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New Worries at Chernobyl After IAEA Finds Radiation Shield Has 'Lost Primary Safety Functions'
"Timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety," said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.
Dec 08, 2025
A protective shield built over the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine is no longer capable of blocking radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned late last week.
In a statement published on Friday, the IAEA said that its researchers have confirmed that the New Safe Confinement (NSC) shield has "lost its primary safety functions," including the ability to confine radiation, after it was damaged by a Russian drone strike in February.
On the positive side, the researchers found "no permanent damage" to the system's load-bearing structures and monitoring systems. Nonetheless, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said that urgent work needed to be done to rebuild the shield.
"Limited temporary repairs have been carried out on the roof, but timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety," he emphasized.
Grossi noted that IAEA had a permanent team working at the site and vowed that the agency "will continue to do everything it can to support efforts to fully restore nuclear safety and security at the Chernobyl site."
Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace, told the New York Times that the damage caused to the NSC isn't cause for immediate concern, although that would change if the damage to the shield went without repairs for a long period of time.
"If there was to be some event inside the shelter that would release radioactive materials into the space inside the New Safe Confinement, because this facility is no longer sealed to the outside environment, there’s the potential for radiation to come out," said Burnie. "I have to say I don’t think that’s a particularly serious issue at the moment, because they’re not actively decommissioning the actual sarcophagus."
The NSC was first put into place in 2016 to enclose the emergency sarcophagus over Chernobyl's number 4 nuclear reactor that was constructed by Soviet officials in the wake of the 1986 disaster at the nuclear plant.
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Iran Suspends Cooperation with IAEA, Accusing Nuclear Watchdog of 'Complicity' in Trump Strikes
"The IAEA, which did not even formally condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, has put its international credibility up for sale," said Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
Jun 25, 2025
The Iranian parliament approved a bill Wednesday suspending its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The resolution states that weapons inspectors with the United Nations nuclear watchdog organization will not be allowed to enter the country unless it guarantees the security of Iran's nuclear facilities and their ability to pursue peaceful nuclear activities.
Ahead of the vote, lawmakers denounced the IAEA, accusing it of enabling U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday—strikes Iran, as well as other observers of international law, have denounced as a clear violation of its sovereignty.
"The IAEA, which did not even formally condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, has put its international credibility up for sale," said Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. "For this reason, the [Atomic Energy Organization of Iran] will suspend its cooperation with the Agency until the security of its nuclear facilities is guaranteed, and Iran's peaceful nuclear program will proceed at an even faster pace."
In response to the resolution, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that "the return of inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities is a top priority."
Independent inspectors have not yet been able to inspect the damage to the three nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan—hit by the U.S.
Following the strikes, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Iran's nuclear sites were "completely and fully obliterated."
However, reporting by CNN and The New York Times on Tuesday, based on unnamed sources familiar with an internal assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, undercut that claim, stating that the strikes only set back Iran's nuclear program by a matter of months.
Grossi said Monday that the airstrikes likely inflicted "very significant damage" at Fordo, but that no conclusions could be reached until independent inspectors are allowed to examine the site and account for Iran's uranium stockpile.
The latest IAEA report issued on May 31 found "no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear program" being pursued by Iran—a finding echoed by U.S. intelligence agencies.
However, the IAEA did find that Iran had significantly increased its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%, near weapons-grade, which it said was a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Despite no "imminent threat," according to the most recent intelligence assessments, the Trump administration cited those IAEA findings to justify its attacks.
As a result, Iran's nuclear organization has questioned the IAEA's credibility as a neutral broker, accusing them of "deliberate inaction," following American and Israeli strikes. It said in a statement Sunday that these strikes were carried out "with the IAEA's silence, if not complicity."
Some critics have argued that the IAEA's decision to declare Iran in violation of the NPT was the result of significant U.S. arm-twisting and that the IAEA has not applied similar scrutiny to Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that strikes upon its nuclear facilities violate the NPT, which grants countries an "inalienable right" to develop nuclear energy for nonmilitary purposes.
Nuclear experts warn that the U.S. strikes on Iran have undermined the credibility of the NPT, prompting some factions in Iran to call for the nation's exit altogether.
Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, suggested Monday that U.S. attacks may only embolden Iran and other nations to violate the treaty and pursue nuclear weapons, perceiving them as necessary for their protection.
"From a nonproliferation perspective, Trump's decision to strike Iran was a reckless, irresponsible escalation that is likely to push Iran closer to nuclear weapons in the long term," Davenport said. "Politically, there's greater impetus now to weaponize."
