Problems of safe operation of Zaporizka NPP in the conditions of war in Ukraine

Abstract

Among the specified types of terrorist threats, the most dangerous today is the nuclear threat, which has moved from the realm of the probable to a real military-terrorist attack on the Zaporizhzhia NPP and its capture by the occupiers. Therefore, the issue of determining the level of nuclear and environmental safety of Ukraine's nuclear power plants in extreme war conditions, using the example of the situation that developed at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the largest in Europe, is extremely urgent, precisely because of the station's location in the war zone.
During the period of the full-scale war, there have already been dozens of warheads hitting the objects of the critical infrastructure of the ZNPP, the external and emergency power supply of the ZNPP (transformer equipment, power supply systems to consumers, the premises of diesel generators, the industrial site of the station, and others). There have been corresponding emergency shutdowns of the power units of the ZNPP due to the blackout of the station and due to the forced disconnection of consumers as a result of the destruction of various objects in the power grid systems. These events cause great alarm and concern of the world public regarding the possibility of new global nuclear-ecological disasters due to nuclear-radiation accidents at the ZNPP. Many years of global experience in the operation of nuclear power reactor facilities (NPRF) and their safety regulation, as well as lessons from the largest nuclear and radiation accidents at NPPs, have revealed the insufficient validity of traditional probability indicators and safety criteria for NPPs, including the Zaporizhzhya plant. Probabilistic approaches to assessing the objective level of safety of the Zaporizhzhya NPP in extreme conditions of war are insufficiently substantiated, taking into account, among other things, the need to predict the possibility of the occurrence of unlikely emergency events and their combinations, which will have catastrophic consequences.
Therefore, conducting an objective assessment of the level of nuclear and radiation safety at the ZNPP due to the station's location in the war zone, as well as substantiating practical recommendations for preventing nuclear and environmental disasters at the NPPs of Ukraine, is an extremely urgent issue for the entire nuclear energy industry of Ukraine.