okay the world narrowly escaped a
nuclear catastrophe last night that's
what the u.s ambassador to the u.n said
today after russian forces attacked and
seized the largest nuclear power plant
in europe located in southern ukraine
now a live stream from the plant
security camera you can see it right
there captured a bright flash from a
flare-like projectile as well as two
blasts and munition fire at the complex
the international atomic agency
confirmed that russian forces had struck
a building causing a fire that raged for
almost five hours that was according to
a plant spokesperson russian troops even
shot at the firefighters who arrived to
put out the blaze now as this was
unfolding president zielinski warned
that if there is an explosion
that's the end for everyone do not let
europe die from a nuclear catastrophe
that's what he pleaded now thankfully
the fire was limited to a training
facility and no radiation has been
detected since the attack so far however
the risk of a radiological disaster is
raising serious alarm around the world
as it should the u.s embassy in ukraine
said this morning it is a war crime to
attack a nuclear power plant and
ukraine's ambassador to the u.n today
accused russia of nuclear terrorism now
of course ukraine is intimately familiar
with the risk of a nuclear meltdown
given of course the 1986 disaster at
chernobyl now in that case radioactive
fallout spread as far as sweden and that
was just within two days
but while the plant under attack last
night is far safer experts say they're
simply just not designed to withstand a
military assault with russian troops in
control ukrainian workers are operating
the facility at gunpoint at gunpoint
that's according to the head of the
company with me now is joe sincerione
distinguished fellow at the quincy
institute for a responsible state craft
and author of nuclear nightmare securing
the world before it is too late and
gregory yasko former chairman of the u.s
nuclear regulatory commission and author
of confessions of a rogue nuclear
regulator so happy to have both you
gentlemen with me joe i want to kick it
off with you i know uh that experts are
saying we're safe for now and you know
that things are fine but i want you to
walk us through what potentially could
have happened
by russians striking uh this nuclear
power plant
well we dodged a nuclear bullet last
night and i'm with our un ambassador
thomas greenfield who said that we
narrowly dodged a nuclear catastrophe i
also agree with the
director general of the international
atomic energy agency who said he was
extremely concerned that there was a
severe risk of a mass casualty event at
that basically what happened was
fortunately the attack was limited so
even though we're shooting flares as
you're seeing here into a nuclear
facility that there's volleys of heavy
caliber machine gun fire that it didn't
hit the containment facility now
this is a strong reinforced concrete
containment facility around these six
reactors but there's not a facility in
the world that's designed to withstand a
tank attack artillery attack mortar
attack uh the real danger for me wasn't
so much that that the the the
infrastructure would be damaged is that
in the course of this you might cut off
the electrical supply to this facility
now there's a backup supply
but that could have been damaged too in
this kind of attack and you might then
have a fukushima type event where the
coolant is unable to get into the
reactor the fuel rods overheat they
melt down a meltdown a molten uranium
then sinks into the ground and you have
the spread of radioactivity in the
ground in the in the water supply and if
hydrogen gas builds up in the
containment vessels so you could see an
explosion like we had in fukushima and
then it could go into the air as as well
all of these things are possible which
is why it's against international law to
attack a nuclear power plant there's a
geneva a convention prohibiting this
russia was a signatory to this it was
another example of russia blake breaking
international law violating global norms
i agree this was a terrorist attack on a
nuclear plant the terrorists happened to
be wearing russian army uniforms
wow and a bit before i bring in greg joe
i just want to follow up with you
because you're painting the picture of
what could have happened which i
appreciate when you say that it could
have gotten into the air i just want to
punctuate this point for our viewers
let's say it did get into the air what
happens when human beings make contact
with that air what's the human cost of
that
if you're if you're very close to this
like people were in chernobyl you die
you know yeah
you die if you're farther downstream it
doesn't kill you immediately but even a
small amount of these highly radioactive
particles in in the in the fuel that
will then be vaporized and put into the
air would get inside you and give you
cancer you wouldn't die immediately but
you would die over years that's the
danger of something
like this
yeah so so at worst mass human casualty
immediately uh at best if there is such
a thing a a slow death which is uh quite
frightening greg i know that experts are
saying that we're um in the clear but
are we in the clear in perpetuity you
know um you know maybe because we are
not seeing any um fallout from this yet
does that mean that we can all
collectively breathe a sigh of relief or
should we remain on high alert
yeah i mean this situation is not going
to be over really until the war is over
because
these reactors are a critical piece of
the infrastructure the electricity
infrastructure in ukraine so controlling
them is extremely important obviously
for both sides so i suspect that russian
forces will attempt to
to control all the reactor sites in the
country they they provide almost 50
percent of the electricity uh in the
ukraine so they're really vital for for
the country
and
one of the things that you know
obviously we get a lot of focus a lot of
attention on incidents like last night
where you have fires and you have these
kinds of shelling activities
but long term the operation of these
reactors is extremely unclear will it be
ukrainian uh
operators operating like normal or
operating at gunpoint or operating in
very precarious situations all of those
factors become very very important not
just in the next several days but over
weeks and months as this potential uh
incursion continues
yeah and i want to talk to you about
that greg because like we said in open
the internet uh the international atomic
energy agency has said that there are
people working in these facilities at
gunpoint they have not had a shift
change uh
in over a week and i think about people
who work in high stress jobs like
doctors and pilots you know there's a
limit to how long they work um and
working you know in these extended times
at gunpoint nonetheless
what danger does that pose
yeah i mean these crews have to be able
to operate at optimal efficiency and
when they're operating under the
conditions that they're operating on and
many of them potentially have loved ones
who are in harm's way because of the
fighting or they may have homes that are
impacted or damaged this is a very very
challenging situation so that all goes
to their performance and we know that
you know a crucial element when it comes
to maintaining safe nuclear reactors is
that the operators perform at an optimal
level and many reactor operators are
very highly trained they're they're very
good at what they do but they can make
mistakes and the more that they're
operating under these very very
challenging conditions the more
that they have the likelihood of making
mistakes or of operating incorrectly
[Music]
you