Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster. Chernobyl, Ukraine, USSR, May 1986. (Photo: Igor Kostin/Laski Diffusion/Getty Images)
Feb 26, 2022
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia poses several nuclear threats, including the possibility of deliberate or inadvertent military strikes or cyber-strikes on nuclear facilities.
There is also the obvious difficulty of safely operating nuclear reactors in a time of war, including the impossibility of carrying out safeguards inspections. Last but not least, there remains the possibility that the conflict will escalate into nuclear warfare.
We are about to learn what happens when nuclear-powered nations go to war, putting nuclear power plants at risk of deliberate or accidental military strikes and thus risking a Chernobyl scale catastrophe.
Retaliation
It seems highly unlikely that either nation--or any sub-national groups--would deliberately target nuclear reactors or spent fuel stores in the current conflict. But assuming there is a 'gentleman's agreement' not to target nuclear power plants, how long would that agreement hold in a war that dragged on for years?
Either nation might choose to shut down its reactors in order to minimise risks. That would be a manageable and wise decision for a country with limited reliance on nuclear power--but it would be impractical for countries with a heavy reliance.
In any case, the radioactive reactor cores--whether kept in situ or removed from the reactors--would remain vulnerable, as would nuclear waste stores. Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores often contain more radioactivity than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.
And if there is an attack on a reactor or spent fuel store resulting in a Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophe--whether deliberate or accidental, whether instigated by a nation-state or extra-state group--disaster response measures would likely be chaotic and woefully inadequate.
A strike on one warring nation's nuclear reactors or waste stores could result in like-for-like retaliation. Rinse and repeat until multiple Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophes are unfolding simultaneously.
Conflict
Even if catastrophe was averted, the wisdom of operating nuclear power reactors would be reconsidered in the aftermath of war. The warring nations--and many others besides--would likely reduce their reliance on nuclear power or abandon it altogether.
Nuclear power plants are pre-deployed radiological weapons. Put bluntly, humanity might have the wisdom to phase out the use of pre-deployed radiological weapons for electricity generation before nuclear-powered nations go to war and deliberately or inadvertently cause nuclear catastrophes.
The Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days.
Or we might have to learn the hard way that using pre-deployed radiological weapons to boil water wasn't such a great idea after all. All the more so given the manifold connections between the 'peaceful atom' and nuclear weapons programs.
The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine provides a test-case of the above war-gaming. The worst-case scenario of nuclear-powered nations at war would involve evenly matched adversaries fighting a long war. The current conflict isn't so much a war as an invasion of a weaker nation-state by a powerful adversary.
Most likely it will not drag on for years as some wars do. That said, simmering conflict stretching on for years is likely, so nuclear plants will remain at risk.
Disaster
Russia has several thousand nuclear weapons. Ukraine ceded ownership and control of nuclear weapons located in Ukraine to Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War--although that hasn't stopped Putin invoking the spectre of a non-existent Ukrainian nuclear weapons program in recent days.
Russia's 38 reactors supply 20.6 percent of the country's electricity. Ukraine's 15 power reactors across at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country's electricity.
The risk of an inadvertent attack on reactors or nuclear waste stores is somewhat higher than a deliberate attack. Russia has just taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site. The reactors were all closed long ago, but high-level nuclear waste remains on site.
James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that Ukraine has constructed a nuclear waste storage facility at Chernobyl for spent fuel from other nuclear plants, but the introduction of spent fuel has probably not yet occurred. Nevertheless, spent fuel from the Chernobyl reactors is still located there.
It's conceivable that waste stored at Chernobyl could be hit if and when Ukraine attempts to take back control of the site. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could happen in Chernobyl. The containment dome over the infamous Chernobyl #4 reactor protects a huge inventory of radioactive material. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could involve the same reactor.
Dystopian
Incursions and fighting around the Chernobyl plant could also disperse existing contamination. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer recently noted in the Washington Post: "The delivery of air-to-surface munitions, artillery, mortar and multiple rocket-launcher fire in the Belarus-Ukraine border area could also disperse radioactive debris in the soil."
Craig Hooper, a senior contributor at Forbes writes: "The world has little experience with reactors in a war zone. Since humanity first harnessed the atom, the world has only experienced two 'major' accidents--Chernobyl and Japan's Fukushima disaster.
"A Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days. Such a contingency would induce a massive refugee exodus and could render much of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades.
"Turning the Ukraine into a dystopian landscape, pockmarked by radioactive exclusion zones, would be an extreme method to obtain the defensive zone Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to want. Managing a massive Western-focused migratory crisis and environmental cleanup would absorb Europe for years."
He adds: "Put bluntly, the integrity of Ukrainian nuclear reactors is a strategic matter, critical for both NATO and non-NATO countries alike.
Toxic
"It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilized trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any 'liberated' power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone."
Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, discussed the nuclear risks associated with the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a February 14 piece for Project Syndicate.
Ramberg writes: "Power plants are common targets in modern conflict, because destroying them inhibits a country's ability to carry on fighting. But nuclear reactors are not like other energy sources. They contain enormous amounts of radioactive material, which can be released in any number of ways.
"Aerial bombing or artillery fire, for example, could break a reactor's containment building or sever vital coolant lines that keep its core stable. So, too, could a cyberattack that interrupts plant operations, as would a disruption of offsite power that nuclear plants rely on to keep functioning.
"Were a reactor core to melt, explosive gases or belching radioactive debris would exit the containment structure. Once in the atmosphere, the effluents would settle over thousands of miles, dumping light to very toxic radioactive elements on urban and rural landscapes"
Detonate
Ramberg discusses the chaos that would ensue: "[R]eactor operators who might mitigate the fallout would be more prone to flee for fear of being shot or bombed. If a reactor is in the middle of a chaotic battlefield, there may not even be any first responders, and ill-informed populations hearing rumors would be on their own wandering--and panicking--in contaminated zones.
"After the guns went silent, Ukraine would be saddled with the long-lingering effects that follow from any nuclear accident. And, as Chernobyl demonstrated, it would not be alone. Radiation releases do not observe national borders, and Russia's proximity would make it a sink for radioactive aerosol deposits. ...
