Russians are advancing on another nuclear power plant, Ukraine's president says

Russians are advancing on another nuclear power plant, Ukraine's president says

Transcript¹

NPR's Leila Fadel talks Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian and a nuclear expert at Harvard's Belfer Center, about the dangers of Russia seizing control of Ukraine's nuclear power plants.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Here in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are advancing toward a third nuclear power plant. It was just Friday that Russia seized control of Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine's port city of Zaporizhzhia. The facility came under intense shelling and at one point caught on fire, raising the specter of a nuclear disaster in the middle of Russia's invasion. Now, the International Atomic Energy Agency says Russian forces have cut off almost all communication with the staff running the plant. Mariana Budjeryn is Ukrainian and a nuclear expert at Harvard's Belfer Center and says a staff that's scared and exhausted² could make mistakes.

MARIANA BUDJERYN: You can imagine that these people, these specialists and operators of nuclear reactors⁴, they are - they're under duress⁵. They must feel like hostages in their own plant. They must be worried about the safety of their family members. So there's certainly a human element to safety and security and the ability of people to carry out, under these conditions - to carry out their duties and to maintain all of the safety procedures necessary for the operation of a nuclear power plant.

FADEL: What do you think the strategy is behind an attack like this, and what does it mean for the other plants in Ukraine?

BUDJERYN: Well, if you control the country's power supply, you have a great extent of control over that country writ⁶ large. Ukraine relies very heavily on nuclear energy. About 50% of its energy mix - overall energy mix - comes from nuclear power plants. So if you seize those, you pretty much control what people get full electricity, what industry gets full electricity, and it's one of the ways to control and subdue⁷ a country.

FADEL: You mentioned, you know, this is a violation⁸ of international law, the way this plant was attacked and occupied. Just lay out for us what it would mean if it overheated, if it exploded? What would it mean? What would happen?

BUDJERYN: So since the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the international community learned, and we're designing our reactors and reactor³ buildings in a more responsible way. However, none of these structures were designed with a full-blown, full-scale war in mind. We designed to the previous accidents, right? We learned from the previous accidents - from Chernobyl, from the Three Mile Island, from Fukushima Daiichi. And we improve based on the things that went wrong there. We clearly have not experienced anything like this before - whether backup systems could be damaged, whether diesel⁹ fuel could be exploded, right? So...

FADEL: Whether it runs out.

BUDJERYN: Or whether it runs out after a while, right? There isn't an endless supply of diesel. So I am extremely worried. And also, if there really is a nuclear event, as we say it, so some kind of radioactive release, what we've learned in the past, both in Chernobyl and in Fukushima Daiichi accidents, is that a nuclear accident anywhere is really a nuclear accident everywhere. You cannot control the weather. The winds can carry this radioactivity far and wide. It could affect Russia. It - Chernobyl accident affected¹⁰ much of central and northern Europe. There have been contamination as far out as in Ireland and in Wales. Some sheep farms have been closed and have not been able to sell their livestock¹¹ until early 2000s. So we're not only talking about the geography of contamination, we're talking about a time scale of decades...

FADEL: A disaster.

BUDJERYN: ...That these consequences could continue to play out.

FADEL: Budjeryn says she worries that if Putin is bested militarily, he has a terrifying card to play.

BUDJERYN: Putin cannot be seen as losing to Ukraine. That would be a terrible thing for him - to be seen as losing to someone like Ukrainians whom he looks like, by all indications, looks like he despises. In that case - and I swear I would not even contemplate¹² something like that eight days ago, but now it does not sound so inconceivable. In that case, I wonder if he might resort to use of a tactical - of a small nuclear weapon to shock Ukraine on Ukrainian territory somewhere - and the target would be secondary - to shock Ukraine into surrender.

FADEL: Wow. Wow. When you say tactical, what does that actually mean? Like, how many people - what area gets affected?

BUDJERYN: There's a range. So there are certainly, you know, bombs or shells that are more powerful than Hiroshima. So - but I think Hiroshima is a good approximation, so something like Hiroshima.

FADEL: Oh, man. So when you say small, you mean - I mean, in my opinion, that sounds big.

BUDJERYN: Right. But in today's terms, Hiroshima is a small weapon, is a small nuclear weapon. So this is something - you know, a destruction of a city, of some large military target, like an air base or an airport, that could certainly be an option or a target of a tactical nuke. Another possible thing is to do - is to explode a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere above the city and cause the so-called electromagnetic pulse. So that would just knock out electricity and radio signal in, you know, the radius¹³, I don't know, of a few miles. And again, that would incapacitate a city. But, you know, technically¹⁴, perhaps it wouldn't be radiation poisoning, and perhaps the nuclear taboo¹⁵ might not be crossed in such an egregious¹⁶ way. So there are options with nuclear use that are short of, you know, the destruction of the - of humankind.

FADEL: Right.

BUDJERYN: And this is precisely¹⁷ why Russia holds on to so many tactical nuclear weapons. There's almost 3,000 of them in central storages. They claim they're not deployed¹⁸. But it's not very hard to take them out of the storage and bring them to units. And I think American satellites are watching these storages very, very closely. So at least we have some comfort that we might have some advance warning should there be an activity around these nuclear storages.

FADEL: Terrifying. Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian expert at the project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University's Belfer Center. Thank you so much.

BUDJERYN: Thank you.

[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, and in a previous web headline, we incorrectly say Russia is reportedly advancing on the third of Ukraine's four active nuclear power plants. Only one of the country's active nuclear power plants, the Zaporizhzhia facility, has been seized as of Tuesday. Russian forces have also seized the Chernobyl plant, which was decommissioned after the 1986 disaster.]

(SOUNDBITE OF BEWARE OF SAFETY'S "STEP OR STONE")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

3 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

4 reactors   

起反应的人( reactor的名词复数 )； 反应装置； 原子炉； 核反应堆

参考例句：

• The TMI nuclear facility has two reactors. 三哩岛核设施有两个反应堆。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• The earliest production reactors necessarily used normal uranium as fuel. 最早为生产用的反应堆，必须使用普通铀作为燃料。

5 duress   

n.胁迫

参考例句：

• He claimed that he signed the confession under duress.他说他是被迫在认罪书上签字的。
• These unequal treaties were made under duress.这些不平等条约是在强迫下签订的。

6 writ   

n.命令状，书面命令

参考例句：

• This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本。
• You shouldn't treat the newspapers as if they were Holy Writ. 你不应该把报上说的话奉若神明。

7 subdue   

vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制

参考例句：

• She tried to subdue her anger.她尽力压制自己的怒火。
• He forced himself to subdue and overcome his fears.他强迫自己克制并战胜恐惧心理。

8 violation   

n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯

参考例句：

• He roared that was a violation of the rules.他大声说，那是违反规则的。
• He was fined 200 dollars for violation of traffic regulation.他因违反交通规则被罚款200美元。

9 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

10 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

11 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

12 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。

13 radius   

n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限

参考例句：

• He has visited every shop within a radius of two miles.周围两英里以内的店铺他都去过。
• We are measuring the radius of the circle.我们正在测量圆的半径。

14 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

15 taboo   

n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止

参考例句：

• The rude words are taboo in ordinary conversation.这些粗野的字眼在日常谈话中是禁忌的。
• Is there a taboo against sex before marriage in your society?在你们的社会里，婚前的性行为犯禁吗？

16 egregious   

adj.非常的，过分的

参考例句：

• When it comes to blatant lies,there are none more egregious than budget figures.谈到公众谎言，没有比预算数字更令人震惊的。
• What an egregious example was here!现摆着一个多么触目惊心的例子啊。

17 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

18 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。