The explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric station, which led to large-scale flooding in the lower Dnieper in the Kherson region of Ukraine and "flushed" into the Black Sea a huge mass of hazardous products and waste (from flooded fertiliser warehouses, dumps, cattle dumps, etc.) has become an ecological catastrophe. The sea off the coast of Ukraine is polluted and sea currents carry polluted water further to the shores of Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

When the "degree" of hostilities in the Russian-Ukrainian war rises, a bigger disaster becomes possible - we are talking about the threat of an accident (read terrorist act, emission of radionuclides - controlled or not) at the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe's largest. Unfortunately, the Russian Federation has already begun to allow the possibility of this terrorist attack to achieve its objectives.  This nuclear power plant, which has six reactors, was occupied by Russia shortly after the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops last February.

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, said Russian troops had mined the cooling pond at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. Also, according to him, the Russian side, having previously mined and destroyed the dam of the Kakhovska hydroelectric power plant with an explosion, destroyed normal water access to the cooling pond at the nuclear power plant.

There is no doubt in the minds of specialists that the Kakhovskaya HPP dam was originally mined by the Russian side. Without a large-scale mine at the base of the dam, no shells "flown in" from the Ukrainian side (as Russian propaganda claims) could have caused such damage as to completely "drain" the huge Kakhovka reservoir. The dam was built during the Soviet era to withstand massive bombing, and it was virtually impossible to destroy it "from the outside".

Ukrainian military could not mine the dam of Kakhovska HPP, as they lost control over it in the very first hours of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. But the occupants were clearly preparing to blow up the dam back in autumn of 2022 during the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson. Even then, there was information circulating in social networks that the Kakhovska HPP could be blown up if the offensive was swift and if the Ukrainian army began to land on the left bank of the Dnieper following the Russian troops fleeing to it. Ukraine then confined itself to liberating the right bank of the Dnieper and the Russian occupants, having crossed to the left bank, did not blow up the dam, but limited themselves to destroying the Antonov bridge that connected both banks of the Dnieper.

This summer, the mined dam of the Kakhovska hydroelectric power station was deliberately blown up to prevent the Ukrainian troops from crossing the Dnieper as part of their counter-offensive. The Russian occupants partially achieved their goal - Ukraine had to urgently evacuate advanced units by boats from the islands on the Dnieper River already occupied the day before and temporarily give up capturing bridgeheads on its left bank. 

The Dnieper is now returning to its banks after the flood, and the reservoir above the Kakhovska hydroelectric dam is drying up. Ukrainian troops in other parts of the front are pushing the occupiers back, having liberated at least 7 villages and 100 square kilometres of their territory since the dam explosion. The position of the Russian aggressors has once again become critical. It is no coincidence that the Kremlin is again resorting to nuclear blackmail to "freeze" the war and maintain control over the seized Ukrainian territories.

Russian nuclear weapons are already deployed in Belarus. However the most dangerous object of the Russian nuclear blackmail seems to be the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and Ukrainian intelligence has reliable information about it.

 "...The worst thing is that the Zaporizhzhya NPP ... has been additionally mined. And the most frightening thing is that the cooler has been mined. If they disable it, there is a high probability that there will be significant problems", warns Kirill Budanov. According to him, if the Zaporizhzhya plant is blown up, 2m square kilometres will be contaminated, including the territories of Turkey, Belarus, Romania and Moldova. For comparison, after the Chernobyl accident, the area of contaminated territories was 200,000 sq. km.

The head of the Centre for Military and Legal Studies, Oleksandr Musiyenko, also believes that Russia will continue to use the Zaporizhzhya NPP in a complex with nuclear blackmail to threaten the entire world. This is directly linked to the Ukrainian counter-offensive: "And just the mining of the cooling pool that the head of military intelligence was talking about could be one of the elements. Theoretically, they could undermine this cooler, which would pose a threat of reactor explosion," the expert stressed. Oleksandr Musiyenko specified that after such an attack, the occupiers may start blackmailing Ukraine - blaming Ukraine and saying that they will fix everything if the Ukrainian troops stop the offensive.