"Ukrainian anxieties about its nuclear vulnerability bubbled up in 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Concerned that further conflict could result in a reactor attack, it appealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Security Summit to help boost its defenses. Unfortunately, there is no defense that can withstand a Russian bombardment."
A deliberate attack on a nuclear plant would almost certainly be counter-productive, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Ramberg draws this comparison: "A case in point was the March 26, 2017, bombing of the Islamic State-held Tabqa Dam in Syria.
"Standing 18 stories high and holding back a 25-mile-long reservoir on the Euphrates River, the dam's destruction would have drowned tens of thousands of innocent people downstream. Yet, violating strict 'no-strike' orders and bypassing safeguards, US airmen struck it anyway. Dumb luck saved the day again: the bunker-busting bomb failed to detonate."
Triggers
There were reports in 2015 that a sabotage attack on power transmission towers forced emergency shutdowns of a number of reactors in Ukraine. However the source of the reports was rt.com, a Russian government mouthpiece which lacks credibility.
More generally, Russia seems to have wanted to highlight security and safety threats at nuclear plants in Ukraine since the 2014 invasion, while Ukraine has seemed keen to downplay any incidents - and highlight future risks in the event of an escalation of Russia's attacks. Where the truth lies, nobody knows: it is lost in the fog of the low-level warfare that has played out since 2014.
Cyber-warfare is another risk which could jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear plants. Russia is one of the growing number of states actively engaged in cyber-warfare. James Action notes that a Russian cyber-attack disrupted power supply in Ukraine in 2015.
Nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targets of cyber-attack, including the Stuxnet computer virus targeted by Israel and the US to disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2009. Reports from the UK-based Chatham House and the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative have identified multiple computer security concerns specific to nuclear power plants.
Putin reportedly has greater ambitions than invading and controlling Ukraine, so who knows where the escalation will lead, what risks will emerge, how long it will drag on, and whether it triggers a response from NATO countries and the US/NATO alliance more generally.
Posture
The risk of nuclear warfare is very low, but it is not zero. Perhaps the greatest risk is that one or another nuclear-armed nation will mistakenly believe itself to be under nuclear attack and respond in kind.
Near-misses have happened before. For example, in 1979, a US training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played. In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signalled the launch of a US missile. In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because of a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights.
It doesn't help that NATO and Russian military doctrines allow for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to fend off defeat in a major conventional war. It doesn't help that some missiles can carry either conventional weapons or nuclear weapons, increasing the risk of worst-case thinking and a precipitous over-reaction by the adversary.
And it doesn't help that Putin's recent statements could be construed as a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons, or that less than a week ago a referendum in Belarus revoked the nuclear-weapon-free pledge in its constitution, or that Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko recently joined Putin to watch the Russian military carry out a nuclear weapons exercise, or that Lukashenko has said Belarus would be open to hosting Russian nuclear weapons.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, points to other concerns. "Russia and Belarus are not alone in their aggressive and irresponsible posture either," she writes.
Explosions
"The United States continues to exploit a questionable reading of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that prevents states from 'possessing' nuclear weapons but allows them to host those weapons. Five European states currently host approximately 100 US nuclear weapons: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey ..."
In a worst-case scenario, the direct impacts of nuclear warfare would be followed by catastrophic climatic impacts.
Earth and paleoclimate scientist Andrew Glikson noted in a recent article: "When Turco et al. (1983) and Carl Sagan (1983) warned the world about the climatic effects of a nuclear war, they pointed out that the amount of carbon stored in a large city was sufficient to release enough aerosols, smoke, soot and dust to block sunlight over large regions, leading to a widespread failure of crops and extensive starvation.
"The current nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia could potentially inject 150 teragrams of soot from fires ignited by nuclear explosions into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, lasting for a period of 10 years or longer, followed by a period of intense radioactive radiation over large areas."
He added: "Such an extreme event would arrest global warming for 10 years or longer, possibly in part analogous to the consequences of a less abrupt flow of polar ice melt into the oceans ..."
Flimsiest
Richard Garwin poses these questions: "What happens with a failed state with a nuclear power system? Can the reactors be maintained safely? Will the world - under the IAEA and UN Security Council - move to guard nuclear installations against theft of weapon-usable material or sabotage, in the midst of chaos? Not likely."
There are examples of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards being suspended in the event of war or domestic political turmoil, including in Iraq in 1991, some African states, Yugoslavia, and most recently in Ukraine itself.
In 2014, Ukraine's ambassador to the IAEA circulated a letter to the organisation's board of governors warning that an invasion could bring a "threat of radiation contamination on the territory of Ukraine and the territory of neighbouring states." Ukraine's parliament called for international monitors to help protect the plants.
No special measures were put in place to safeguards nuclear facilities in Ukraine. IAEA safeguards inspections have been compromised in Crimea since Russia's 2014 invasion - indeed there may not have been any inspections whatsoever. IAEA safeguards inspections in eastern Ukraine have also been compromised as a result of Russia's 2014 invasion.
Thus the IAEA has been unable to conclude that all civil nuclear materials and facilities in Ukraine have remained in peaceful use. Not that such conclusions carry much weight: the IAEA routinely reaches comforting conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence.
Smuggled
Ukraine noted in its report to the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit that state nuclear inspectors were unable to safely perform their duties in Crimea and certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine's nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any regulation whatsoever of the country's ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Yet another problem is that the risk of nuclear smuggling could worsen. Former Soviet states have been at the heart of the global problem of nuclear smuggling since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In May 2014, Ukrainian authorities announced the seizure of radioactive material that had been smuggled into the country from a separatist region, and speculated that the intention may have been to use the material as a radiological weapon.
Scrutiny
Russia's invasion of Ukraine will adversely affect its nuclear export business. For example the planned Hanhikivi reactor in Finland is unlikely to proceed and the plan for two Russian reactors in Hungary might also be abandoned. Russian-led reactor construction projects in numerous other countries could be jeopardised.
