We republish a blitz interview of Forbes with a former member of the board of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) Olga Kosharna about her impressions of the IAEA report. The expert also answers the question why a “cold shutdown” for ZNPP is optimal today.

I did not expect such a report, I thought it would be more compromise. We received an objective and detailed report. We got the maximum of this mission.

The most important is:

·   The IAEA has established a permanent representation at the plant consisting of two experts with their changover.

·  The IAEA has defined the presence of Russian military personnel, military equipment, employees of Rosatom at the station, who can interfere with the operation of the nuclear power plant.

·  The IAEA has recorded a decrease in the number of operational personnel at the plant and an increase of their loading, which increases the risks of an emergency.

·  The IAEA called for the creation of a demilitarized security zone at the ZNPP.

·  The report was presented at the UN Security Council. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stressed that for the first time in history, mankind has the opportunity to prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

This document is the basis for the future demilitarization of ZNPP. The UN reaction to the report was unanimous - all countries stressed that the situation is critical, it is necessary to immediately withdraw the Russians from the station. Nobody believes Russia's lies.

Our diplomats must do everything possible to ensure that the UN sends peacekeeping forces to the plant, and the Russia's veto is limited.

The mission should have been carried out earlier, but our Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko and the head of Energoatom Petro Kotin were for some reason against it.

This is complete nonsense. When a mission is invited, the list of experts is agreed upon by the receiving party, which has the right not to admit one or another expert. Why Halushchenko was against the mission is not clear at all.

Before the arrival of the mission, Ukraine set a condition that there would not be a single Russian or associated with Russia expert in the delegation. Moreover, Ukrainian intelligence checked every expert of the mission, as far as I know.

The IAEA indicates that 40% of the positions in the station's physical protection zone are not staffed, the station's fire brigade consists of only 80 people instead of the usual 150. The radiation safety department is staffed by 90%. The staff for emergency response for three shifts should include 1230 people, now - only 907 employees.

This is a huge problem. We may be faced with the fact that in the event of an emergency at the workplace, there simply will be no right specialists.

The employees are tired and work under constant stress. This significantly increases the possibility of human errors.

Another problem is that the Russians have seized the emergency center and do not let employees go there. This is a bunker that has the necessary equipment to control the station in case of an accident.

All license conditions have been violated at ZNPP. The physical integrity of the plant has been violated. After the emergency stop, the power units are connected without investigations, which is also a violation.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Authority should have transferred all nuclear power units of the plant to the “cold shutdown” mode long ago.

If an incident occurs at the station, Ukraine will bear full responsibility for the consequences. ZNPP is located in the legal field of Ukraine.

Over the past two weeks, there have been three emergency shutdowns of the fifth power unit, and Energoatom is turning it on again. Well, how can this be explained?

If the station loses external power supply, an emergency shutdown of the power unit occurs. Diesel generators are switched on to cool the nuclear fuel.

 If for some reason the diesel generators do not turn on, then the reactor core melts down in 3-6 hours and a nuclear accident occurs. Such a scenario took place in 2011 at the Fukusima nuclear power plant.

If the power units are in the “cold shutdown” state - with the same circumstances, we have 27 hours before the accident.

This is a huge difference. In 27 hours, diesel fuel can be brought in, power lines can be repaired. In addition, in the “cold shutdown” mode, the amount of radioactivity is ten times less.

Not sure that we will need ZNPP in winter. Nine power units of our nuclear power plants in the territory under our control will provide a sufficient amount of base load.

Our main problem in winter is balancing consumption peaks. This is the responsibility of the coal-fired thermal power plants. We have lost the Uglegorsk, Zaporizhzhia, Slavyansk and Luhansk TPPs. A number of combined heat and power plants on the front line, which, in addition to heat, also generated electricity. Besides this year, we have a severe drought, and “Ukrhydroenergo” has significantly reduced the production of electricity at hydroelectric power plants and pumped storage power plants because of this. Whether they will be able to handle the daily maneuvering is hard to say. Most likely, not in the same volume as it was last year, even in November and December.

The government also does not exclude that Ukraine will import electricity in winter. Therefore, the only explanation why the ZNPP is not shut down is the desire to make money on the export of electricity to the EU.

No, the Russians abandoned this idea. As soon as they restored the “Dzhankoy-Kakhovska” line, the next day a power line pole fell.

As soon as they announced their plans to send electricity from the Crimea to the Zaporizhzhia NPP, in order to ensure the plant’s in-house power supply during its shutdown, the transformer substation in Dzhankoy burned down. The Russians realized that the supports would fall, the substations would burn, so they abandoned this idea.

What is the reason for the shelling of the station and power lines? It is chantage.