The head of the United Press Centre of the Defence Forces of South Ukraine, Nataliya Humenyuk, also said that the Russian occupiers threaten the entire world by expressing their intentions to blow up the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and the Titan plant in Crimea. They have mined these two facilities and it is possible that they could take the fatal step. The consequences after the bombing of the Zaporizhzhya NPP and the Titan plant would be terrible. According to her, the threat of an explosion is very great.

The Zaporizhzhya plant is not the only facility in the hands of insane aggressors who could use it as an instrument of nuclear blackmail and terrorism. The Metsamor nuclear power plant, located in Armenia, which has long expired and operates illegally and at risk for the region by the standards of international norms, poses a danger. All of its operating terms expired back in 2016. The Armenian authorities have arbitrarily "extended the lifetime" to 2026, and are now going to extend it for another 10 years to 2036, claiming that they are carrying out some "modernisation measures".

In the opinion of nuclear experts, this hopelessly obsolete Metsamor NPP cannot be upgraded at all. The fact that Metsamor NPP has not yet had a major accident is a miracle, especially if you consider that it is located in a seismically dangerous zone. If there would be an earthquake in the region of Metsamor on the scale of that which has recently occurred in Turkey - the catastrophe would be inevitable.

The most interesting is that such examples of nuclear blackmail by Russia can and most likely will be adopted by Armenian nationalists, who will "successfully" use "Metsamor NPP explosion" to demand fulfillment of their geopolitical ambitions. "Goodness", there are already examples of insanity when Armenian nationalist Margarita Simonyan, head of Russian propaganda, has already repeatedly threatened the world with nuclear war if the international community does not agree to the Kremlin's insane demands.

Two years ago, in one of Armenian producer Armen Grigoryan's op-ed programmes on the Ashotnews-2 channel, Ida Martirosyan, considered a "philosopher" in Armenia, spoke directly about the need to blow up the Metsamor NPP if the position of Armenian nationalists becomes critical and they are defeated in a new war.

"When the mass exodus from Armenia has started and we realise that the rats are fleeing the ship called 'Armenia', and it is clear that there will be no f...ga here any more, everything is lost, except honour, there is nothing else to do, we should do the test shot - blow up the nuclear plant, and I will stay to do it. And you just have to choose the right day so that the wind blows where it should..." - Iga Martirosyan stated at the time. And what's most interesting - neither the host of the programme, nor anyone in Armenia was outraged by such, absolutely wild, words.

Meanwhile, in case of explosion of the Metsamor NPP, as well as in a case of accident on Zaporozhye NPP, the same 2 million sq. km may be polluted. That's the whole Caucasus and the whole south of Russia, all of Turkey, all of Iran, most of the Middle East and Central Asia. And all because of the insane ambitions of Armenian nationalists and because they left a super dangerous nuclear facility in their hands.

There is an obvious need for an international inspection of Metsamor NPP, with its subsequent unconditional removal from operation and transfer under international control of storehouses of radioactive materials and radioactive waste. After all, it may turn out that the threats voiced by the same Ida Martirosyan are not at all empty and the Metsamor NPP may be mined by another New Nemesis company, a group of extremist Dashnak terrorists, just like the Zaporozhye NPP.

Currently, the Armenian revanchists have all their hopes of "reclaiming" foreign lands with the help of the same Russia, which is bogged down in the Ukrainian war. Therefore, they may well go for nuclear blackmail, just as their "brothers in reason" in Moscow are doing, among whom, again, Armenian nationalists who have infiltrated the governing bodies of the Russian Federation are playing the first fiddle. Therefore, the world community, along with efforts for elimination of threat of nuclear terrorism from Russian occupants who captured Zaporozhye NPP, should pay attention to Metsamor NPP, which is in the hands of the same mad Armenian nationalists.

The fact that Armenian nationalists are insane is proved by the fate of Ida Martirosyan, who successfully started her career in Baku and, like thousands of Armenians, lived and worked well there. Until she, along with other madmen, started advocating for "miasum Artsakh". As a result, the Armenian nationalists lost everything. First their positions in Baku and now in "Artsakh" and reached the point of possible nuclear blackmail and terrorism.

Grigol Giorgadze