Swedish utility Vattenfall announced there would be no more deliveries of nuclear fuel from Russia until further notice and that no new orders will be placed for fuel from Russia. There will likely be many similar announcements from countries, companies and utilities currently involved in civil nuclear trade with Russia.
Australian uranium exports to Russia were suspended in 2014 as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its threat to invade Georgia, and the downing of flight MH176. "Australia has no intention of selling uranium to a country which is so obviously in breach of international law as Russia currently is," Australia's prime minister told parliament.
There is no prospect of a resumption of Australian uranium sales and other suppliers might also black-list Russia. Domestic mines currently supply about half of Russia's annual requirement of about 6,000 tonnes of uranium. Russia's involvement in overseas uranium projects might also come under scrutiny.
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The invasion of Ukraine by Russia poses several nuclear threats, including the possibility of deliberate or inadvertent military strikes or cyber-strikes on nuclear facilities.
There is also the obvious difficulty of safely operating nuclear reactors in a time of war, including the impossibility of carrying out safeguards inspections. Last but not least, there remains the possibility that the conflict will escalate into nuclear warfare.
We are about to learn what happens when nuclear-powered nations go to war, putting nuclear power plants at risk of deliberate or accidental military strikes and thus risking a Chernobyl scale catastrophe.
Retaliation
It seems highly unlikely that either nation--or any sub-national groups--would deliberately target nuclear reactors or spent fuel stores in the current conflict. But assuming there is a 'gentleman's agreement' not to target nuclear power plants, how long would that agreement hold in a war that dragged on for years?
Either nation might choose to shut down its reactors in order to minimise risks. That would be a manageable and wise decision for a country with limited reliance on nuclear power--but it would be impractical for countries with a heavy reliance.
In any case, the radioactive reactor cores--whether kept in situ or removed from the reactors--would remain vulnerable, as would nuclear waste stores. Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores often contain more radioactivity than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.
And if there is an attack on a reactor or spent fuel store resulting in a Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophe--whether deliberate or accidental, whether instigated by a nation-state or extra-state group--disaster response measures would likely be chaotic and woefully inadequate.
A strike on one warring nation's nuclear reactors or waste stores could result in like-for-like retaliation. Rinse and repeat until multiple Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophes are unfolding simultaneously.
Conflict
Even if catastrophe was averted, the wisdom of operating nuclear power reactors would be reconsidered in the aftermath of war. The warring nations--and many others besides--would likely reduce their reliance on nuclear power or abandon it altogether.
Nuclear power plants are pre-deployed radiological weapons. Put bluntly, humanity might have the wisdom to phase out the use of pre-deployed radiological weapons for electricity generation before nuclear-powered nations go to war and deliberately or inadvertently cause nuclear catastrophes.
The Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days.
Or we might have to learn the hard way that using pre-deployed radiological weapons to boil water wasn't such a great idea after all. All the more so given the manifold connections between the 'peaceful atom' and nuclear weapons programs.
The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine provides a test-case of the above war-gaming. The worst-case scenario of nuclear-powered nations at war would involve evenly matched adversaries fighting a long war. The current conflict isn't so much a war as an invasion of a weaker nation-state by a powerful adversary.
Most likely it will not drag on for years as some wars do. That said, simmering conflict stretching on for years is likely, so nuclear plants will remain at risk.
Disaster
Russia has several thousand nuclear weapons. Ukraine ceded ownership and control of nuclear weapons located in Ukraine to Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War--although that hasn't stopped Putin invoking the spectre of a non-existent Ukrainian nuclear weapons program in recent days.
Russia's 38 reactors supply 20.6 percent of the country's electricity. Ukraine's 15 power reactors across at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country's electricity.
The risk of an inadvertent attack on reactors or nuclear waste stores is somewhat higher than a deliberate attack. Russia has just taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site. The reactors were all closed long ago, but high-level nuclear waste remains on site.
James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that Ukraine has constructed a nuclear waste storage facility at Chernobyl for spent fuel from other nuclear plants, but the introduction of spent fuel has probably not yet occurred. Nevertheless, spent fuel from the Chernobyl reactors is still located there.
It's conceivable that waste stored at Chernobyl could be hit if and when Ukraine attempts to take back control of the site. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could happen in Chernobyl. The containment dome over the infamous Chernobyl #4 reactor protects a huge inventory of radioactive material. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could involve the same reactor.
Dystopian
Incursions and fighting around the Chernobyl plant could also disperse existing contamination. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer recently noted in the Washington Post: "The delivery of air-to-surface munitions, artillery, mortar and multiple rocket-launcher fire in the Belarus-Ukraine border area could also disperse radioactive debris in the soil."
Craig Hooper, a senior contributor at Forbes writes: "The world has little experience with reactors in a war zone. Since humanity first harnessed the atom, the world has only experienced two 'major' accidents--Chernobyl and Japan's Fukushima disaster.
"A Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days. Such a contingency would induce a massive refugee exodus and could render much of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades.
"Turning the Ukraine into a dystopian landscape, pockmarked by radioactive exclusion zones, would be an extreme method to obtain the defensive zone Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to want. Managing a massive Western-focused migratory crisis and environmental cleanup would absorb Europe for years."
He adds: "Put bluntly, the integrity of Ukrainian nuclear reactors is a strategic matter, critical for both NATO and non-NATO countries alike.
Toxic
"It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilized trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any 'liberated' power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone."
Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, discussed the nuclear risks associated with the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a February 14 piece for Project Syndicate.
Ramberg writes: "Power plants are common targets in modern conflict, because destroying them inhibits a country's ability to carry on fighting. But nuclear reactors are not like other energy sources. They contain enormous amounts of radioactive material, which can be released in any number of ways.
"Aerial bombing or artillery fire, for example, could break a reactor's containment building or sever vital coolant lines that keep its core stable. So, too, could a cyberattack that interrupts plant operations, as would a disruption of offsite power that nuclear plants rely on to keep functioning.
