Ukraine toys with Chernobyl-like disaster at Kursk

Ukraine has tried to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant, reinforcing a theory that the Kursk offensive aims at creating significant havoc by either capturing or wrecking the facility.  

The Russian Ministry of Defense has reported a single suicide drone attack on the plant. Russian President Vladimir Putin said “The enemy tried to strike the Nuclear Power Plant … and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been informed, and they have promised to visit and send specialists to assess the situation.”

The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, said he plans to visit the plant during the week of August 26.

Last year, Ukraine attacked the same facility with a drone. Nuclear Engineering International reported that in July 2023, “Unit 4 at Russia’s Kursk NPP was completely disconnected from the grid following a Ukrainian kamikaze drone carrying explosives fell near the station.”

In the latest attack, parts of one downed drone were found about 100 meters from the complex. Photos (see below) show it is a first-person-view (FPV) quadcopter drone carrying an improvised explosive device that looks like the warhead of an RPG 7 or something similar.

The device appears to be similar to a TBG-7V warhead, which is a thermobaric bomb. Here is a picture of the warhead device as shown on a Russian Telegram channel.

Here is a picture of the drone, which is battery-powered and has a short range of a few kilometers.

If the photos are correct representations of what the Russian Defense Ministry and Putin say was used to attack the Kursk NPP, there is little reason to believe it could cause much real damage. The drone also seems to have been smuggled into the Kursk NPP area and operated locally.

However, Acting Governor of the Kursk Region Alexey Smirnov reported a more substantial attack than the Defense Ministry. He said there were four missile warnings on August 21 and 22.

He said that air defenses shot down one Ukrainian missile on the evening of August 21 and two during the night as well as a drone on August 22.  Smirnov did not report the type of missiles or drone used in the attack.

Shortly after the attack on the cooling tower of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on August 11, the Russians put air defenses around the Kursk NPP, fearing a Ukrainian attack there too. 

According to the Russians, two drones hit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The IAEA went to the plant to assess the damage and measure any possible release of radiation.

The attack in Kursk seemed aimed at the nuclear waste storage area in the facility, although this has not been confirmed. And it isn’t clear why Smirnov’s report differed significantly from the official report of the attack. 

The official revelation about a single drone suggests that the Russians wanted to emphasize that an attack took place but did not want to create alarm in the region. The type of air defenses installed around the Kursk NPP is unknown.

The Kursk NPP is one of the three biggest nuclear power plants and the fourth-biggest electricity producer in Russia. Currently, there are two active nuclear reactors, two decommissioned older units, two partially built units (Kursk 5 and Kursk 6) that will not be completed, and two new VVER reactors currently under construction. 

VVER is a water-water energetic reactor originally designed at the Kurchatov Institute by Savely Moiseevich Feinberg. The new version of the design is the VVER-TOI and the first TOI plants are now under construction at Kursk. 

It has improved safety standards and power output and has been certified as compliant with European Utility Requirements (with reservations). 

The plan at Kursk is to replace the two older operating reactors with the two new reactors (construction started in 2018) while two more VVER-TOI reactors will be built in future. In January 2023, a 235-ton steel dome was set on Unit 1’s reactor and covered with a thick layer of reinforced concrete, forming the containment building.

The two operating reactors and two decommissioned reactors are the same RBMK (graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor) design as at Chernobyl.  The facility, which is 40 kilometers west of Kursk, has been used as a prop for filming stories about Chernobyl. 

The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 occurred because of a failed test procedure that caused the reactor to go out of control. That led to an explosion and a series of tragic events to try to control the damaged reactor and contain the spread of the disaster to the other three reactors. 

Around 5% of the reactor core of the damaged facility was released into the atmosphere and radiation spread to many parts of Europe. Two Chernobyl plant workers died due to the explosion on the night of the accident, and another 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation syndrome. 

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has concluded there were some 5,000 thyroid cancers, resulting in 15 fatalities, caused by the nuclear disaster.

Heroic helicopter pilots and others trying to stop the runaway reactor and build a cement covering to prevent further radiation leaks died later as a result of radiation poisoning.

So what would Ukraine gain from attacking the Kursk NPP? Many have commented about Ukraine’s operation inside Russia’s Kursk region, but strictly speaking, the attacks have no specific military purpose. 

The Russians had only thinly manned the area with territorial troops, Russia’s command system considered the area a third-level priority and few, if any, preparations were made to defend a mostly rural, lightly populated region. There were no significant fortifications, command centers or air defense systems when the attacks started on August 6.

There is considerable controversy about NATO’s involvement in the Kursk operation. The Russians are convinced that NATO planned the Kursk attack and that it secretly trained the Ukrainians for the operation. 

Significant amounts of Western equipment, including Leopard, Challenger and Abrams tanks, air defenses like the IRIS-T, Crotale NG, and Patriot and thousands of drones, have been engaged in the operation. The Russians likewise believe that the Ukrainians are getting significant intelligence help from NATO.

However, NATO countries say they were not informed about the operation. The main Western players have been mostly silent about the attacks on the Zaporizhzhia NPP and Kursk NPP.

The best available analysis is that the objective in attacking the two nuclear sites was to sow panic both in Russia and Europe. The idea of causing trouble for the Russians is well known and has been part of the NATO scenario for Ukraine. 

Knowing that in the end, Ukraine cannot be successful against a larger and well-equipped Russian military, destabilizing the Moscow government has been a workaround approach to a war that sooner or later will end badly for Kiev. 

The latest attempt to launch a swarm of drones at Moscow is part of such a plan. Whether destabilizing Russia was ever possible is open to considerable doubt, but when you’re rolling the dice you can always hope to roll a seven.

The second and related explanation is to encourage NATO to come to Ukraine’s rescue. A nuclear disaster might induce Europe to clamor for military intervention in Ukraine and help convince the US to commit crack airborne forces to the war. 

The idea of a war in Ukraine with US and other NATO forces would cause the war to spread throughout Europe or even beyond. It would likely create other consequences, such as an Iranian attack on Israel or a Chinese attack on Taiwan, taking advantage of US and NATO preoccupation in Europe.

One question that arises is whether NATO’s involvement in Kursk had high-level backing or if in fact it was a colonel’s solution to a growing realization that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his regime would soon be defeated on the battlefield. 

NATO military operators have been at this war for a long time and have taken their own battlefield losses as Russia targeted command centers in Ukraine known to be full of NATO officers.

There has been no public attempt to figure out who was involved in the Kursk operation or who was behind the attacks on the Ukrainian and Russian nuclear power plants.

Such provocations will have serious consequences, although what they are has yet to be understood.

Moscow’s soon-retiring Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told journalists on August 22 (reported by Russia Today, a Russian-government news outlet) “Putin has decided on how to respond to Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and everyone responsible will undoubtedly be punished.”  

Meanwhile, the danger of a well-aimed drone or missile at a nuclear facility raises the specter of another Chernobyl or worse.

Stephen Bryen is senior correspondent at Asia Times. He served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. 

This article was originally published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack, and is republished with permission.