The alleged Ukrainian plot to attack Russian nuclear power plants demonstrates Kiev’s desperation and warrants a “full force” response from Moscow, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT on Saturday.
In a report on Friday, Russian military journalist Marat Khairullin claimed that Kiev was “preparing a nuclear false flag – an explosion of a dirty atomic bomb” which would target “the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant.” The attack would reportedly be launched on either the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Energodar – also not far from the frontline – or the Kursk NPP in Kurchatov, and then blamed on Russia.
“This is pretty serious, if true. To play this nuclear gamble is quite serious indeed,” Maloof told RT. “This is Kiev’s effort to gain leverage, knowing that its own back is against the wall. This is desperation, but going the nuclear route would not only create an immediate problem in that region, but throughout all of Europe, so I think that this is really draconian, if that’s indeed what the Ukrainians have in mind.”
The threat is made more pressing by the fact that the Ukrainian military has weapons – including drones and American-supplied HIMARS rockets – capable of reaching both plants, Maloof continued.
Moscow should therefore take “pre-emptive action” and target Ukrainian military sites within range of the facilities, the former security policy analyst suggested.
In a statement on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that any attempt by Kiev to create a nuclear disaster would be met with “tough military and military-technical countermeasures.”
By “dangling the nuclear threat in front of everyone,” Ukraine aims to force Russia to the negotiating table on its own terms, Maloof claimed. With Russian forces winning the battle of attrition in the Donbass, Kiev “knows it has no alternatives” and wants “to have things a little more favorable and have that leverage that they need in order to negotiate,” he added.
The Ukrainian military has repeatedly attacked the Zaporozhye NPP since it was seized by Russian forces in 2022. A drone attack on the plant last week caused a fire inside one of the facility’s cooling towers, forcing technicians to place the NPP’s six reactors in a state of “cold shutdown.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly condemned attacks on the Zaporozhye plant, but has refused to pin the blame on Ukrainian forces. Kiev denies any plant to carry out a false-flag attack on either the Zaporozhye or Kursk plants; Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accused Russia of setting fire to its own nuclear plant last week.