Blog post by Andrei Talevlin, 25.04.2025

Photo: Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant / Photo by Konstantin Mikhalchevsky, RIA Novosti

Due to the explosion of the RBMK-1000 reactor (uranium-graphite channel type reactor) at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 39 years ago, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of territory in the former Soviet Union and other countries were contaminated with hazardous materials. As a result, a significant number of settlements had to be relocated. Millions of people were exposed to radiation. The affected areas have not been properly rehabilitated to this day. Even today, seven RBMK-1000 power units with an extended service life function in Russia.

There are no safe technologies for producing nuclear energy in the modern world. The ongoing military actions in Europe pose a threat of a nuclear catastrophe, the consequences of which will be disastrous for the entire continent. It is not even about the use of nuclear weapons (in this case, humanity will simply cease to exist), military actions threaten to damage nuclear reactors of nuclear power plants and other nuclear-hazardous facilities. Only along the shores of the Baltic Sea, where gas pipelines were blown up, there are dozens of nuclear power plant units. The nuclear and radiation safety of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is of particular concern.

In this regard, humanity is not ready for the full-scale use of nuclear energy.

Andrei Talevlin is

A member of the Control and Auditing Commission of Yabloko,

Deputy Chairman of the Chelyabinsk regional branch of Yabloko.

Candidate of juridical sciences