Ukraine is expanding the geography of attacks on nuclear facilities, with a strike on the Smolensk NPP, while drones are being shot down a few kilometres from the Kursk NPP, Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference in Vienna.
“I want to emphasise that the only real source of threat to the plant and its employees is the reckless actions of the Kiev armed formations, which attack the infrastructure of the ZNPP and the satellite city of Energodar almost every day,” he said. Likhachev added that the attacks pose a threat to the development of the entire global nuclear industry, and emphasised Russia’s commitment to always support the IAEA.
On 12 September on the territory of the industrial site of the Smolensk NPP near unit 3, a Ukrainian armed forces combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was suppressed by technical means, Rosatom reported. When it fell, the UAV detonated near the unit 3 ventilation pipe and, as a result, several windows of auxiliary rooms were broken, including the start-up boiler room and refrigeration station.
There was no other damage or casualties and the incident did not affect the operation of the plant, with all three power units operating normally. The total capacity is 3031 MWe.
This was not the first attempted attack on the facility. On 17 August, an attempted Ukrainian drone strike against the Smolensk plant was foiled using electronic means while an earlier attempted attack was recorded in January.
The latest attack was the second case of an attempted strike that damaged NPP facilities in recent weeks. On 24 August, air defences at the Kursk NPP shot down a Ukrainian combat UAV, which detonated when it fell damaging a transformer and temporarily reducing the output of the NPP.
An attack on the Zaporizhia NPP (ZNPP) on 11 September hit Building G, which houses the full-scale simulator used to train operational personnel. Reporting the incident, Yevgeniya Yashina, ZNPP’s Communications Director, told RIA Novosti there were no preliminary reports of injuries and the safe operation of the power units was not disrupted. The radiation background remained normal. This attack on the training centre was the sixth since the beginning of the year and the second in September. “Any attacks on ZNPP and its infrastructure are dangerous. Each such attack poses a direct risk of violating nuclear safety. The training center is located just 300 metres from the power units, and an attack on them could have irreversible consequences,” Yashina said.
Regional Governor Yevgeny Balitsky noted: “For several days in a row, the enemy has been trying to attack the adjacent territory of the ZNPP. He said an attack was thwarted on 12 September when a drone was shot down and detonated in the air. He recalled two more attempts to strike: on 6 and 11 September, their target was the training centre. Balitsky noted that although the station is in cold shutdown and the reactors are turned off, it is “in working order and remains a high-risk facility.”
In August, Ukrainian shelling of the industrial zone and facilities directly adjacent to ZNPP caused a fire near the plant’s hydraulic structures,” and in August 2024 Ukrainian drones caused serious fire damage to one of ZNPP’s cooling towers.
While ZNPP’s VVER-1000 reactors have robust containment offering substantial protection, The three operating RBMK units at Smolensk and the two operating at Kursk have no containment and a direct strike could cause devastating damage.