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How the US and Israel Used Rafael Grossi to Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran
The agency's chief has not only continued its subservience to U.S. and Western interests, but also its practice of turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Jun 23, 2025
Rafael Grossi, director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowed the IAEA to be used by the United States and Israel—an undeclared nuclear weapons state in long-term violation of IAEA rules—to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran, despite his agency’s own conclusion that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.
On June 12th, based on a damning report by Grossi, a slim majority of the IAEA Board of Governors voted to find Iran in non-compliance with its obligations as an IAEA member. Of the 35 countries represented on the Board, only 19 voted for the resolution, while 3 voted against it, 11 abstained and 2 did not vote.
The United States contacted eight board member governments on June 10th to persuade them to either vote for the resolution or not to vote. Israeli officials said they saw the U.S. arm-twisting for the IAEA resolution as a significant signal of U.S. support for Israel’s war plans, revealing how much Israel valued the IAEA resolution as diplomatic cover for the war.
The IAEA board meeting was timed for the final day of President Trump’s 60-day ultimatum to Iran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. Even as the IAEA board voted, Israel was loading weapons, fuel and drop-tanks on its warplanes for the long flight to Iran and briefing its aircrews on their targets. The first Israeli air strikes hit Iran at 3 a.m. that night.
On June 20th, Iran filed a formal complaint against Director General Grossi with the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council for undermining his agency’s impartiality, both by his failure to mention the illegality of Israel’s threats and uses of force against Iran in his public statements and by his singular focus on Iran’s alleged violations.
The source of the IAEA investigation that led to this resolution was a 2018 Israeli intelligence report that its agents had identified three previously undisclosed sites in Iran where Iran had conducted uranium enrichment prior to 2003. In 2019, Grossi opened an investigation, and the IAEA eventually gained access to the sites and detected traces of enriched uranium.
Despite the fateful consequences of his actions, Grossi has never explained publicly how the IAEA can be sure that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency or its Iranian collaborators, such as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (or MEK), did not put the enriched uranium in those sites themselves, as Iranian officials have suggested.
While the IAEA resolution that triggered this war dealt only with Iran’s enrichment activities prior to 2003, U.S. and Israeli politicians quickly pivoted to unsubstantiated claims that Iran was on the verge of making a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence agencies had previously reported that such a complex process would take up to three years, even before Israel and the United States began bombing and degrading Iran’s existing civilian nuclear facilities.
The IAEA’s previous investigations into unreported nuclear activities in Iran were officially completed in December 2015, when IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano published its “Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Program.”
The IAEA assessed that, while some of Iran’s past activities might have been relevant to nuclear weapons, they “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.” The IAEA “found no credible indications of the diversion of nuclear material in connection with the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”
When Yukiya Amano died before the end of his term in 2019, Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi was appointed IAEA Director General. Grossi had served as Deputy Director General under Amano and, before that, as Chief of Staff under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.
The Israelis have a long record of fabricating false evidence about Iran’s nuclear activities, like the notorious “laptop documents” given to the CIA by the MEK in 2004 and believed to have been created by the Mossad. Douglas Frantz, who wrote a report on Iran’s nuclear program for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009, revealed that the Mossad created a special unit in 2003 to provide secret briefings on Iran’s nuclear program, using “documents from inside Iran and elsewhere.”
And yet Grossi collaborated with Israel to pursue its latest allegations. After several years of meetings in Israel and negotiations and inspections in Iran, he wrote his report to the IAEA Board of Governors and scheduled a board meeting to coincide with the planned start date for Israel’s war.
Israel made its final war preparations in full view of the satellites and intelligence agencies of the western countries that drafted and voted for the resolution. It is no wonder that 13 countries abstained or did not vote, but it is tragic that more neutral countries could not find the wisdom and courage to vote against this insidious resolution.
The official purpose of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is “to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.” Since 1965, all of its 180 member countries have been subject to IAEA safeguards to ensure that their nuclear programs are “not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.”
The IAEA’s work is obviously compromised in dealing with countries that already have nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the IAEA in 1994, and from all safeguards in 2009. The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China have IAEA safeguard agreements that are based only on “voluntary offers” for “selected” non-military sites. India has a 2009 safeguard agreement that requires it to keep its military and civilian nuclear programs separate, and Pakistan has 10 separate safeguard agreements, but only for civilian nuclear projects, the latest being from 2017 to cover two Chinese-built power stations.
Israel, however, has only a limited 1975 safeguards agreement for a 1955 civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. An addendum in 1977 extended the IAEA safeguards agreement indefinitely, even though the cooperation agreement with the U.S. that it covered expired four days later. So, by a parody of compliance that the United States and the IAEA have played along with for half a century, Israel has escaped the scrutiny of IAEA safeguards just as effectively as North Korea.