"Were a reactor core to melt, explosive gases or belching radioactive debris would exit the containment structure. Once in the atmosphere, the effluents would settle over thousands of miles, dumping light to very toxic radioactive elements on urban and rural landscapes"
Detonate
Ramberg discusses the chaos that would ensue: "[R]eactor operators who might mitigate the fallout would be more prone to flee for fear of being shot or bombed. If a reactor is in the middle of a chaotic battlefield, there may not even be any first responders, and ill-informed populations hearing rumors would be on their own wandering--and panicking--in contaminated zones.
"After the guns went silent, Ukraine would be saddled with the long-lingering effects that follow from any nuclear accident. And, as Chernobyl demonstrated, it would not be alone. Radiation releases do not observe national borders, and Russia's proximity would make it a sink for radioactive aerosol deposits. ...
"Ukrainian anxieties about its nuclear vulnerability bubbled up in 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Concerned that further conflict could result in a reactor attack, it appealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Security Summit to help boost its defenses. Unfortunately, there is no defense that can withstand a Russian bombardment."
A deliberate attack on a nuclear plant would almost certainly be counter-productive, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Ramberg draws this comparison: "A case in point was the March 26, 2017, bombing of the Islamic State-held Tabqa Dam in Syria.
"Standing 18 stories high and holding back a 25-mile-long reservoir on the Euphrates River, the dam's destruction would have drowned tens of thousands of innocent people downstream. Yet, violating strict 'no-strike' orders and bypassing safeguards, US airmen struck it anyway. Dumb luck saved the day again: the bunker-busting bomb failed to detonate."
Triggers
There were reports in 2015 that a sabotage attack on power transmission towers forced emergency shutdowns of a number of reactors in Ukraine. However the source of the reports was rt.com, a Russian government mouthpiece which lacks credibility.
More generally, Russia seems to have wanted to highlight security and safety threats at nuclear plants in Ukraine since the 2014 invasion, while Ukraine has seemed keen to downplay any incidents - and highlight future risks in the event of an escalation of Russia's attacks. Where the truth lies, nobody knows: it is lost in the fog of the low-level warfare that has played out since 2014.
Cyber-warfare is another risk which could jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear plants. Russia is one of the growing number of states actively engaged in cyber-warfare. James Action notes that a Russian cyber-attack disrupted power supply in Ukraine in 2015.
Nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targets of cyber-attack, including the Stuxnet computer virus targeted by Israel and the US to disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2009. Reports from the UK-based Chatham House and the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative have identified multiple computer security concerns specific to nuclear power plants.
Putin reportedly has greater ambitions than invading and controlling Ukraine, so who knows where the escalation will lead, what risks will emerge, how long it will drag on, and whether it triggers a response from NATO countries and the US/NATO alliance more generally.
Posture
The risk of nuclear warfare is very low, but it is not zero. Perhaps the greatest risk is that one or another nuclear-armed nation will mistakenly believe itself to be under nuclear attack and respond in kind.
Near-misses have happened before. For example, in 1979, a US training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played. In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signalled the launch of a US missile. In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because of a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights.
It doesn't help that NATO and Russian military doctrines allow for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to fend off defeat in a major conventional war. It doesn't help that some missiles can carry either conventional weapons or nuclear weapons, increasing the risk of worst-case thinking and a precipitous over-reaction by the adversary.
And it doesn't help that Putin's recent statements could be construed as a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons, or that less than a week ago a referendum in Belarus revoked the nuclear-weapon-free pledge in its constitution, or that Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko recently joined Putin to watch the Russian military carry out a nuclear weapons exercise, or that Lukashenko has said Belarus would be open to hosting Russian nuclear weapons.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, points to other concerns. "Russia and Belarus are not alone in their aggressive and irresponsible posture either," she writes.
Explosions
"The United States continues to exploit a questionable reading of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that prevents states from 'possessing' nuclear weapons but allows them to host those weapons. Five European states currently host approximately 100 US nuclear weapons: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey ..."
In a worst-case scenario, the direct impacts of nuclear warfare would be followed by catastrophic climatic impacts.
Earth and paleoclimate scientist Andrew Glikson noted in a recent article: "When Turco et al. (1983) and Carl Sagan (1983) warned the world about the climatic effects of a nuclear war, they pointed out that the amount of carbon stored in a large city was sufficient to release enough aerosols, smoke, soot and dust to block sunlight over large regions, leading to a widespread failure of crops and extensive starvation.
"The current nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia could potentially inject 150 teragrams of soot from fires ignited by nuclear explosions into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, lasting for a period of 10 years or longer, followed by a period of intense radioactive radiation over large areas."
He added: "Such an extreme event would arrest global warming for 10 years or longer, possibly in part analogous to the consequences of a less abrupt flow of polar ice melt into the oceans ..."
Flimsiest
Richard Garwin poses these questions: "What happens with a failed state with a nuclear power system? Can the reactors be maintained safely? Will the world - under the IAEA and UN Security Council - move to guard nuclear installations against theft of weapon-usable material or sabotage, in the midst of chaos? Not likely."
There are examples of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards being suspended in the event of war or domestic political turmoil, including in Iraq in 1991, some African states, Yugoslavia, and most recently in Ukraine itself.
In 2014, Ukraine's ambassador to the IAEA circulated a letter to the organisation's board of governors warning that an invasion could bring a "threat of radiation contamination on the territory of Ukraine and the territory of neighbouring states." Ukraine's parliament called for international monitors to help protect the plants.
No special measures were put in place to safeguards nuclear facilities in Ukraine. IAEA safeguards inspections have been compromised in Crimea since Russia's 2014 invasion - indeed there may not have been any inspections whatsoever. IAEA safeguards inspections in eastern Ukraine have also been compromised as a result of Russia's 2014 invasion.
Thus the IAEA has been unable to conclude that all civil nuclear materials and facilities in Ukraine have remained in peaceful use. Not that such conclusions carry much weight: the IAEA routinely reaches comforting conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence.
