 A dangerous situation seems to be developing around the Zapruzhia nuclear plant which has been under the control of the Russians from March onwards. Ukraine has alleged that Russia is shelling the plant while it is also positioning artillery batteries within the plant. Why should it be shelling a plant which is which it has controlled for the last four months which is under its occupation by all accounts and why should it if it really did position artillery inside the plant, why is evidence not visible in any form which has been presented by either Ukraine or its NATO allies. Russia has presented evidence to the United Nations according to what its spokesmen have said detailing out what is the condition of the plant that it has been attacked by outside forces shelling has taken place of the plant which they are in control of and it has also said that if we really have positioned artillery as Ukraine and others are claiming why is it there are no satellite imagery available to show this because that is a very simple exercise any major news agency also has access to satellite imagery why is this evidence not visible. They have also shown videos inside the plant showing that this plant is not positioning heavy weapons inside it as claimed. So the question is why is this campaign which has been backed by essentially western news agencies, western governments as well including what the way took place in the United Nations Security Council why is it that this campaign or this rhetoric is being repeated by major media houses. Before we get into the question of why let us look at what is under threat because I think that is a very, very important issue which concerns all of us we are talking about a nuclear plant which is the largest in Europe it has 6000 megawatt reactors in it it has a huge amount of waste material radioactive waste material a bulk of which is of course what are called the fuel rods, spent fuel rods which are in ponds holding ponds and then of course you have the live fuel inside the reactors out of which for have been shut down to a running still and if any of the reactors which are running if they lose for instance the cooling system due to any attack due to external power being lost under such conditions it is possible that you have what is called a core meltdown which means the fuel which is what produces the heat is not cooled it continuously produces radioactivity and also the breakdown of the uranium fuel produces heat and if it is not cooled continuously this can raise the temperature leading to the melting down of the uranium fuel which is inside the reactor producing what is called a core meltdown we have pictures of the core meltdown what happened in for instance in Fukushima not too long back where essentially a tsunami took out the external power sources and also the Digi sets which acts as a temporary backup power and then the reactor really went quote unquote haywire and slowly it heating up inability to bring it under control and we had a meltdown of three reactors in Fukushima. So, this is something which is acknowledged by everybody to be extremely dangerous because it led to in the Fukushima incident radioactive release in the atmosphere and huge amounts of radioactive water being released in the Pacific Ocean just recently also a large amount of radioactivity has been released in the Pacific Ocean of course Pacific Ocean is very large so maybe it would not really make a difference but we had also the example of Chernobyl where the reactor did not suffer from a core meltdown like this due to losing auxiliary power auxiliary cooling water but it actually had a meltdown because of the hubris of the engineers who are doing a zero power test bypassing all the protection. If this is repeated in this particular plant is a progera plant then the consequences are it will not only lead to release of radioactivity which will affect Ukraine as well as Russia but also the Black Sea and of course a very large part of Europe. Now, these are serious consequences and when we see shelling of the nuclear plant and just a day back we also saw the shelling reports of the shelling taking down the transmission line which means the external power source which has to come to Zaptogia either to evacuate power to take the power that it is producing out but also to provide backup power in case the system there is a problem with the system and you have to provide cooling power cooling water pumps the auxiliary power or external power to see that the plant does not face a core meltdown like the Fukushima plant did. So, these are all extremely dangerous situations in which we find a nuclear plant being bombed as well as of course the transmission lines also being endangered again it seems to be due to shelling. So, the question therefore is why is it that the world seems to be relatively blasé about it there is no urgency that we see about this issue even in the United Security Council and it was last month that Russia had complained that this is shelling are starting to take place we are seeing firings on the plant and this is dangerous and at the time also there was no response from the European powers or United States which seem to believe this okay war it is all right if Russia a plant under Russian control is attacked that is okay it is not a major urgency of course it is also true that the Fukushima plant is was a much older plant this is a relatively younger plant but nevertheless compared to Chernobyl it is relatively well protected it has basically a concrete structure which protects it from any either attacks from outside or even under conditions of a meltdown it will retain the containment the containment structure is certainly much better than what was there in Chernobyl. So, it has protection but if a core meltdown takes place all of this would not mean much you will still see release of radioactivity to the atmosphere and therefore it is a dangerous situation it is yes it will be partially protected like Chernobyl which had a weak containment structure but it still will cause a very large release of radioactivity nearby and including you know wind carrying it long distances. So, this is a serious situation you also have what is called in the holding pond the spent fuel and if there is a hit on that again you will see the you know radioactivity being dispersed radioactivity being dispersed nearby. So, people like me who have grown up with looking at nuclear power plants I remember the three mile island disaster