Israel began working on a nuclear weapon in the 1950s, with substantial help from Western countries, including France, Britain and Argentina, and made its first weapons in 1966 or 1967. By 2015, when Iran signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement, former Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in a leaked email that a nuclear weapon would be useless to Iran because “Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran.” Powell quoted former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asking, “What would we do with a nuclear weapon? Polish it?”
In 2003, while Powell tried but failed to make a case for war on Iraq to the UN Security Council, President Bush smeared Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” based on their alleged pursuit of “weapons of mass destruction.” The Egyptian IAEA Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, repeatedly assured the Security Council that the IAEA could find no evidence that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapon.
When the CIA produced a document that showed Iraq importing yellowcake uranium from Niger, just as Israel had secretly imported it from Argentina in the 1960s, the IAEA only took a few hours to recognize the document as a forgery, which ElBaradei immediately reported to the Security Council.
Bush kept repeating the lie about yellowcake from Niger, and other flagrant lies about Iraq, and the United States invaded and destroyed Iraq based on his lies, a war crime of historic proportions. Most of the world knew that ElBaradei and the IAEA were right all along, and, in 2005, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for exposing Bush’s lies, speaking truth to power and strengthening nuclear non-proliferation.
In 2007, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed with the IAEA’s finding that Iran, like Iraq, had no nuclear weapons program. As Bush wrote in his memoirs, “…after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?” Even Bush couldn’t believe he would get away with recycling the same lies to destroy Iran as well as Iraq, and Trump is playing with fire by doing so now.
ElBaradei wrote in his own memoir, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times, that if Iran did do some preliminary research on nuclear weapons, it probably began during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, after the US and its allies helped Iraq to manufacture chemical weapons that killed up to 100,000 Iranians.
The neocons who dominate U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy viewed the Nobel Prize winner ElBaradei as an obstacle to their regime change ambitions around the world, and conducted a covert campaign to find a more compliant new IAEA Director General when his term expired in 2009.
After Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano was appointed as the new Director General, U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks revealed details of his extensive vetting by U.S. diplomats, who reported back to Washington that Amano “was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.”
After becoming IAEA Director General in 2019, Rafael Grossi not only continued the IAEA’s subservience to U.S. and Western interests and its practice of turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons, but also ensured that the IAEA played a critical role in Israel’s march to war on Iran.
Even as he publicly acknowledged that Iran had no nuclear weapons program and that diplomacy was the only way to resolve the West’s concerns about Iran, Grossi helped Israel to set the stage for war by reopening the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s past activities. Then, on the very day that Israeli warplanes were being loaded with weapons to bomb Iran, he made sure that the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution to give Israel and the U.S. the pretext for war that they wanted.
In his last year as IAEA Director, Mohamed ElBaradei faced a similar dilemma to the one that Grossi has faced since 2019. In 2008, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies gave the IAEA copies of documents that appeared to show Iran conducting four distinct types of nuclear weapons research.
Whereas, in 2003, Bush’s yellowcake document from Niger was clearly a forgery, the IAEA could not establish whether the Israeli documents were authentic or not. So ElBaradei refused to act on them or to make them public, despite considerable political pressure, because, as he wrote in The Age of Deception, he knew the U.S. and Israel “wanted to create the impression that Iran presented an imminent threat, perhaps preparing the grounds for the use of force.” ElBaradei retired in 2009, and those allegations were among the “outstanding issues” that he left to be resolved by Yukiya Amano in 2015.
If Rafael Grossi had exercised the same caution, impartiality and wisdom as Mohamed ElBaradei did in 2009, it is very possible that the United States and Israel would not be at war with Iran today.
Mohamed ElBaradei wrote in a tweet on June 17th 2025, “To rely on force and not negotiations is a sure way to destroy the NPT and the nuclear non-proliferation regime (imperfect as it is), and sends a clear message to many countries “that their 'ultimate security' is to develop nuclear weapons!!!”
Despite Grossi’s role in U.S.-Israeli war plans as IAEA Director General, or maybe because of it, he has been touted as a Western-backed candidate to succeed Antonio Guterres as UN Secretary General in 2026. That would be a disaster for the world. Fortunately, there are many more qualified candidates to lead the world out of the crisis that Rafael Grossi has helped the U.S. and Israel to plunge it into.
Rafael Grossi should resign as IAEA Director before he further undermines nuclear non-proliferation and drags the world any closer to nuclear war. And he should also withdraw his name from consideration as a candidate for UN Secretary General.
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UN Nuclear Chief Warns Israel's Bombing of Iranian Facility Risks Radiation Release
IAEA head Rafael Grossi implored "all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation."