Smuggled
Ukraine noted in its report to the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit that state nuclear inspectors were unable to safely perform their duties in Crimea and certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine's nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any regulation whatsoever of the country's ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Yet another problem is that the risk of nuclear smuggling could worsen. Former Soviet states have been at the heart of the global problem of nuclear smuggling since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In May 2014, Ukrainian authorities announced the seizure of radioactive material that had been smuggled into the country from a separatist region, and speculated that the intention may have been to use the material as a radiological weapon.
Scrutiny
Russia's invasion of Ukraine will adversely affect its nuclear export business. For example the planned Hanhikivi reactor in Finland is unlikely to proceed and the plan for two Russian reactors in Hungary might also be abandoned. Russian-led reactor construction projects in numerous other countries could be jeopardised.
Swedish utility Vattenfall announced there would be no more deliveries of nuclear fuel from Russia until further notice and that no new orders will be placed for fuel from Russia. There will likely be many similar announcements from countries, companies and utilities currently involved in civil nuclear trade with Russia.
Australian uranium exports to Russia were suspended in 2014 as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its threat to invade Georgia, and the downing of flight MH176. "Australia has no intention of selling uranium to a country which is so obviously in breach of international law as Russia currently is," Australia's prime minister told parliament.
There is no prospect of a resumption of Australian uranium sales and other suppliers might also black-list Russia. Domestic mines currently supply about half of Russia's annual requirement of about 6,000 tonnes of uranium. Russia's involvement in overseas uranium projects might also come under scrutiny.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia poses several nuclear threats, including the possibility of deliberate or inadvertent military strikes or cyber-strikes on nuclear facilities.
There is also the obvious difficulty of safely operating nuclear reactors in a time of war, including the impossibility of carrying out safeguards inspections. Last but not least, there remains the possibility that the conflict will escalate into nuclear warfare.
We are about to learn what happens when nuclear-powered nations go to war, putting nuclear power plants at risk of deliberate or accidental military strikes and thus risking a Chernobyl scale catastrophe.
Retaliation
It seems highly unlikely that either nation--or any sub-national groups--would deliberately target nuclear reactors or spent fuel stores in the current conflict. But assuming there is a 'gentleman's agreement' not to target nuclear power plants, how long would that agreement hold in a war that dragged on for years?
Either nation might choose to shut down its reactors in order to minimise risks. That would be a manageable and wise decision for a country with limited reliance on nuclear power--but it would be impractical for countries with a heavy reliance.
In any case, the radioactive reactor cores--whether kept in situ or removed from the reactors--would remain vulnerable, as would nuclear waste stores. Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores often contain more radioactivity than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.
And if there is an attack on a reactor or spent fuel store resulting in a Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophe--whether deliberate or accidental, whether instigated by a nation-state or extra-state group--disaster response measures would likely be chaotic and woefully inadequate.
A strike on one warring nation's nuclear reactors or waste stores could result in like-for-like retaliation. Rinse and repeat until multiple Chernobyl or Fukushima scale catastrophes are unfolding simultaneously.
Conflict
Even if catastrophe was averted, the wisdom of operating nuclear power reactors would be reconsidered in the aftermath of war. The warring nations--and many others besides--would likely reduce their reliance on nuclear power or abandon it altogether.
Nuclear power plants are pre-deployed radiological weapons. Put bluntly, humanity might have the wisdom to phase out the use of pre-deployed radiological weapons for electricity generation before nuclear-powered nations go to war and deliberately or inadvertently cause nuclear catastrophes.
The Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days.
Or we might have to learn the hard way that using pre-deployed radiological weapons to boil water wasn't such a great idea after all. All the more so given the manifold connections between the 'peaceful atom' and nuclear weapons programs.
The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine provides a test-case of the above war-gaming. The worst-case scenario of nuclear-powered nations at war would involve evenly matched adversaries fighting a long war. The current conflict isn't so much a war as an invasion of a weaker nation-state by a powerful adversary.
Most likely it will not drag on for years as some wars do. That said, simmering conflict stretching on for years is likely, so nuclear plants will remain at risk.
Disaster
Russia has several thousand nuclear weapons. Ukraine ceded ownership and control of nuclear weapons located in Ukraine to Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War--although that hasn't stopped Putin invoking the spectre of a non-existent Ukrainian nuclear weapons program in recent days.
Russia's 38 reactors supply 20.6 percent of the country's electricity. Ukraine's 15 power reactors across at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country's electricity.
The risk of an inadvertent attack on reactors or nuclear waste stores is somewhat higher than a deliberate attack. Russia has just taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site. The reactors were all closed long ago, but high-level nuclear waste remains on site.
James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that Ukraine has constructed a nuclear waste storage facility at Chernobyl for spent fuel from other nuclear plants, but the introduction of spent fuel has probably not yet occurred. Nevertheless, spent fuel from the Chernobyl reactors is still located there.
It's conceivable that waste stored at Chernobyl could be hit if and when Ukraine attempts to take back control of the site. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could happen in Chernobyl. The containment dome over the infamous Chernobyl #4 reactor protects a huge inventory of radioactive material. The next Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster could involve the same reactor.
Dystopian
Incursions and fighting around the Chernobyl plant could also disperse existing contamination. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer recently noted in the Washington Post: "The delivery of air-to-surface munitions, artillery, mortar and multiple rocket-launcher fire in the Belarus-Ukraine border area could also disperse radioactive debris in the soil."
Craig Hooper, a senior contributor at Forbes writes: "The world has little experience with reactors in a war zone. Since humanity first harnessed the atom, the world has only experienced two 'major' accidents--Chernobyl and Japan's Fukushima disaster.
"A Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency 'Level 7' accidents in a matter of days. Such a contingency would induce a massive refugee exodus and could render much of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades.
"Turning the Ukraine into a dystopian landscape, pockmarked by radioactive exclusion zones, would be an extreme method to obtain the defensive zone Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to want. Managing a massive Western-focused migratory crisis and environmental cleanup would absorb Europe for years."
He adds: "Put bluntly, the integrity of Ukrainian nuclear reactors is a strategic matter, critical for both NATO and non-NATO countries alike.
