THE International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have to drop everything in their in-tray and rush to the battlefield in Russia’s Kursk region, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are wreaking havoc and reportedly posing a grave threat to a nuclear power facility.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin revealed during a cabinet meeting in Moscow on Thursday last week that his army had successfully repelled an attempted attack on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) by marauding Ukrainian forces.
The incursion by thousands of Ukrainian soldiers – which enters a fourth week – has sent shivers through the border region and resulted in more than 100 000 citizens being evacuated and moved to temporary safe zones inland.
“Last night,” President Putin told his concerned cabinet, “the enemy attempted to strike the atomic power plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been informed. They promised to come themselves and send specialists to assess the situation. I hope they actually do so.”
The IAEA has wasted no time in expressing grave concern over the safety of the Kursk NPP. Agency director Rafael Grossi said the situation was particularly concerning because the Kursk facility “operates the same kind of reactors as the infamous Chernobyl NPP”.
He explained: “They don’t have a protective dome around them, just the normal roof, which means that the reactor’s core is pretty exposed.” He added that the continued presence of troops within artillery range “is a source of enormous concern to me and the agency”, stopping short of revealing the identity of the forces he was referring to.
Moscow has repeatedly criticised the IAEA for not identifying the perpetrator of attacks on nuclear facilities, referring to previous attacks at the Zaporozhye NPP – Europe’s largest such facility – which is situated in Ukraine and has been under Russian control since 2022.
The Kremlin feels the IAEA should publicly name the Ukrainian forces as the perpetrators, and the constant threat to the safety of the nuclear power plants.
This week, the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear facilities,, Alexey Likhachev, confirmed that he too had held urgent talks with IAEA boss Grossi about the threat to the Kursk NPP.
He said Grossi had accepted his invitation to urgently visit the Kursk NPP to assess the situation in person. Grossi will visit the nuclear facility next week, after which he will visit the Ukrainian capital Kiev for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky on the matter. Ukrainian forces reportedly continue to make inroads inside Russia in the Kursk region, controlling more than 1 000 square kilometres and displacing a growing number of people.
The conflict in Ukraine, set against a backdrop of deep geopolitical differences between Moscow and the US-led Nato, has escalated in the past few weeks, with the full implications of Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Russian territory yet to be fully comprehended.
In the midst of it all, Nato’s expansion to Russia’s doorstep is set to continue, regardless of Moscow’s misgivings, setting the scene for heightened conflict if a negotiated settlement is not pursued.
In the US and across Europe, as well as Russia and the international community, the outcome of the US elections, set for November 5, is likely to dictate the direction the conflict will take.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has already intimated, before he is even inaugurated, that he will stop the war.
However, a Kamala Harris victory will likely see an emboldened Nato pushing for a full-frontal conflict with Russia, which could easily degenerate into World War III – fought with nuclear weapons and threatening the entire planet.
It is a great pity that communication between Kiev and Moscow was dealt a big blow when President Zelensky declared there would be no talks with Russia as long as President Putin is in office.
The increased supply of Western arms to Ukraine, coupled with warmongering from some of the Nato nations’ leaders, has reduced optimism for peace on the one hand and upped the tempo for Armageddon.
From the beginning – of what the Kremlin has described as a Special Military Operation in Ukraine, and what Nato has labelled an invasion that poses an existential threat to that country and Western democracies – conflict could have been averted with honest diplomatic engagement.
Instead, the adoption of a gung-ho diplomatic approach by the US and later Nato and the EU, which joined en masse in the economic sanctions against Moscow, has led the world to the brink. This is a great pity indeed.
The fact is, Washington would never tolerate Russia opening a military base in Cuba, or Mexico, or anywhere adjacent to the US.
That Russia had all along been polite and civil in raising initial concerns about Nato’s expansion eastwards, and that their concerns fell on deaf ears, shows how much Washington has wanted confrontation with Moscow.
The warmongering by outgoing US President Joe Biden and his administration’s astronomical financing of the Ukrainian military as part of Washington’s proxy war against Russia, is very telling and will be analysed by geopolitical scholars for a very long time.
But back to where we began: Any foolish attack on any nuclear facility will never be forgiven by history. The unimaginable deaths that could be caused by radiation from the bombed nuclear plants will kill scores of innocent men, women and children near and far across Europe.
The price of peace should be pursued at all costs in a world that has globalised in the 21st century to a point where we have all become members of one global village.
Surely, the need to work out a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian conflict could be achieved once Russia’s security concerns are addressed with the same vigour Washington and Nato show in their defence for what they see as an existential threat to Kiev?
*Abbey Makoe is Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Global South Media Network