Jun 16, 2025
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog cautioned Monday that Israel's bombing of Iran's primary uranium enrichment facility raises the risk of radiological and chemical contamination, a warning that came amid condemnation of such strikes and mounting civilian casualties on both sides of the widening war.
Addressing an emergency session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors in Vienna, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that "military escalation threatens lives, increases the chance of a radiological release with serious consequences for people and the environment, and delays indispensable work towards a diplomatic solution for the long-term assurance that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon."
"Last week the board adopted an important resolution on Iran's safeguards obligations," Grossi continued. "The resolution, while containing important proliferation-related provisions, also stressed support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Member states of the IAEA have a crucial, active role to play in supporting the urgent move away from military escalation towards diplomacy."
"Consistent with the objectives of the IAEA and its statute, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation," he added.
Based on info available to the IAEA, this is the current situation at the Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow, Khondab, Bushehr, and Esfahan. pic.twitter.com/gTvJrYzPFW
— IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) June 16, 2025
The IAEA affirmed that Israeli strikes have damaged above-ground areas of the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and another nuclear site in Isfahan. Grossi said earlier that four buildings in Isfahan had been damaged by Israeli strikes on Friday, but noted Monday that there were no apparent signs of damage to another enrichment plant at Fordow, which is deep underground.
Experts say it would likely take intervention by the United States—which has more powerful bunker-busting bombs than Israel—to destroy the Fordow site. U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that "it's possible" that American forces could enter the fight, while the apparent deployment of what The Times of Israel on Monday called an "unprecedented" number of U.S. Air Force aerial refueling planes fueled speculation of deeper American involvement in the war.
Grossi's warning came amid widening Israeli bombing of Iran and retaliatory Iranian strikes against Israel. Iran's Ministry of Health said Monday that 224 people—90% of them civilians—have been killed and over 1,400 others wounded by Israeli attacks. Iranian media reported serious damage to a hospital in the western city of Kermanshah following Israeli bombing.
Last week, Israel began bombing Iranian government, military, and nuclear sites and assassinating numerous Iranian nuclear scientists. Some of these attacks have also killed targeted scientists' relatives, neighbors, and other civilians. The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is attacking Iran in order to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons. However, critics note that U.S. intelligence agencies concur that Iran is not trying to develop nukes.
As is the case with Gaza—where Israel is waging a war for which Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—numerous observers accuse the Israeli leader of creating a distraction from his ongoing criminal corruption trial in his own country.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said that Iran's legislative body, the Majlis, was drafting a bill that would withdraw the country from the landmark 1968 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Meanwhile, at least 23 Israeli civilians including women and children and Palestinian citizens of Israel have been killed by Iranian missile and drone strikes that have been condemned as indiscriminate. Hundreds more Israelis have been wounded. Responding to these attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz—who is accused of supporting genocidal policies in Gaza—said over the weekend that Iran's capital "will burn" if Iranian forces did not stop responding to Israel's bombing.
"The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon," he vowed.
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Senators Express Concerns Over Reports That Saudis Want US Support for Nuclear Program
"We should seriously consider whether it is in U.S. interests to help Saudi Arabia develop a domestic nuclear program," 19 Democratic senators and independent Bernie Sanders wrote.
Oct 04, 2023
Amid reports that Saudi Arabia is seeking United States support for its nuclear energy program—whose capacities critics fear could be utilized to develop nuclear weapons—a group of 20 U.S. senators on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to "seriously consider" whether such a move is in the national interest as the administration brokers a possible normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel.
In addition to concerns over the fundamentalist monarchy's desire for a U.S. security guarantee as a condition for normalizing relations with apartheid Israel, as well as the future of a two-state solution in illegally occupied Palestine, the senators note in a letter to Biden that "the Saudi government is also reportedly seeking U.S. support to develop a civilian nuclear program, and to purchase more advanced U.S. weaponry."
"While we should seriously consider whether it is in U.S. interests to help Saudi Arabia develop a domestic nuclear program, we should always maintain the high bar of the 'gold standard' 123 Agreement and insist on adherence to the Additional Protocol," the senators wrote, referring to a provision of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 requiring a country seeking a nuclear cooperation deal with the United States to commit to a set of nine nonproliferation criteria and expanded International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. The U.S. has entered into such agreements with more than two dozen countries, Taiwan, and the IAEA.
Citing "the devastating war in Yemen" waged by a U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition for nearly eight years at the cost of more than 375,000 lives, the senators added that "the provision of more advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia should be done with careful deliberation to ensure that such equipment only be used for truly defensive purposes and does not contribute to a regional arms race."