Toxic
"It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilized trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any 'liberated' power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone."
Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, discussed the nuclear risks associated with the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a February 14 piece for Project Syndicate.
Ramberg writes: "Power plants are common targets in modern conflict, because destroying them inhibits a country's ability to carry on fighting. But nuclear reactors are not like other energy sources. They contain enormous amounts of radioactive material, which can be released in any number of ways.
"Aerial bombing or artillery fire, for example, could break a reactor's containment building or sever vital coolant lines that keep its core stable. So, too, could a cyberattack that interrupts plant operations, as would a disruption of offsite power that nuclear plants rely on to keep functioning.
"Were a reactor core to melt, explosive gases or belching radioactive debris would exit the containment structure. Once in the atmosphere, the effluents would settle over thousands of miles, dumping light to very toxic radioactive elements on urban and rural landscapes"
Detonate
Ramberg discusses the chaos that would ensue: "[R]eactor operators who might mitigate the fallout would be more prone to flee for fear of being shot or bombed. If a reactor is in the middle of a chaotic battlefield, there may not even be any first responders, and ill-informed populations hearing rumors would be on their own wandering--and panicking--in contaminated zones.
"After the guns went silent, Ukraine would be saddled with the long-lingering effects that follow from any nuclear accident. And, as Chernobyl demonstrated, it would not be alone. Radiation releases do not observe national borders, and Russia's proximity would make it a sink for radioactive aerosol deposits. ...
"Ukrainian anxieties about its nuclear vulnerability bubbled up in 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Concerned that further conflict could result in a reactor attack, it appealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Security Summit to help boost its defenses. Unfortunately, there is no defense that can withstand a Russian bombardment."
A deliberate attack on a nuclear plant would almost certainly be counter-productive, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Ramberg draws this comparison: "A case in point was the March 26, 2017, bombing of the Islamic State-held Tabqa Dam in Syria.
"Standing 18 stories high and holding back a 25-mile-long reservoir on the Euphrates River, the dam's destruction would have drowned tens of thousands of innocent people downstream. Yet, violating strict 'no-strike' orders and bypassing safeguards, US airmen struck it anyway. Dumb luck saved the day again: the bunker-busting bomb failed to detonate."
Triggers
There were reports in 2015 that a sabotage attack on power transmission towers forced emergency shutdowns of a number of reactors in Ukraine. However the source of the reports was rt.com, a Russian government mouthpiece which lacks credibility.
More generally, Russia seems to have wanted to highlight security and safety threats at nuclear plants in Ukraine since the 2014 invasion, while Ukraine has seemed keen to downplay any incidents - and highlight future risks in the event of an escalation of Russia's attacks. Where the truth lies, nobody knows: it is lost in the fog of the low-level warfare that has played out since 2014.
Cyber-warfare is another risk which could jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear plants. Russia is one of the growing number of states actively engaged in cyber-warfare. James Action notes that a Russian cyber-attack disrupted power supply in Ukraine in 2015.
Nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targets of cyber-attack, including the Stuxnet computer virus targeted by Israel and the US to disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2009. Reports from the UK-based Chatham House and the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative have identified multiple computer security concerns specific to nuclear power plants.
Putin reportedly has greater ambitions than invading and controlling Ukraine, so who knows where the escalation will lead, what risks will emerge, how long it will drag on, and whether it triggers a response from NATO countries and the US/NATO alliance more generally.
Posture
The risk of nuclear warfare is very low, but it is not zero. Perhaps the greatest risk is that one or another nuclear-armed nation will mistakenly believe itself to be under nuclear attack and respond in kind.
Near-misses have happened before. For example, in 1979, a US training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played. In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signalled the launch of a US missile. In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because of a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights.
It doesn't help that NATO and Russian military doctrines allow for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to fend off defeat in a major conventional war. It doesn't help that some missiles can carry either conventional weapons or nuclear weapons, increasing the risk of worst-case thinking and a precipitous over-reaction by the adversary.
And it doesn't help that Putin's recent statements could be construed as a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons, or that less than a week ago a referendum in Belarus revoked the nuclear-weapon-free pledge in its constitution, or that Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko recently joined Putin to watch the Russian military carry out a nuclear weapons exercise, or that Lukashenko has said Belarus would be open to hosting Russian nuclear weapons.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, points to other concerns. "Russia and Belarus are not alone in their aggressive and irresponsible posture either," she writes.
Explosions
"The United States continues to exploit a questionable reading of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that prevents states from 'possessing' nuclear weapons but allows them to host those weapons. Five European states currently host approximately 100 US nuclear weapons: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey ..."
In a worst-case scenario, the direct impacts of nuclear warfare would be followed by catastrophic climatic impacts.
Earth and paleoclimate scientist Andrew Glikson noted in a recent article: "When Turco et al. (1983) and Carl Sagan (1983) warned the world about the climatic effects of a nuclear war, they pointed out that the amount of carbon stored in a large city was sufficient to release enough aerosols, smoke, soot and dust to block sunlight over large regions, leading to a widespread failure of crops and extensive starvation.
"The current nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia could potentially inject 150 teragrams of soot from fires ignited by nuclear explosions into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, lasting for a period of 10 years or longer, followed by a period of intense radioactive radiation over large areas."
He added: "Such an extreme event would arrest global warming for 10 years or longer, possibly in part analogous to the consequences of a less abrupt flow of polar ice melt into the oceans ..."
Flimsiest
Richard Garwin poses these questions: "What happens with a failed state with a nuclear power system? Can the reactors be maintained safely? Will the world - under the IAEA and UN Security Council - move to guard nuclear installations against theft of weapon-usable material or sabotage, in the midst of chaos? Not likely."
There are examples of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards being suspended in the event of war or domestic political turmoil, including in Iraq in 1991, some African states, Yugoslavia, and most recently in Ukraine itself.
In 2014, Ukraine's ambassador to the IAEA circulated a letter to the organisation's board of governors warning that an invasion could bring a "threat of radiation contamination on the territory of Ukraine and the territory of neighbouring states." Ukraine's parliament called for international monitors to help protect the plants.
