Personally, I do not find it surprising that the head of the Ministry of Energy is trying to attract the IAEA monitoring mission https://mev.gov.ua/novyna/ukrayina-domovylas-z-mahate-shchodo-rozshyrennya-monitorynhovoyi-misiyi-na-klyuchovi-dlya exactly at the open switchgear substations of Ukrainian NPPs.
After the shelling of Ukraine’s power system on 26.08.2024, journalists, the military and ordinary citizens are asking themselves a difficult question: Why is the IAEA involved exactly in the control of the open switchgears near nuclear power plants and will it really protect us from russian attacks?
Since I received my educational background at the Odesa Polytechnic Institute, I will answer questions with questions:
- Why is the minister seeking exactly for the physical presence of IAEA inspectors at the open switchgears of Ukrainian NPPs?
- Why is there no talk at all about the inadmissibility of affecting distribution substations of the power system connected with the NPP’s open switchgears?
- Why does a strike to power system distribution stations (adjacent to NPPs) lead to more severe transients with more hazardous impact on nuclear safety than a strike to the open switchgear next to the NPP?
- Why did the IAEA inspectors, military and political leadership, civil society of Ukraine and the world learn about such a “cheap and effective” means of air defense of power system substations almost two years after the de-energization of ZNPP on 25.08.2022 and the collapse of the Ukrainian power system after the attack on 23.11.2022?
- Why will the russians be delighted with the presence of IAEA inspectors at the NPP open switchgear, instead of introducing requirements in Article 56 of the 1947 Geneva Convention on the Rules of Warfare, for a complete ban on the strike of any substations of the power system where NPPs operate?
- Why the transformers and equipment controlled by Ukrenergo are protected, and why the same requirement is not applied to NPP’s open switchgears controlled by Energoatom and the Ministry of Energy?
- If the Ukrainian NPPs' open switchgears were not hit by any missile and drone attacks during the war, why is there no protection against the hit of adjacent and even remote substations of the power system, when these very hits led to a complete external blackout of Ukrainian NPPs with their emergency shutdown?
- Why are the IAEA inspectors being used as a human shield where no one has ever shelled, and if it is not so, why not to ensure the permanent presence of inspectors at all substations in Ukraine, or maybe someone knows that the russians plan to hit only the NPPs' open switchgears?
- What is the difference between the attendance of IAEA inspectors at NPPs’ open switchgears and permanent presence at adjacent substations of the power system and at all operating sources of electricity in Ukraine, such as PSPs, TPPs, CHPPs, TSPPs, wind farms and solar power plants?
- If the international convention prohibits hitting the open switchgears near nuclear power plants and the russians have never hit them, why are IAEA inspectors being asked to guarantee the protection of what is already protected by international agreements, and why not strengthen the existing requirements and prohibitions?
- Isn't this being done so that by means of the IAEA inspectors protect the open switchgear 330kV, open switchgear 150kV at Zaporizhzhya TPP and open switchgear 750kV at Zaporizhzhya NPP, through which Ukraine already guarantees the supply of power from the Ukrainian power grid?
- Why by means of IAEA inspectors protect the open switchgears near ZNPP from Ukraine, if Ukraine has been providing and guaranteeing power supply from the Ukrainian grid for two and a half years?
- Wasn't it an idea of having the IAEA inspectors at ZNPP's open switchgears to guarantee the russians the opportunity to carry out the necessary works at open switchgears 330kV and 150kV at ZTPP and open switchgear 750kV at ZNPP to ensure power supply for its own needs from the russian power grid?
- Wasn’t this all made up to ensure the possibility of restarting one of the ZNPP power units by the 40th anniversary of ZNPP in order to raise the decay heat power in one of the reactors by 20 times and turn the ZNPP into a more dangerous lever of influence on the course of the war and possible negotiations?
- Or maybe it’s just a shoo-in PR move and a smokescreen, the destructive consequences of which no one as a gentleman is responsible for?
