UK and US helped Ukraine plan ‘new Chernobyl’ – Russian intel chief
British and American spies helped Ukraine develop plans for blowing up the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, which would have plunged Europe into another radiation nightmare, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has said.
Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia’s Kursk Region in August, but were stopped short of the nuclear plant in Kurchatov. Speaking at a meeting of intelligence and security principals of post-Soviet states in Astana last week, Naryshkin revealed the West’s disturbing plan for the facility.
“According to intelligence obtained by the SVR, the planned terrorist attack included taking and mining the Kursk NPP,” he said, according to remarks made public on Monday.
”Had they been able to carry it out, Europe would have faced an environmental and humanitarian disaster comparable to Chernobyl,” Naryshkin added.
A 1986 accident at the Chernobyl NPP caused one of its reactors to explode and catch fire, forcing the evacuation of the town of Pripyat and the creation of a 30km exclusion zone on the border between present-day Ukraine and Belarus. Radioactive fallout from the blaze was carried by the wind all the way to Scotland.
According to Naryshkin, British and American intelligence have provided Ukraine with information that allowed it to attack Russian civilian infrastructure, including high-resolution satellite imagery of border regions. Ukrainian artillery used this information to carry out strikes with rockets and drones.
”Available intelligence indicates that Western intelligence agencies, primarily the British MI6, have systematically prepared Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups to organize provocations at a number of nuclear power plants in Russia,” the SVR head claimed, alleging that the British spies and their Ukrainian counterparts were “developing an operation to blow up power lines connecting nuclear power plants with the Russian national energy grid.”
The Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar has been a target of Ukrainian attacks since mid-2022. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant eventually had to shut down due to the hazards, which included drones, rockets, loss of water for its cooling systems and even an amphibious assault by Ukrainian commandos in October 2022.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observers deployed on site have repeatedly acknowledged attacks on the ZNPP, but have refused to identify who is responsible. Russia has described the attacks as an attempt at “nuclear blackmail,” while Ukraine has alleged that Moscow is shelling the plant to defame Kiev.
