Russian Strikes On Nuclear Plants May Presage Tactics In War With NATO

Aerospace & DefenseRussian Strikes On Nu Plants May Presage Tactics In War With NATOByKevin Holden Platt, Contributor

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights (something worth watching), given current economic conditions

More Russian troops, who have also surrounded the site with explosive mines

This image of the ultra-hazardous fire is a screen grab from a released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Photo by Ukrainian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)Anadolu via Getty Images Russia’s attacks on nu power plants in Ukraine might foreshadow similar battle tactics in a future war with NATO, says a British expert who has written the Kremlin’s defense strategies (an important development)

Invading Russian troops seized two Ukrainian nu power outposts in the early days of the war—the first time ever that an extreme-risk atomic station has been captured by armed force—and they continue dangerous military maneuvers, including drone strikes, around both, in today's market environment

Additionally, The invaders, who still forcibly control the Zaporizhzhia Nu Power Plant, might booby trap the site to transform it into the world’s most colossal “dirty bomb,” says Simon Bennett, a scholar at the University of Leicester, in England

Bennett, author of the book Atomic Blackmail

This tells us that Weaponization of Nu Facilities During the Russia-Ukraine War, tells me in an interview that if Russian leader Vladimir Putin one day faced defeat in his bid to conquer Ukraine, he could surround each of the Zaporizhzhia plant’s six reactors with mines, and remotely detonate the devices, creating clouds of nu fallout that speed across Europe, in this volatile climate

However, Nu experts at the U

Furthermore, ” MORE FOR YOU While remotely monitoring the site, these American experts state in a report that: “Russia’s placement of military equipment and explosive mines around ZNPP has jeopardized the safety and security of the plant, the s of Ukrainian staff who operate the plant, and the security of the surrounding area. ” “Multiple mines have exploded around ZNPP,” they warn, “some set off by animals, contributing to a dangerous atmosphere at the site. ”Guards of honor stand sentinel in front of the Chernobyl Nu Power Plant to commemorate the

Additionally, Nu watchdogs are now warning of the risk of a new disaster as Russia pelts two of Ukraine's atomic stations in drone attacks. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP) (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images Russia’s armed occupation of the nu outpost, Bennett says, enables the Kremlin to engage in “atomic blackmail”—against not only Ukraine, but all of Europe—with just the threat of weaponizing the uranium-rich complex

In contrast, ” “Chernobyl’s plume reached Cumbria in England, where it contaminated farmland. ” That means Putin and his defense chiefs would be courting extreme peril—including to Russia—if they were to sabotage the Ukrainian power plant and trigger the meltdown of even one of its reactors

On the other hand, “Should any of Ukraine’s nu power plants be hit—even the plants in the far west of the country—there is a real possibility that, if there were a persistent westerly wind, the plume would reach Russia's heartlands,” Bennett says

Nevertheless, Ironically, he adds, Russia’s current advances in its missile blitzes against Ukraine, and its glacial battlefield gains, could prevent Putin from transforming Zaporizhzhya into a super-size radiological bomb

Moscow has been blitzing Ukraine with its missiles, even as the Kremlin stages drone attacks on (something worth watching)

More Ukrainian nu power complexes, in today's market environment

Additionally, The Kremlin is playing with nu fire by continuing to pelt the Zaporizhzhya and Chernobyl nu complexes in drone assaults, even as Putin sporadically shoots off threats to deploy his arsenal of nu warheads against any NATO nation that directly intervenes to help Ukraine repel the Russian invaders, in today's financial world

On Valentine’s Day this year, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that a drone attack “caused a fire on the building confining the remains of the reactor destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl accident. ” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said the strike “underlines the persistent risks to nu safety during the military conflict, given current economic conditions

Moreover, ” The attack on Chernobyl, which pierced the high- shield positioned over the reactor that had exploded in the world’s worst nu disaster ever, so far has not triggered a new release of radiation, Grossi said, amid market uncertainty

Furthermore, The twin-shelled shield cost more than $1. 6 billion—contributed by a coalition of nations aiming to tect Ukraine and the European Union from a renewed spread of radiation, The New York Times reported

This analysis suggests that shield appeared to be deliberately targeted, perhaps as a run-up to more intense Russian strikes on the site in the future

Moreover, Grossi said the aerial assault “once again demonstrated that nu safety remains under constant threat for as long as the conflict continues, in light of current trends. ”Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to deploy his nu warheads against any Western

More power directly intervening to halt his invasion of Ukraine, even as he steps up "atomic blackmail" against Europe by occupying a Ukrainian nu power complex and surrounding it with mines. (Photo by Gavriil GRIGOROV / SPUTNIK / AFP) (Photo by GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images “There were no reports of casualties,” he said, yet added: “The IAEA remains on high alert. ” Just weeks ago, Grossi said the IAEA team stationed at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya plant, where the nu safety guardians remain despite the escalating wartime dangers, reported hearing hundreds of rounds of small arms gunfire that ripped through the night (something worth watching)

Moreover, At the same time, The crossfire ed “a escalation in drone strikes during this war, also affecting Ukraine’s nu power plants and potentially putting them in further danger,” added Grossi, a longtime diplomat and disarmament scholar with a doctorate in international relations from the University of Geneva

