‘A nuclear apocalypse is not only possible, but also quite probable’. This was said by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, on his Telegram channel.
According to the former Kremlin leader, president of the Russian Federation between 2008 and 2012, there are ‘at least two reasons’.
Firstly, says Medvedev quoting an article from a Russian newspaper, ‘the world is engaged in a much worse confrontation than during the Caribbean crisis, because our adversaries have decided to defeat the greatest nuclear power: Russia. They are undoubtedly penniless idiots’.
And on the second reason, he adds: ‘Nuclear weapons have already been used. Which means there are no taboos’.
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Moscow’s targeted attack
This is not the first time that Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict in Ukraine.
Yesterday, Kiev, through the words of its leader Volodymyr Zelensky, hinted at concern over the attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where Ukrainians fear that Russia wants to trigger a ‘controlled nuclear explosion’.
The hypothesis that, according to Kiev, Russia is thinking about is a targeted attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The aim could be to re-enact what happened at the Chernobyl plant – also located in Ukraine – in 1986, when the explosion of reactor number 4 gave rise to the worst nuclear accident in history.
Actually, the Courier explains today, speaking of a ‘controlled’ explosion is misleading. Thus because there is no way to control the radioactive cloud that would inevitably be released from the plant in the event of a targeted attack.
On the contrary, Russia itself could be reached by the radiation, since weather conditions are only partially predictable.
The Zaporizhzhia power plant
With its reactors, the Zaporizhzhia plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Before the conflict broke out, it supplied about half of the electricity needs of the entire Ukraine.
And this is precisely why the plant became a target of the Russian army from the first weeks of the war.
The plant has been visited several times by inspectors from the IAEA – the International Atomic Energy Agency. And, it has been hit on several occasions by bullets of various sizes.
So far, however, nothing that could really point to a nuclear disaster. Thus considering that the plant is designed to withstand far greater impacts, potentially even the crash of a plane.
Read also: Russia deploys ‘non-strategic’ nuclear weapons to Belarus: what are they