No special measures were put in place to safeguards nuclear facilities in Ukraine. IAEA safeguards inspections have been compromised in Crimea since Russia's 2014 invasion - indeed there may not have been any inspections whatsoever. IAEA safeguards inspections in eastern Ukraine have also been compromised as a result of Russia's 2014 invasion.
Thus the IAEA has been unable to conclude that all civil nuclear materials and facilities in Ukraine have remained in peaceful use. Not that such conclusions carry much weight: the IAEA routinely reaches comforting conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence.
Smuggled
Ukraine noted in its report to the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit that state nuclear inspectors were unable to safely perform their duties in Crimea and certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine's nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any regulation whatsoever of the country's ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Yet another problem is that the risk of nuclear smuggling could worsen. Former Soviet states have been at the heart of the global problem of nuclear smuggling since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In May 2014, Ukrainian authorities announced the seizure of radioactive material that had been smuggled into the country from a separatist region, and speculated that the intention may have been to use the material as a radiological weapon.
Scrutiny
Russia's invasion of Ukraine will adversely affect its nuclear export business. For example the planned Hanhikivi reactor in Finland is unlikely to proceed and the plan for two Russian reactors in Hungary might also be abandoned. Russian-led reactor construction projects in numerous other countries could be jeopardised.
Swedish utility Vattenfall announced there would be no more deliveries of nuclear fuel from Russia until further notice and that no new orders will be placed for fuel from Russia. There will likely be many similar announcements from countries, companies and utilities currently involved in civil nuclear trade with Russia.
Australian uranium exports to Russia were suspended in 2014 as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its threat to invade Georgia, and the downing of flight MH176. "Australia has no intention of selling uranium to a country which is so obviously in breach of international law as Russia currently is," Australia's prime minister told parliament.
There is no prospect of a resumption of Australian uranium sales and other suppliers might also black-list Russia. Domestic mines currently supply about half of Russia's annual requirement of about 6,000 tonnes of uranium. Russia's involvement in overseas uranium projects might also come under scrutiny.
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LATEST NEWS
Trump Admin Circulating Plan to Transform Depopulated Gaza Into High-Tech Cash Cow
Under the proposal, the US would take control after "voluntary" relocation of Palestinians from the strip, where proposed projects include an Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone and Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.
Sep 01, 2025
The White House is "circulating" a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into US President Donald Trump's vision of a high-tech "Riviera of the Middle East" brimming with private investment and replete with artificial intelligence-powered "smart cities."
That's according a 38-page prospectus for a proposed Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation (GREAT) Trust obtained by The Washington Post and published in a report on Sunday. Parts of the proposal were previously reported by the Financial Times.
"Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets... resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments," the prospectus states.
However, to journalist Hala Jaber, the plan amounts to "genocide packaged as real estate."
Here comes the Gaza Network State.A plan to turn Gaza into a privately-developed “gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” with “AI-powered smart cities” and “Trump Riviera” resortgift link:wapo.st/4g2eATo
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— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) August 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The GREAT Trust was drafted by some of the same Israelis behind the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution points in Gaza have been the sites of deliberate massacres and other incidents in which thousands of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
According to the Post, financial modeling for the GREAT Trust proposal "was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group"—which played a key role in creating GHF. BCG told the Post that the firm did not approve work on the trust plan, and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently terminated.
The GREAT Trust envisions "a US-led multirlateral custodianship" lasting a decade or longer and leading to "a reformed Palestinian self-governance after Gaza is "demilitarized and de-radicalized."
Josh Paul—a former US State Department official who resigned in October 2023 over the Biden administration's decision to sell more arms to Israel as it waged a war on Gaza increasingly viewed by experts as genocidal—told Democracy Now! last week that Trump's plan for Gaza is "essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate" colonialism.
The GREAT Trust contains two proposals for Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians. Under one plan, approximately 75% of Gaza's population would remain in the strip during its transformation. The second proposal involves up to 500,000 Gazans relocating to third countries, 75% of them permanently.
The prospectus does not say how many Palestinians would leave Gaza under the relocation option. Those who choose to permanently relocate to other unspecified countries would each receive $5,000 plus four years of subsidized rent and subsidized food for a year.
The GREAT Trust allocates $6 billion for temporary housing for Palestinians who remain in Gaza and $5 billion for those who relocate.
The proposal projects huge profits for investors—nearly four times the return on investment and annual revenue of $4.5 billion within a decade. The project would be a boon for companies ranging from builders including Saudi bin Laden Group, infrastructure specialists like IKEA, the mercenary firm Academi (formerly Blackwater), US military contractor CACI—which last year was found liable for torturing Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison—electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, tech firms such as Amazon, and hoteliers Mandarin Oriental and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
Central to the plan are 10 "megaprojects," including half a dozen "smart cities," a regional logistics hub to be build over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah, a central highway named after Saudi Crown Prime Mohammed bin Salman—Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states feature prominently in the proposal as investors—large-scale solar and desalinization plants, a US data safe haven, an "Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone," and "Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands" similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai.
In addition to "massive" financial gains for private US investors, the GREAT Trust lists strategic benefits for the United States that would enable it to "strengthen" its "hold in the east Mediterranean and secure US industry access to $1.3 trillion of rare-earth minerals from the Gulf."
Earlier this year, Trump said the US would "take over" Gaza, American real estate developers would "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" atop its ruins after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal exclave. The president called for the "voluntary" transfer of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, both of whose leaders vehemently rejected the plan.
"Voluntary emigration" is widely considered a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' general unwillingness to leave their homeland.
According to a May survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gazans expressed a willingness to apply for Israeli assistance to relocate to other countries. However, many Gazans say they would never leave the strip, where most inhabitants are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
"I'm staying in a partially destroyed house in Khan Younis now," one Gazan man told the Post. "But we could renovate. I refuse to be made to go to another country, Muslim or not. This is my homeland."
