Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy talks to us about the threat of nuclear accidents, and how Russia’s war with Ukraine has increased the chances of one happening.

His new book ‘Chernobyl Roulette’ explores how nuclear power facilities have become a part of the modern battlefield.

Cathy Newman: Serhii Plokhy, in your book ‘Chernobyl Roulette’, you set the scene for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the misinformation about a dirty bomb that Russia accused Ukraine of developing. Tell us what happened next.

Serhii Plokhy: What happened next was something that very few people expected. The Russian army attacked Ukraine from territory of Belarus, allegedly a sovereign state, and it marched toward Kyiv through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The nuclear disaster zone that no one really expected Russians to be so reckless with regards to the lives and health of their own soldiers and their officers. But this is exactly what happened.

Cathy Newman: And the Russian troops were tasked with searching for this illusory dirty bomb at great risk to themselves, and also the Ukrainians who were working at the plant.

Serhii Plokhy: Exactly. They became, to a degree, victims of their own propaganda, because talking about the Ukrainian dirty bomb was one of the ways to justify an unjustifiable attack on the sovereign state. And the soldiers and the officers who occupied the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were really expected to prove the Russian propaganda to be right. And they started to do really very crazy things, including digging or preparing to dig into the debris and the radioactive waste that was buried after the Chernobyl accident of 1986. So some of the Ukrainian operators convinced them not to do that because they would expose, certainly, not just themselves, but also everyone at the plant to this nuclear danger, bringing back Chernobyl 1986 alive and allowing it to claim more victims.

Cathy Newman: It’s incredible really to learn from your book of the heroism of, for example, the foreman, Valentyn Heiko, who really changed the power dynamics, turned the tables really on the occupying forces. Explain how they did that, because it’s very clever, isn’t it, and incredibly brave?

Serhii Plokhy: Brave and clever. Also, if you would look at Valentyn Heiko, you wouldn’t expect any acts of heroism from him, despite the fact that he came and started work in Chernobyl in 1987, one year after the accident. But what he did, he actually turned the fact that he and his people had knowledge of the place, had expertise when the Russians had zero. And what he told them right away, that they entered a very special complex, that the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the laws of Ukraine would have to apply there, and that they were not allowed freely to get around the nuclear power plant.

There were some areas where Heiko insisted that he would have the right to issue permits, and they issued 15 permits altogether for a particular group of Russians to get into those most sensitive parts of the nuclear power plant. And that was the case where really knowledge became power. And I think about that story as the Russian army coming and kidnapping the Ukrainian personnel there. But then the kidnapped kidnap the kidnappers by using their knowledge and also fear of nuclear and nuclear radiation that certainly the Russians demonstrate.

Cathy Newman: Whether it’s the old Chernobyl site or Zaporizhzhia, a functioning nuclear plant, in Ukraine or Kursk in Russia, how close are we to a potential nuclear disaster? What is the prospect of that again?

Serhii Plokhy: The nuclear disasters that happened so far, the largest ones like Chernobyl, like Fukushima, like Three Mile Island, Windscale fire here in England. They happened during this time without war happening on the site, without missiles hitting the buildings of the nuclear power plant, like it happened in Zaporizhzhia. And still, the accidents were there. So now the chances of another accident has increased, increased dramatically. This is if we are talking about an accident. But there is also a chance that certainly the Russians, who are now in control of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, could try to use some sort of an accident as a diversion. And that’s another possibility that is out there.

Cathy Newman: So we’re worrying all the time about Russia using nuclear weapons throughout the war. That’s been a worry in the background. It hasn’t materialised. But actually these nuclear plants have been, or could be, weaponised?

Serhii Plokhy: Exactly. And it’s possible to create an accident and hide behind the other side, behind the enemy. That’s what happened with the blowing up of the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine, where the Russians were pointing fingers at Ukrainians, despite the fact the explosion happened on the part of the dam that was controlled by Russia. The Ukrainians pointing fingers at the Russians. The international community doesn’t know what really happened. This is a scenario that can play out with the consequences much more severe.

Cathy Newman: More severe?

Serhii Plokhy: More severe than certainly something that happened at the explosion of the dam, can happen in Zaporizhzhia today.

Cathy Newman: Should Zaporizhzhia, should that invasion of the area around, well Russia is occupying Zaporizhzhia, should that have been stopped? Could it have been stopped?

Serhii Plokhy: It should be stopped. Whether it can be stopped, that’s a big question because the International Atomic Energy Agency [only] issues statements of concern and recommendations, but it doesn’t really have power or resources to do anything about the situation that is occurring in this war. Ukrainians came up with a solution very early on to declare and guarantee that the sites of the nuclear reactors are no war zones, that armies are not entering that territory. Russians, of course, refused. And now, when Ukrainians are moving closer to the Kursk nuclear power plant, they are appealing to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And International Atomic Energy really can’t help much in that particular case.

Cathy Newman: The nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, Russia is a member, right? So they they have to tread this careful neutral ground between warring parties, don’t they? So they don’t have the tools or the ability to stop.

Serhii Plokhy: Exactly. Russia is certainly a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency is associated with the United Nations. Russia is a member of the Security Council. The pay cheques of certain part of the people working for the agency comes through the Russian contribution, like contributions of other countries. And what that means is that we, as a global community, we as citizens of individual countries, we don’t have tools. We don’t have the legal base to deal with the takeover of the nuclear power plants of the sort that happened in Chernobyl, of the sort that happened in Zaporizhzhia.

Cathy Newman: So how do we get around that? What do we do about it?

Serhii Plokhy: When it comes to the use of nuclear weapons, what we have today, the factor, if not deterrent, we have a taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. And, I think this is a good model. There should be absolutely taboo on the military units of any sort of country entering nuclear sites, whether there is a conflict or no conflict at all, unless we find a way how to deal with the military takeover of the nuclear sites. We have no business to talk about the future of nuclear energy as the way to save us from the disaster caused by climate change.

Cathy Newman: But a taboo is a sort of moral thing, really, isn’t it? Do you enforce this by rewriting international law, and in which case, you can’t do that without Russia, can you?

Serhii Plokhy: You certainly rewrite international law. And now, with Russia being on the receiving end of the possibility that the Ukrainian army comes closer to the nuclear power plant in Kursk, really the main meaning of that, and message for me is that everyone is vulnerable. It is in the interest of every country in the world, there are plus-minus 440 reactors today. There will be more in the future. Every country is interested in that sort of agreement.

Cathy Newman: But if Ukraine has proved with the invasion of Kursk, that everyone is vulnerable. Isn’t everyone also culpable too, because they’re doing at Kursk what you’ve criticised the Russians for doing at Zaporizhzhia?

Serhii Plokhy: So far, Ukrainians are advancing in Kursk. There is no, as far as we know, attempt to get closer to the nuclear power plant. There is no attempt to take over this nuclear power plant.

Cathy Newman: But the threat is there?

Serhii Plokhy: The possibility that something like that can happen is certainly there. And if the Ukrainian offensive advances, the right thing for Ukraine to do, would actually be to do what they asked the international community to enforce, not to enter the nuclear power plant and to make it a no-fight zone.

Cathy Newman: And without resolving this danger, in your view, as you mentioned just a few minutes ago, it’s difficult to see how nuclear power can be a broader answer to the solution of greener energy provision.

Serhii Plokhy: Absolutely. Before we find a way to protect existing nuclear power plants, we really can’t build new ones because that means increasing the risk of nuclear war in this new meaning of the term in the future. So we can destroy the world before it is destroyed by climate change.