The lawmakers' letter was led by Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), and Peter Welch (Vt.). Signatories include Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
As Center for Strategic & International Studies senior fellow Jane Nakano wrote last month:
The Saudi interest in acquiring nuclear power technology became publicly known around 2010, with a royal decree stipulating that "the development of atomic energy is essential to meet the kingdom's growing requirements for energy to generate electricity, produce desalinated water, and reduce reliance on depleting hydrocarbon resources." Also, having pledged to meet carbon neutrality by 2060, Saudi Arabia looks to nuclear as an important source of zero-emissions electricity.
In addition to the United States, China National Nuclear Corporation of China, Électricité de France of France, Rosatom of Russia, and Korea Electric Power Corporation of South Korea have been in discussions to land the contract to build two inaugural nuclear power units in Saudi Arabia.
"Saudi Arabia has been publicly interested in obtaining the capacity to enrich domestic uranium to establish the entire nuclear fuel cycle, including the production of yellowcake, low enriched uranium, and the manufacturing of nuclear fuel both for both domestic use and exporting," Nakano noted. "While economic diversification through the development of domestic uranium industry may be a genuine interest, Saudi leadership has also shown little opposition to turning nuclear power capacity into developing a nuclear weapon if it deemed necessary to acquire such capability."
"The ongoing Saudi resistance to the U.S. nonproliferation conditions has generated controversy, given Saudi Arabia acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1988—i.e., the country is legally bound to not pursue nuclear weapons," she added.
However, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) confirmed last month that if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, "we will have to get one."
Some experts are warning that Saudi Arabia could turn to China or even Russia to help fulfill its nuclear ambitions if it grows wary of U.S. conditions. Hassan Alshehri, a Saudi defense analyst and retired brigadier general, told Breaking Defense that "the West knows that Riyadh has a flexible compass that can guide it to other alternatives to acquire nuclear capabilities if Washington continues with its current negative stance."
Hasan Al Hasan, Middle East research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Breaking Defense that "if MBS and the Biden administration fail to reach an agreement on nuclear limits and security commitments... then Saudi Arabia will likely turn to other partners, notably China and Russia, for help with building the capabilities it needs to restore the balance of power with Iran."
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'A Dangerous Nuclear Crisis': Greenpeace Warns Zaporizhzhia Insufficiently Monitored
A new report found that Russian troops were likely "using the plant as a shield" in violation of the safety principles laid out by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Sep 28, 2023
The Russian forces occupying Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been violating the safety principles established by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the watchdog body has not been able to effectively monitor the situation.
That's the warning from a new Greenpeace report sent to Western leaders on Thursday, which argues that the IAEA needs to be more upfront about the reality of the situation.
"The IAEA reporting risks normalizing what remains a dangerous nuclear crisis, unprecedented in the history of nuclear power, while exaggerating its actual influence on events on the ground," wrote report authors Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist from Greenpeace East Asia, and Jan Vande Putte, a Greenpeace Belgium radiation and nuclear expert.
Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia plant on March 4, 2022, less than a month into the invasion.
"Since 2022 we have been deeply concerned by the multiple hazards and risks to the Zaporozhzhia nuclear plant posed by the Russian armed forces and the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom," Burnie and Putte wrote.
To address these concerns, Greenpeace Germany commissioned former U.K. military specialists at McKenzie Intelligence Services to report on conditions at the plant.
"The Russian armed forces and Rosatom occupation pose a constant nuclear threat to Zaporozhzhia and must be condemned."
The result, Greenpeace said, "provides detailed evidence that the Zaporizhizhia nuclear plant is being used strategically and tactically by Russian armed forces in its illegal war against Ukraine."
For example, the report found that Russian troops were firing from positions between one and 18 kilometers (approximately 0.6 to 11 miles) from the plant, had constructed small defensive positions with sandbags on the roofs of some of the reactor halls, and are using a type of truck near the plant that is commonly used to transport weapons and combustible material.
It also concluded that both Russian forces and Rosatom are acting in violation of the five principles that IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi laid out in June to prevent a nuclear accident at the plant.
These principles are:
- No launching attacks from or at the plant;
- No storing weapons at the plant;
- No threatening outside power sources;
- Making sure all important structures are protected; and
- No taking actions that go against these principles.
McKenzie found evidence that Russian forces have a firing pattern of settling in one location, attacking from another, and then moving again to avoid counterattacks. In this process, they appear to be "using the plant as a shield."
"All activity observed over the reporting period does suggest a precarious environment continues to exist at the plant," Burnie and Putte concluded.
The Greenpeace experts also reviewed the IAEA's monitoring in the context of McKenzie's findings, and argued that the agency could be more upfront about its limitations and Russia's violations.
IAEA only has four monitors for the largest nuclear plant on the continent, and they must conduct their investigation with restrictions placed on their movements and access, as well as the requirement that they make access requests a week in advance.
