Invasion Puts Ukraine’s Nuclear Reactors at Risk, Monitors Warn

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unfolding in a nation with 15 atomic reactors operating near full capacity, exposing Europe’s second-biggest nuclear fleet to potential safety risks.

Monitors at the International Atomic Energy Agency said late Thursday in an email that they’re gravely concerned by the situation and remain in contact with Ukrainian nuclear-safety regulators. Reactors require steady supplies of electricity and water, both of which could be put at risk by military action.

Earlier in the day, the country’s security forces lost control over territory around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant without suffering any casualties or damaging the structures which contain the residual radiation left over from the 1986 meltdown, the agency said.

“It is of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone should not be affected or disrupted in any way,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. “The IAEA is closely monitoring developments in Ukraine with a special focus on the safety and security of its nuclear power plants.”

Ukraine is Europe’s second-biggest generator of nuclear power after France. Energoatom, the utility which runs its reactors, said in a statement that plant operations were stable even as Russia’s military incursion unfolded.

While nuclear facilities have been attacked before -- mostly notably an unfinished Iraqi reactor in 1981, as well as Iranian enrichment facilities in recent years -- it’s the first time that war has been waged around a fleet of operating plants.

All of Ukraine’s reactors were designed and made by Russian manufacturers. Its oldest units at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant northwest of Kyiv operate reactors that have caused safety concerns among some European regulators. 

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