which is only about 30 minutes away from a complete meltdown it is only a partial meltdown. So, these are very dangerous moments if you take the core meltdown situation a complete core meltdown on the scale of what is nuclear accidents it is scales it is a level 7 accident that is what Fukushima and Chernobyl had the three mile island which had a partial meltdown was level 5. So, it was well below it but do not forget 30 minutes away it would have gone to level 7. So, that is how far close we were to a meltdown and there again by the way it was the circulating the cooling water pumps being stopped that is what led to the dangerous situation that we saw and in fact it was say it was saved of a meltdown only because of a new shift came and say we are making a mistake we are uncovering the core we are in a very dangerous situation just put in cooling water right now and restarted the cooling water pumps. So, this is a dangerous moment if any accident takes place or if the auxiliary power goes down by which it will mean that if the plant trips then the cooling water won't be available for the core. So, to be it is what shall be said criminal that both the Ukrainian government and the rest of the world is sort of playing what I would call nuclear chicken with safety of this plant and the fact that Russia is saying that this is a danger doesn't seem to convince the world media that they should actually evaluate what Russia is saying in this case whether they agree with Russia's intervention in Ukraine or not is a different issue you can condemn Ukraine you can condemn Russia you can condemn anybody that you want but that's on the point the issue is not condemnation the issue is if there is a risk to the nuclear plant it involves all of us and of course mostly Ukraine Russia and Europe they should be the most concerned. So, why is it this is happening I would I honestly speaking I find it very difficult to understand how any responsible leader in Ukraine could take the position that shelling of the plant is to be blamed on Russia and make a propaganda point out of it at the same time really shell the plant this to be is ununderstandable of course those who are saying Russia is shelling is the plant which it is controlling this is of course unbelievable because why would you shell a plant which you've been controlling for the last three four months no news media house in the west which has been plugging this line has given us an answer to that. So, the question is what can United Nations do what can IEA do which is the only organ now we have the only instrument we now have of intervening in this and trying to see at least that some basic controls are assertive. Now, the other question which we still have to answer is why is Ukraine doing it and it seems that Russia was planning according to reports though we don't have confirmation of that from the Russian side that they were planning to disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian grid and start connecting it to the Russian grid it's interesting in spite of the war this plant under Russian control has been supplying electricity to the Ukrainian grid that means Ukraine grid gets power from this plant still and 2000 megawatt of reactor power is not an insignificant amount. So, they have been supplied with power even though Russia controls the plant they also stake some part of this power and sell it now to western Europe European Union countries because I think they are selling about 100 megawatt to the European Union countries and that's at the current price there is a lot of money to be made in doing that. So, it does seem that one possible reason I hesitate to call it a reason because it's really so dangerous but one possible explanation could be that the Ukrainian government is trying to put pressure on Russia to see that they do not disconnect the Zaproger plant from the Ukrainian grid in which case it will lose a significant part of its electricity which it now gets from the plant. So, that could be one explanation second is that they are doing brinkmanship not only for this but also to put pressure that the Zaproger plant or the area is vacated put under UN control and if that is so in which case the way UN has taken up this issue it probably would be de facto put under the control of the Ukrainian government. So, is it a backdoor attempt to take the plant take over the plant by putting pressure on the safety the security of the plant using United Nations as a via media because both IAEA and the United Nations today but Mr. Guterres the secretary general and Rossi the IAEA director general seemed to be much more in the western camp and publicly so then we would expect these bodies heads to be. Now, that is the other possibility given the fact that Russia has been asking for IAEA to come into the plant for the last two months and the response has been we will have to work it out to the Ukrainian government and we will only go to Ukrainian territory not to Russian territory. So, given the importance of an intervention from IAEA should these be the considerations on the safety of the plant that is the question IAEA needs to answer and that is the question the United Nations at least the secretary general needs to think about because these are extremely dangerous times we should not think that this is a usual war that has gone in unfortunately in different parts of the world still is continuing in say for this example in Africa in Yemen yes those wars are dangerous there is no question to the people concerned. But this is a much bigger threat because we are talking of nuclear reactors safety of nuclear reactors and they really are far more damaging and have much longer damaged the inflict that is why it is important that all of us including other countries do try to raise their voice and say this war must stop and certainly attacks of this kind must be immediately halted we need peace in Ukraine we need peace in which NATO countries do not threaten the security of Russia as Russia says we need a larger resolution of which way Europe should go should it go for peace or does it does it still get into competitive military packs eastward expansion of NATO and then of course pressure on Russia and on Central Asia that which side of the Cold War the new Cold War should you be I think that is the danger this kind of zero-sum game is a danger that we see unfolding in Ukraine and also in the Zaprochia plant. Thank you very much for being with us and do keep watching Faultlines.