Despite all this, Burnie said in a statement, "the director general's reporting is incomplete and misleading, including the assessment of Russian noncompliance with safety and security principles."
"The Russian armed forces and Rosatom occupation pose a constant nuclear threat to Zaporozhzhia and must be condemned—but currently the IAEA is unable to fully report on the security and safety hazards they pose," Burnie continued. "That has to change."
The advocacy group prepared the report ahead of an IAEA discussion of the situation in Ukraine in Vienna Thursday, as well as the IAEA Board of Governors meeting October 2. On Wednesday night, Greenpeace sent copies to the board's member governments, The Guardian reported.
IAEA did not comment on the report directly. However, it told The Guardian that, without its inspectors stationed there since September 2022, "the world would have no independent source of information about Europe's largest nuclear power plant."
However, Greenpeace argued the agency could take steps to improve that information.
"Greenpeace is calling on the IAEA board member governments to review the scale and scope of the IAEA mission, and to work with member states, and in particular the government of Ukraine, to institute whatever measures that will bring maximum pressure to bear on the Russian armed forces and Rosatom at the plant and to bring about an early end to the current military occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant," Burnie and Putte wrote.
These measures could include an improved analysis by the IAEA and sanctions against Rosatom, Greenpeace said.
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Fish Near Fukushima Contained Radioactive Cesium 180 Times Over Japan's Limit
The fish was caught near a drainage outlet where water from melted nuclear reactors flows—some of the same water that is to be treated and released from the power plant starting next month.
Jul 24, 2023
With the Tokyo Electric Power Company planning to begin a release of 1.3 million tonnes of treated wastewater from the former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan next month, reports of radioactive fish in the area have raised alarm in recent years—and new reporting on Sunday revealed that the problem is far from mitigated, prompting questions about how dangerous the company's plan will be for the public.
The plant operator, known as TEPCO, analyzed a black rockfish in May that was found to contain levels of radioactive cesium that were 180 times over Japan's regulatory limit, The Guardian reported.
The fish was caught near drainage outlets at the plant, where three nuclear reactors melted down in March 2011 during a tsunami.
Rainwater from the areas surrounding the reactors flows into the area where the fish was caught.
The high level of cesium—which, depending on the level of exposure, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and death in people who eat contaminated food—was discovered as TEPCO prepares to begin the discharge of treated wastewater which has been used to cool fuel from the melted reactors. The wastewater has mixed with rainwater and groundwater since the tsunami.
TEPCO has acknowledged that fish near the drainage outlets have been unsafe for consumption, as the concentration of cesium in seabed sediment in the area has measured more than 100,000 becquerels per kilogram. The maximum legal level is 100 becquerels per kilogram.
"Since contaminated water flowed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station port immediately after the accident, TEPCO has periodically removed fish from inside the port since 2012," an official for the company told The Guardian.
A fish was detected to have high levels of radiation near Fukushima in January 2022, with authorities positing that the fish had escaped from the drainage outlet. Shipments of black rockfish caught off the coast of Fukushima prefecture were promptly suspended and have not been resumed.
More than 40 fish with cesium levels over the legal limit were found in the plant's port between May 2022 and May 2023, and 90% came from the inner breakwater where water flows from the area around the melted reactors.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have both given their approval of TEPCO's plan to release the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, which it says it needs to do to secure space for decommissioning the plant. The discharge process, using an Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), would take decades to complete.
While the IAEA said earlier this month the plan will have a "negligible radiological impact to people and the environment," Paul Dorfman of Ireland's Radiological Protection Advisory Committee said Monday that reports like the one about the contaminated rockfish are likely "far from over."
"Believing [and] pretending some things are not harmful because it is convenient is literally killing the planet," said American University sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale, comparing the ecological and climate crisis to authorities' insistence that the water discharge is safe. "Corporate interests triumph at global expense once again."
Officials in Hong Kong have said they will ban food imports from 10 prefectures in Japan if the release moves forward in August, and some Chinese wholesalers have stopped accepting seafood imports from the country.
In addition to concerns about cesium, TEPCO has admitted that the ALPS it plans to use may not eliminate isotopes including ruthenium, cobalt, strontium, and plutonium. The system is also not able to remove tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
Masanobu Sakamoto, president of JF Zengyoren, Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, said in June that the group "cannot support the government's stance that an ocean release is the only solution."
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China Says IAEA Approval of Fukushima Water Release Should Not Be Final 'Green Light'
"What impact will the long-term accumulation and concentration of radionuclides bring to the marine environment, food safety, and people's health?" the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs inquired.
