For Putin and Zelenskyy, the Priority Should Be to Stop the Nuclear Danger in Zaporizhzhia.
A possible way out would be to go through the UN to find a solution that satisfies both sides.
Downstream of the Dnieper, where the great river widens to form a sort of large basin, before descending towards the city of Kherson and the Black Sea, the Soviet Union had built a very large nuclear power plant (6,000 MW).
The objective of the Soviet Union at the time was to supply electricity not only to the large neighboring city of Zaporizhzhia (40 km to the northwest, 450,000 inhabitants) but also to entire southern Ukraine. The city is still controlled by the Ukrainians but the power station, located on the right bank of the Dnieper, was taken by the Russians at the beginning of their invasion.
To the misfortune of all of Europe, it has become a stake in this fierce fratricidal war between Orthodox Slavs. A month ago, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense announced in a British newspaper the vast counter-offensive of an “army of one million men”, intended to drive the Russian occupiers out of southern Ukraine.
Irrepressible taste for communication, an attempt at diversion, and sensitization of the young recruits of the army, one does not understand very well what motivated such a declaration. In the usual art of war, one does not announce one's offensives in advance, to keep the surprise effect.
In any case, the consequence seems to have been the fortification of all their positions by the Russian soldiers.
The Russians placed a whole military arsenal inside the power station, thinking that it would be safe there. But it seems that they have also fired artillery from this base against Ukrainian positions on the other side of the river, triggering Ukrainian counter-battery fire.
The risk becomes great of a direct strike, by mistake, against one of the six reactors of the power plant, which would trigger a nuclear accident comparable to that of Chornobyl in 1986, with a radioactive cloud spreading over Ukraine and all its neighbors.
This phase of the war where armies lose all sense of measure and responsibility was analyzed by Carl von Clausewitz. The polemicist of the Napoleonic wars described it as a “rise to extremes”. For the former Prussian general, this rise to extremes results from three “reciprocal actions”:
The unlimited reciprocal use of force.
The search for the overthrow of the adversary.
The calculation and then the escalation of the efforts necessary to surpass the other.
It is disturbing to see a tendency to find these three actions in the current behavior of the belligerents. They do not limit their use of force in the periphery of the power plant. It is a war in which Vladimir Putin has declared that he wants to overthrow the Ukrainian government (described by him as “Nazi”) and in which Joe Biden, Kyiv's main ally, has publicly wished (in Warsaw) for Putin's ouster from Russian power.
The escalation is visible in the weapons used and in the increase in the number of soldiers mobilized on both sides. This rise to extremes is not good news for Europe.
It is Europe - apart from the two belligerents - that is already paying the greatest consequences. These may become dramatic in Zaporizhzhia. Is there nothing that can be done to avoid a nuclear tragedy?
The UN, an organization respected by both Russia and Ukraine, must be used. It is a diplomatic instrument that has already proved its efficiency in the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is the UN that, with the help of the Turks, has set up the naval corridor which allows the grain to be taken out of Ukraine, from its Black Sea ports.
Why doesn't France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, immediately insist that the world's highest security body entrust the management of the plant to its specialized agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna?
At the same time, the protection of the site should be ensured by a monitoring force of Blue Helmets made up of contingents acceptable to both warring parties, for example Turkish, Hungarian and Indian soldiers.
Final Thoughts
In strategy, there is no escaping geography. The Ukrainians have begun to logistically isolate the Russian bridgehead on the bank of the Dnieper at Kherson. With American-supplied Himars artillery, they have made the three bridges across the Dnieper largely impassable.
For Ukraine, it is crucial to regain full control of the western bank of the Dnieper. It would be militarily rational for the Russians to abandon this bank.
But the problem is that Putin - who decides alone - cannot afford it politically after the Russian propaganda showed images of a population supposedly excited about the ruble and ready to ask to be reunited with Russia. The rise to extremes is always the product of politicians who believe that military escalation is the way out. Let us hope that this does not lead to a nuclear drama.
Some reading
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You lost me at “through the UN”
This was the easiest war in history to avoid, but American interests wanted it.
This war could be over tomorrow if Biden picked up the phone and talked to Putin.
It’s all one big scam!
The Russians are lying in wait for this promised offensive where they apparently intend to release the full force of their air power and crush the assembled Ukrainian army. The safety of Europe from a nuclear catastrophe is clearly at risk.