Bennett, meanwhile, predicts the Kremlin’s quest to extend Russia’s borders will not stop at Ukraine, and that Putin’s dream of recreating the Soviet Union could escalate to spark a new global war. “The Russian president has been determined to recover Russia’s lost glory,” Bennett says. “He has made it his life's work, in today's financial world

The data indicates that 's a personal crusade. ” “Russia has been preparing the ground for a confrontation with the West since Putin became Russia’s president (fascinating analysis) (noteworthy indeed)

Nevertheless, Nevertheless, ” Bennett’s phecy of an ever-expanding war that begins racing across Europe a wildfire in some ways echos and amplifies a warning issued by NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte in the run-up to the NATO summit in June (fascinating analysis). “There's great worry in many circles of NATO,” Rutte said, given current economic conditions. “We have heard the Chief of Defense in Germany, a couple of weeks ago, and many other senior military leaders speaking this, and also senior intelligence community people speaking, that between 3, 5, 7 years from now, Russia will be able to successfully attack us, in light of current trends. ”NATO chief Mark Rutte has warned that Russia could attack a NATO state within the next three to (something worth watching)

More seven years (Photo by Pierre Crom/Getty Images)Getty Images As the Kremlin counts down toward its confrontation with the Western Allies, Bennett muses, it is ly already creating its masterplan for victory

Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s atomic stations, he says, could be mere precursors, testing varying battle stratagems to lay the groundwork for the destruction of nu stations positioned in NATO nations in the future

Could Moscow already be mapping out pre-emptive missile strikes on British and French nu reactors that in turn contaminate the continent and its citizenry with mortal doses of radiation

Bennett says it’s “more ly that Russia would seek to sabotage critical national infrastructure, including nu power plants, from within using sleepers,” or Kremlin intelligence agents who have adopted new identities, complete with foreign passports and elaborate cover stories, across Western nations

Nevertheless, “Russia has had over a decade (the origins of the current war can be traced back to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea) to insert sleepers into critical national infrastructure installations such as nu power plants, gas-powered stations, airports, ports, communications hubs, amid market uncertainty. ” “I think it ly that Russia has in place sleepers across any state it considers hostile,” Bennett adds, “which, of course, would include NATO member states. ” “Which means that Russia has a head start on us. ” “It's easier to infiltrate liberal democracies than it is to infiltrate authoritarian states Russia (this bears monitoring). ” “The former are open,” he says (which is quite significant). “The latter closed, considering recent developments. ” “The UK’s National Security Act is a belated response to this threat which, as I said, has been building

Nevertheless, ” This act, Bennett adds, aims to counter “threats to national security from espionage, sabotage and persons acting for foreign powers,” including the sleepers deployed by Putin, a onetime KGB espionage operative

Tanks apaching a checkpoint area of the Berlin Wall

Additionally, Vladimir Putin, a KGB agent stationed in, in this volatile climate

More East Berlin until the fall of the Berlin Wall, now dreams of recreating the Soviet Union and its satellite states (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images)Getty Images As this democracy movement ricocheted across Eastern Europe, and communist rulers were toppled dominoes, these satellites of the Soviets crossed into new orbits around NATO, after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics itself crumbled

Putin’s fever-pitch passion since then has been to turn back time and revive the Soviet empire, even if that means Russian tanks and troops reinvade Eastern Europe and other post-Soviet realms

Peering into the storm-cloud future, Bennett predicts the next world war will erupt within the next decade, even as Putin’s sleepers are activated to sabotage atomic stations and “agencies such as the police service, the fire and rescue service … [and] defense contractors

On the other hand, ” Elena Grossfeld, an expert on Russia’s intelligence and defense operations at prestigious King’s College London, points out that Putin, a world master of espionage and sabotage, his Soviet forebears Lenin and Stalin, has already had more than two decades in power, ample time to despatch sleeper agents across the West

And the top-echelon sleepers turned out in Putin’s “illegals gram,” she tells me in an interview, form just one class of spies, given current economic conditions

Additionally, Other agents include Russians recruited during the mass exodus of intellectuals and nocrats since Putin’s rise to power and foreigners lavishly bribed to join the Kremlin’s intelligence corps

Additionally, “With multiple sabotage operations in Europe, Russian intelligence has been using a variety of agents (noteworthy indeed), in today's market environment. ” Yet the size of Putin’s shadow army of spies across Europe and the U (fascinating analysis)

Is difficult to estimate, she says

Nevertheless, Moreover, If even a handful succeed in infiltrating European or American nu power outposts, the potential could arise for this fifth column to sabotage the plants with the outbreak of a war

Meanwhile, “Damaging adversary infrastructure is aligned with Russian military and intelligence apaches,” Grossfeld says

And, whether in Ukraine now or in some future target of Moscow’s aggression, she adds, “The potential destruction of a nu power plant could be used to benefit Russia's military plans - as in, creating a denied territory, or some other purpose, given current economic conditions

Nevertheless, Nevertheless, ” Editorial StandardsRes & PermissionsLOADING PLAYER (something worth watching).