The Post report follows a meeting last Wednesday at the White House, where Trump, senior administration officials, and invited guests including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, investor and real estate developer Jared Kushner—who is also the president's son-in-law—and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer discussed Gaza's future.
While Dermer reportedly claimed that Israel does not seek to permanently occupy Gaza, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—have said they will conquer the entire strip and keep at least large parts of it.
"We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said. "On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
The Israel Knesset also recently hosted a conference called "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality" where participants openly discussed the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
The publication of the GREAT Trust comes as Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City amid a growing engineered famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands of more. Israel's 696-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 233,200 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures are seen as a likely undercount by experts.
'Endangering Every American's Health': 9 Former CDC Chiefs Sound Alarm on RFK Jr.
Their "astonishing, powerful op-ed," said one professor, "drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost."
Sep 01, 2025
Nearly every living former director or acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the past half-century took to the pages of The New York Times on Monday to jointly argue that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "is endangering every American's health."
"Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the CDC, the world's preeminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations," Drs. William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy Cohen highlighted.
What RFK Jr. "has done to the CDC and to our nation's public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced," the nine former agency leaders wrote.
Known for spreading misinformation about vaccines and a series of scandals, Kennedy was a controversial figure long before President Donald Trump chose him to lead HHS—a decision that Senate Republicans affirmed in February. However, in the wake of Monarez's ouster, fresh calls for him to resign or be fired have mounted.
This is powerful. Nine former CDC leaders just came together to defend SCIENCE.Maybe it’s time we LISTEN TO THEM—not the loud voices spreading MISINFORMATION.Science saves lives. Lies cost themwww.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
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— Krutika Kuppalli, MD FIDSA (@krutikakuppalli.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 10:35 AM
As the ex-directors detailed:
Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven "treatments" while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of US support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez—which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
Monarez was nominated by Trump, and was confirmed by Senate Republicans in late July. As the op-ed authors noted, she was forced out by RFK Jr. just weeks later, after she reportedly refused "to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior CDC staff members."
"These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a CDC director," they wrote. "Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary's demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities."
After Monarez's exit, Trump tapped Jim O'Neill, an RFK Jr. aide and biotech investor, as the CDC's interim director. Critics including Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's health research group, warn that "unlike Susan Monarez, O'Neill is likely to rubber-stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy's handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity."
The agency's former directors didn't address O'Neill, but they wrote: "To those on the CDC staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it's clear that the agency is hurting badly."
"We have a message for the rest of the nation as well: This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American," they continued. The experts called on Congress to "exercise its oversight authority over HHS," and state and local governments to "fill funding gaps where they can." They also urged philanthropy, the private sector, medical groups, and physicians to boost investments, "continue to stand up for science and truth," and support patients "with sound guidance and empathy."
Doctors, researchers, journalists, and others called their "must-read" piece "extraordinary" and "important."
"Just an astonishing, powerful op-ed that drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost," said University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman. "We are so incredibly fortunate to live with the advances [of] modern medicine and health science. Destroying and stymying it is just unforgivable."
'Brazenly Anti-Worker': Labor Day Reports Highlight Trump Attacks on Unions
"This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.
Sep 01, 2025
Although US President Donald Trump's administration likes to boast that he puts "American workers first," several news reports published on Monday document the president's attacks on the rights of working people and labor unions.
As longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse explained in The Guardian, Trump throughout his second term has "taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous."
Among other things, Greenhouse cited Trump's decision to halt a regulation intended to protect coal miners from lung disease, as well as his decision to strip a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, told Greenhouse that Trump's actions amount to a "big betrayal" of his promises to look out for US workers during the 2024 presidential campaign.
"His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious," she said. "He talks a good game of being for working people, but he's doing the absolute opposite. This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires."
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, similarly told Greenhouse that Trump has been "absolutely, brazenly anti-worker," and she cited him ripping away an increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors that had been enacted by former President Joe Biden as a prime example.
"The minimum wage is incredibly popular," she said. "He just took away the minimum wage from hundreds of thousands of workers. That blew my mind."
NPR published its own Labor Day report that zeroed in on how the president is "decimating" federal employee unions by issuing March and August executive orders stripping them of the power to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
So far, nine federal agencies have canceled their union contracts as a result of the orders, which are based on a provision in federal law that gives the president the power to terminate collective bargaining at agencies that are primarily involved with national security.
The Trump administration has embraced a maximalist interpretation of this power and has demanded the end of collective bargaining at departments that aren't primarily known as national security agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service.
However, Trump's attacks on organized labor haven't completely intimidated government workers from joining unions. As the Los Angeles Times reported, the Trump administration's cuts to the National Park Service earlier this year inspired hundreds of workers at the California-based Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks to unionize.
Although labor organizers had been trying unsuccessfully for years to get park workers to sign on, that changed when the Trump administration took a hatchet to parks' budgets and enacted mass layoffs.
"More than 97% of employees at Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks who cast ballots voted to unionize, with results certified last week," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "More than 600 staffers—including interpretive park rangers, biologists, firefighters, and fee collectors—are now represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees."
Even so, many workers who succeed in forming unions may no longer get their grievances heard given the state of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
As documented by Timothy Noah in The New Republic, the NLRB is now "hanging by a thread" in the wake of a court ruling that declared the board's structure to be unconstitutional because it barred the president from being able to fire NLRB administrative judges at will.
"The ruling doesn't shut down the NLRB entirely because it applies only to cases in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, where the 5th Circuit has jurisdiction," Noah explained. "But Jennifer Abruzzo, who was President Joe Biden's NLRB general counsel, told me that the decision will 'open the floodgates for employers to forum-shop and seek to get injunctions' in those three states."
Noah noted that this lawsuit was brought in part by SpaceX owner and one-time Trump ally Elon Musk, and he accused the Trump NLRB of waging a "half-hearted" fight against Musk's attack on workers' rights.
Thanks to Trump and Musk's actions, Noah concluded, American oligarchs "can toast the NLRB's imminent destruction."
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