Beyond Chernobyl 

“Russia is using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as an element of aggression,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently said. “Now, our intelligence has received information that Russia is considering a scenario of a terrorist attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – a terrorist attack with a radiation release.”

You will be at war with NATO.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal have introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate that would consider actions of Russia, Belarus or proxies an attack on NATO, if they lead to radioactive contamination of the allies' territory.

“Our message is directed to those around (Vladimir) Putin: if you do this – if you follow his order, if he ever gives it, you can expect a massive response from NATO, and you will be at war with NATO," Graham said.

Under the proposed bill, in the event of a nuclear attack or an accident leading to radioactive contamination, the U.S. would invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on NATO as a whole.

Neither of the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima in 2011 allows us to compare or guess the consequences of the deliberate destruction of a nuclear power plant.

Irreparable damage

"Zaporizhzhya is on the Dnipro river; getting into the water, radioactive substances contaminate the river and the Black and Azov seas. In the atmosphere, they form a radioactive cloud, and only the wind direction will determine which area will be contaminated,” notes Andrey Ryzhenko, a former captain in the Ukrainian armed forces.

The Doomsday Clock was forward

In January, the Doomsday Clock was moved forward another 10 seconds and set at 90 seconds to midnight. If anything, this seems optimistic.

Last November, Ukrainian intelligence reported that the Russian command was planning to blow up the Kakhovska hydroelectric power plant. Even though the plant was occupied and mined, at the time, no one considered Zelensky's warnings – which turned out earlier this month to be true.

Now, Zaporizhzhya is in the same situation. An attack there would lead to irreparable damage to the whole planet – and could precede NATO’s entry into the war with Russia, when the world as we know it would simply cease to exist.

As we've learned over nearly a century, nuclear bombs and missiles are the final option. But Russia has no need to use its atomic arsenal as such: there are six nuclear reactors at Zaporizhya, whose power would be devastating if unleashed.

It is naive to think that the threat of war with NATO will affect Vladimir Putin. Based on his beliefs and rhetoric, he already believes Russia is fighting with the whole world, not just Ukraine. Now, only force and courage can bring the world back from the brink of the abyss.