Jul 05, 2023
Anxiety is growing this week in Asian and Pacific island nations after the United Nations' nuclear regulator approved Japan's plan to dump treated wastewater from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean—a course of action for which the Chinese government said Tokyo would "bear all the consequences."
"Simply for saving cost, Japan has insisted on discharging the nuclear-contaminated water into the sea in disregard of the concerns and opposition from the international community and taken the Pacific Ocean as the 'sewer,'" the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) said on Tuesday. "We believe that the IAEA report should not be the 'shield' or 'green light' for Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean."
The ministry's statement came in reaction to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) approval on Tuesday of Japan's plan to gradually release more than 1 million metric tons of filtered Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific despite years of warnings from environmentalists and the overwhelming opposition of people in the wider region.
Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, located about 150 miles northeast of the capital, was catastrophically damaged during the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused meltdowns in three of the facility's reactors.
"No matter what the report says, it will not change the fact that Japan will release millions of tons of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean in the next three decades," CMFA said. "Will Japan's purification facility be effective in the long term? Can the international community be timely informed when the discharged water exceeds the discharge limit? What impact will the long-term accumulation and concentration of radionuclides bring to the marine environment, food safety, and people's health? These are the questions that the IAEA report failed to answer."
"We once again urge the Japanese side to stop its ocean discharge plan, and earnestly dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a science-based, safe, and transparent manner," the ministry added. "If Japan insists on going ahead with the plan, it will have to bear all the consequences arising from this. We urge the Japanese side to work with the IAEA to put in place as soon as possible a long-term international monitoring mechanism that would involve stakeholders including Japan's neighboring countries."
"We once again urge the Japanese side to stop its ocean discharge plan, and earnestly dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a science-based, safe, and transparent manner."
The government of one of those neighboring countries, South Korea, said Wednesday that it accepts the IAEA's approval of the wastewater release.
"It has been the government's long-standing stance to recognize the IAEA as a prestigious internationally agreed-upon agency, and we hold respect for its findings," Office for Government Policy Coordination First Deputy Chief Park Ku-yeon said during his daily press briefing.
However, a Gallup poll of more than 1,000 South Korean adults last week found that nearly 80% of respondents are worried about possible ocean and seafood contamination from the wastewater dump.
South Koreans have in recent days been stockpiling seafood and salt amid growing safety concerns over the impending wastewater release, for which no date has yet been set.
"I recently bought 5 kilograms of salt," Lee Young-min, a 38-year-old woman in Seongnam, told Reuters last week. "As a mother raising two children, I can't just sit back and do nothing. I want to feed them safely."
There have been regular protests against the planned Fukushima wastewater dump in South Korea and China—two countries that, like many others with nuclear power plants, have discharged far greater quantities of treated radioactive wastewater into oceans and other bodies of water than Japan plans to release.
"Nuclear sites all over the world... discharge diluted wastewater to seas, rivers, and lakes. This has been going on for decades without significant impacts," University of Portsmouth environment science professor Jim Smith told Science Media Centre last week.
"For example, the La Hague reprocessing facility releases about 10,000 terabecquerels of tritium per year into the English Channel," Smith continued. "Radiation doses from this are very low and there is no evidence of significant ecosystem impacts."
"The planned release from Fukushima of 22 terabecqurels per year to the Pacific Ocean is about 450 times lower than the La Hague releases and 50 times lower than releases from the U.K's Sellafield facility," he noted, adding that claims of significant risks to the planned Fukushima release "are not founded in scientific evidence."
"Dilution is no longer the solution to pollution, so whilst the Japanese may dispose of their wastewater in the interim, it would be a good opportunity to look at other disposal methodologies in the future."
However, Tony Hooker, director of the Center for Radiation Research, Education, and Innovation at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said that "whilst this disposal plan meets the scientific and regulatory requirements for the disposal of radiation into the sea, and no environmental or human health impacts are likely to be observed, there is a growing question regarding the use of the sea as a dumping ground when our oceans are already stressed and struggling."
"Dilution is no longer the solution to pollution, so whilst the Japanese may dispose of their wastewater in the interim, it would be a good opportunity to look at other disposal methodologies in the future," Hooker added. "The Pacific Island Forum Scientific Panel has proposed to use the wastewater to make concrete, therefore locking up the residual radioactive tritium."
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Despite Warnings, IAEA Approves Japan Release Plan for Contaminated Fukushima Water
"Piping water into the sea is an outrage. The sea is not a garbage dump," said one local fisherman earlier this year.
Jul 04, 2023
Despite years of protest and warnings from environmentalists, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog on Tuesday approved a plan by Japan to release tens of millions of gallons of water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
The massive storage of radioactive water has been ongoing since the 2011 tsunami disaster triggered a meltdown of the plant, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the plan orchestrated by the Japanese government and TEPCO, the plant operator, meets safety standards.
