP, generators had been running for an entire month — far exceeding design specifications — and the plant recently lost its connection to the main power line again. Each day of continued operation increases the probability of mechanical failure.
Water levels at ZNPP’s cooling pond remain dangerously low. This creates a compound risk of degraded emergency power and compromised cooling capacity. It is exactly this combination of system failures that transformed Japan’s Fukushima plant from a manageable emergency into a global crisis.
I visited and investigated Fukushima in 2011. What transformed an earthquake response into a catastrophe was not nuclear physics but a total electrical system failure. When the lights went out, operators made life-or-death decisions blind, without knowing actual temperatures, pressures or water levels. Now, more than a decade later, the same scenario is unfolding at ZNPP, this time caused by deliberate human action rather than natural disaster.
Modern nuclear facilities in cold shutdown require three to four megawatts of continuous power — enough to supply thousands of homes — just to maintain essential safety systems. Massive battery banks designed for emergency power require continuous charging from the main grid too. At ZNPP, diesel generators must not only power critical systems but also charge batteries, placing additional load on machines already running beyond design limits.
This circular dependency — requiring electrical power to maintain backup electrical power — is why the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s station blackout rule specifically addresses this vulnerability. Yet at Zaporizhzhia, this theoretical risk has become stark reality.
A major incident at ZNPP would create an exclusion zone affecting agricultural production in Europe’s breadbasket, disrupt critical supply chains, trigger massive insurance claims and require hundreds of billions in clean-up costs. The economic shock would dwarf Fukushima’s estimated $500bn impact. For Europe, the calculus is clear: compelling Russia to restore power to ZNPP pales in comparison with the costs of inaction. If Russian President Vladimir Putin establishes that nuclear facilities can be seized and integrated into occupying powers’ infrastructure, the precedent would have terrifying implications for nuclear security worldwide.
The UN Security Council should create a special commission to pursue a temporary agreement between Russia and Ukraine to halt the ongoing destruction of their energy facilities before this winter and ensure the safety of nuclear power plants. Putin’s forces must evacuate ZNPP and return control to Ukraine. Restarting and operating the plant under Russian pressure and control, given the facility’s deteriorating condition after nearly four years of occupation, poses extraordinary risks. Putin is playing with nuclear fire — and it could burn Russia, Ukraine and possibly the entire region.
