Nuclear fake news: why Ukraine and the West just cannot get off Belarus’ back
In order to distract attention from the business-like and respectful dialogue between Belarus’ President Aleksandr Lukashenko and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, Kiev followed a command of its Western curators and launched a silly provocation – spreading fake news that Minsk and Moscow were allegedly going to seize the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Let's figure out who needed it, and why it is important to unmask scoundrels and liars.
During his meeting with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on October 1st, President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko said, “We are committed to security, peace and will do everything (that we are capable of, that depends on us) in order to ensure regional nuclear safety. You can be sure of that. We are reasonable people and do not rush into all sorts of adventures.”
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi paid an official visit to Belarus recently, and the prospects for the development of peaceful nuclear energy were discussed during his meeting with the Belarusian leader. Aleksandr Lukashenko also debunked the fake news created on the eve of their conversation that Minsk and Moscow were allegedly going to seize the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Actually, the escalation of the situation around Belarus has become a bad habit for the Ukrainian media and officials. Although the Belarusian authorities have repeatedly stated that they are not going to invade anywhere and have not made a single unfriendly move towards Kiev, Ukraine continues trying to provoke Minsk or blacken it in the eyes of the international community – doing this with a maniacal persistence. Provocations on the part of Belarus’ southern neighbour emerge as if on command at a strictly verified moment, as if a puppeteer overseas is pulling a string.
Belarus seems to be a bur in the throat of the Kiev regime and its masters, especially after the failed colour revolution. The West would not mind organising an intervention into Belarus or at least kindling the fire of civil confrontation in the republic, but such thoughts are turning into the category of a sort of science fiction, since tactical nuclear weapons have returned to the country. Against this background, is has nothing to do but get engaged into sneaky dirty tricks.
The fake news that Belarus’ President debunked on October 1st looks like a typical work of the Ukrainian Psychological and Information Warfare Centre. Let’s omit the general absurdity of the fake news — after all, the long-stopped nuclear power plant would become a burdensome useless asset for Minsk or Moscow if captured, and such an action would also run counter to Minsk's peaceful policy promoted over the years – and think of the purpose for this ‘news’ launch into the media space.
It is obviously a propaganda operation aimed at both the internal Ukrainian audience and external players. Moreover, the Psychological and Information Warfare Centre already has experience in this regard: regular shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and attempts by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant are always accompanied by mantras about self-shootings and Russia’s provocations.
Actually, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is being systematically shelled. Not so long ago, on September 29th, a transformer responsible for life support systems was destroyed in the satellite city of Energodar by a direct hit of a Ukrainian projectile. On August 11th, drones hit a cooling tower directly on the territory of the station, causing a large fire.
From the foreign political angle, the attempts to discredit Belarus have a specific purpose: to destroy the country’s international authority and prevent it from playing its role in establishing lasting peace in the region.
However, given the degree of inadequacy of the Kiev regime, it cannot be ruled out that, by doing this, the Psychological and Information Warfare Centre is trying to cover up plans for a Ukrainian provocation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in order to accuse Belarus and Russia of nuclear terrorism against the background of the failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the front and the obviously weak results of Zelenskyy’s tour to the United States.
Actually, a powerful peace track can be built around the topic of nuclear power plant safety in the conflict zone, and the International Atomic Energy Agency and its head personally would play an important role in its promotion. Russia, of course, adheres to the ideas of nuclear safety, and there are people in Ukraine who understand the danger of Zelenskyy's provocations. Moreover, Rafael Grossi is in constant contact with both warring parties, which many heads of international organisations cannot boast of.
The IAEA Director General's positive assessment of the work of the Belarusian nuclear power plant can be viewed as another ground to recall the destructive campaign unleashed by Belarus’ closest neighbours in the West and their hand-feed fugitive extremists. From a number of critics, only Lithuania continues its hopeless campaign against progress at present.
The Soviet Union built one of the best nuclear power plants in the world in its Baltic republic: Ignalina NPP. In 1993 (which was a record year for Lithuania's nuclear power industry), the station produced 12.26 billion kilowatt‑hours of electricity, which accounted for 88.1 percent of all electricity generated in the country. However, the European Union, which post-Soviet Lithuania was so desperate to join, ordered the nuclear power plant to be closed. That was done under the pretext that the Ignalina facility used the same reactors as the Chernobyl NPP and, accordingly, did not meet European nuclear safety standards.
Eventually, the station was stopped at the end of 2009, and Lithuania was accepted into the European Union, albeit with a permanent energy crisis. But phantom pains still torment the Lithuanian leadership, which so stupidly squandered the Soviet legacy. It is especially painful for them to see the example of Belarus: the country did not have its own nuclear power plant in Soviet times, but built a facility after becoming a sovereign state. At present, Belarus is rapidly moving along the path of nuclear progress, while Vilnius can do nothing more but kick itself, occasionally snarl at Minsk and calculate the losses incurred by the Ignalina NPP closure. By the way, what can be said about the security of this quite challenging process?
Another reason for the endless whining of the Lithuanian authorities is rooted in the desire to play the card of the Belarusian NPP during the elections. The scheme is simple: on the initial stage, the population is intimidated by the prospects of a nuclear apocalypse because of the Belarusian station through the media and official statements, and then a certain candidate comes and promises that he will be able to avert the threat. It definitely sounds extremely wild for a Belarusian voter, but the vaunted European democracy works exactly like that.
In turn, Poland has quieted down in its criticism. It is not surprising, because Warsaw itself has decided to join the club of peaceful nuclear powers. As informed by Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski, the country will allocate $1.19bn next year for the construction of a domestic nuclear power plant in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It will have three power units and be built by the American companies Westinghouse and Bechtel together with Polish subcontractors, although initially it was about the participation of South Korean nuclear engineers.
The choice of the company that will build the country's first nuclear power plant actually says a lot about the Polish authorities. Westinghouse is far from the best option today, but Washington has apparently given no right to Warsaw to make a choice. Otherwise, the latter would hardly have been made in favour of those engaged into the construction of the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia: the process then took ten years and cost many times more than indicated in the estimates. It bears recalling that the project to build two stations in South Carolina was curtailed for the same reasons.
Nuclear power plants are the most promising and environmentally friendly way to generate electricity today. The future relies on the peaceful atom, no matter who says the opposite. It is gratifying that Belarus is dynamically developing in this direction, ensuring the prosperity of generations of our descendants.
OPINION
In his talk with Alfa Radio, the Dean of the Journalism Department at the Belarusian State University, political expert Aleksei Belyaev, said, “I think it [fake news of Belarus’ ‘intention’ to seize the Chernobyl nuclear power plant] is the work of Ukrainian propaganda, Ukrainian centres of psychological operations, which are trying to present Belarus as an incomprehensible aggressor and enemy of humankind, creating another horror story for its population. Today we see that many states, including those that previously advocated conflict with Russia, have started talking about the need for reconciliation. The radicals in Ukraine cannot allow Belarus to become a platform for this, so they are trying in every possible way to cast a shadow on our country, to present it as a monster that should be completely cut out of international relations – although this is absolutely contrary to the real steps taken by Belarus to ensure security in our region and in the world as a whole.”