Based on a "comprehensive" two-year assessment, "the IAEA has concluded that the approach and activities to the discharge of ALPS treated water taken by Japan are consistent with relevant international safety standards,” the agency's director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said in the foreword of a new report released alongside the decision.
“Furthermore," Grossi continued, "the IAEA notes the controlled, gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea, as currently planned and assessed by TEPCO, would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment."
According to the IAEA statement:
The water stored at the FDNPS has been treated through an Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to remove almost all radioactivity, aside from tritium. Before discharging, Japan will dilute the water to bring the tritium to below regulatory standards.
Despite assurances, nuclear experts have said that concerns about tritium cannot be overstated. In 2020, Greenpeace International released a report warning that the contaminated water risks "potential damage to human DNA" and questioned the government and TEPCO's push for the release.
As Bloomberg notes, "an assessment of the discharge facility by a domestic nuclear regulator is still required before a timeline is finalized to begin releasing the water—equivalent in volume to about 500 Olympic-size swimming pools. Government officials have indicated the discharges, which could take decades, would begin during the summer."
The IAEA's assessment flies in the face of scientific warnings, environmentalists, and local residents who have argued that dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean should be "'simply Inconceivable."
"Piping water into the sea is an outrage. The sea is not a garbage dump," 71-year-old Haruo Ono, who has been fishing off the coast of Fukushima his entire life, told CBS News earlier this year after the IAEA released a preliminary assessment of the plan. "The company says it's safe, but the consequences could catch up with us 50 years down the road."
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Ukraine Dam Disaster Is the 'Horrific Price of War on People,' Says UN Chief
"One thing is clear," observed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, "this is another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
Jun 07, 2023
With a renewed call for peace, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that the destruction of a huge dam in a Russian-controlled area of southern Ukraine "will have grave and far-reaching consequences" for people in the region, as officials Wednesday took stock of the incredible damage.
Speaking from New York Tuesday, Guterres said the U.N. could not independently verify how the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam in Kherson was destroyed in what the world body called "the most significant incident of damage to civilian infrastructure since the start of the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine" in February 2022.
"But one thing is clear," the U.N. chief asserted, "this is another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
Noting that at least 16,000 people have already lost their homes due to the dam's destruction, Guterres called the disaster "yet another example of the horrific price of war on people."
"The floodgates of suffering have been overflowing for more than a year, and that must stop," he said, adding that "above all, I appeal for a just peace, in line with the U.N. Charter, international law, and the resolutions of the General Assembly."
Also speaking Tuesday, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said that the dam's destruction "will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine," while noting that "Ukrainian authorities have reported that at least 40 settlements in Kherson are already flooded or partially flooded, a number which is expected to rise."
The International Atomic Energy Agency—the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog—warned Tuesday that the dam's destruction has already caused a "significant' drop in water levels in the reservoir that supplies the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. ZNPP—Europe's largest nuclear power plant—was shelled by Russian forces in March 2022 during fighting for control of the facility, located in the eastern town of Enerhodar.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi further warned that the "absence of cooling water in the essential cooling water systems for an extended period of time would cause fuel melt and inoperability of the plant's emergency diesel generators," although he added that there is no "immediate" safety risk.
Human rights groups echoed many of the U.N.'s concerns. Marie Struthers, Amnesty International's regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement that "the human and environmental cost of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam is a huge humanitarian disaster, and the international community must unite to bring those responsible to justice."
"The rules of international humanitarian law specifically protect dams, due to the dangers their destruction poses to civilians," Struthers added. "The destruction of the Kakhovka dam is a catastrophe that endangers the life, safety, and well-being of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people living within range of the flood waters. It is literally an open floodgate for catastrophic human and environmental disaster."
Robert Wood, the U.S. alternate representative for special political affairs at the U.N., on Tuesday called the dam's destruction "yet another casualty in Russia's brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine."
"I want to make absolutely clear: It was Russia that started this war, it was Russia that occupied this area of Ukraine, and it was Russian forces that took over the dam illegally last year and have been occupying ever since," Wood continued.
"To be clear: Deliberate attacks on civilian objects are prohibited by the law of war," added the American, whose country's military has deliberately attacked countless civilian targets during wartime, including the Tabqa dam in Syria in 2017.
Ukraine and Russia blame each other for blowing up the Kakhovka dam, with Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian U.N. ambassador, accusing Moscow of committing "a terrorist act against Ukrainian critical infrastructure" and Vassiliy Nebenzia, his Russian counterpart, charging Kyiv with perpetrating "an unthinkable crime."
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