Dear participants of the conference!
First, I express my gratitude to Gensuikyo for the invitation and the honor to be here today. Today, more than ever, I feel the need to discuss the new challenge of nuclear technology. Nuclear power plants are becoming weapons of mass destruction. This statement may seem like an exaggeration, but I will try to justify it.
The number of victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years after the tragedy reached 450 thousand people.
Twenty years after this accident at the Chernobyl NPP, additional deaths in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus increased by about 237,000. Additional deaths in Europe amounted to 400 thousand, and in Asia, Africa, and North America 330 thousand.
The total number of victims of Chernobyl in the world can reach 1 million people. And this number continues to grow[1].
Thus, the destruction of one nuclear power plant reactor caused more deaths than two atomic bomb explosions in Japan!
On February 2022, Russian troops captured Zaporizhye NPP. This act turned the nuclear power plant into a potential "dirty radiation bomb".
So, February 2022 can be considered the birthday of a new type of weapon of mass destruction. These weapons can be used even by countries that do not have nuclear weapons. It is enough to capture a nuclear power plant in a foreign country and you can blackmail the whole world.
Let's compare the consequences of the explosion of the plutonium bomb "Little Boy" in Nagasaki and the hypothetical destruction of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
The mass of plutonium in the Nagasaki bomb was 6.4 kg. During a nuclear explosion, approximately 85% of the mass of plutonium was transformed into shock-wave, thermal effects and X-rays. These are instant destructive factors. Only 15%, or less than 1 kg of plutonium, became radioactive contamination - a factor of long-term damaging effect.
About 50 tons of plutonium-239 have been accumulated in the spent fuel of the Zaporozhye NPP. This is 50 thousand times more than the mass of plutonium that radioactive contaminated the territory of Nagasaki. The half-life of plutonium-239 is known to be 24,000 years.
This means that if the military destroys the operating Zaporizhya NPP, vast territories of the Northern Hemisphere may be polluted. And this pollution will last for thousands of years, and the area may be several times larger than after the Chernobyl disaster.
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cities were reborn in their original place, and it will not be possible to live near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for hundreds, or maybe thousands of years!
Thus, the destruction of nuclear power plants has more serious and long-term consequences than the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After February 2022, there is no longer a taboo on taking over the nuclear power plant. We can say that our planet is mined by 450 nuclear reactors of nuclear power plants in 32 countries. These "mines" can be detonated because of a terrorist act or military action.
How can civil society influence such a development scenario? In Russia it is not possible now.
In the first week after the invasion of Ukraine, more than 1,200,000 Russian citizens signed an anti-war petition. But very quickly the political situation changed:
- Opponents of the "special military operation" in Ukraine are in jail or paying huge fines. This money goes to support the military.
- Between seven hundred thousand and a million young Russian citizens left the country fearing mobilization.
- Courts are politically engaged.
- All non-state media closed or emigrated to Europe.
- All government media are promoting “special military operation” in Ukraine 24 hours a day.
- The most active and effective NGOs were given the status of "foreign agents" or "undesirable organizations" and closed.
In modern Russia, the possibilities of protests are comparable to the possibilities of protests in concentration camps during the Second World War.
Civil society in Russia is going through very difficult times.
In Soviet times, there was an "iron curtain" for the opportunity to travel to the Western country. Now the double iron curtain. One from Russia, the other from Western countries.
Civil society in Russia and Western countries should be at the center of the movement to build a new safe and just world. We need to break down this double barrier.
The whole world is in a systemic crisis. The famous physicist Albert Einstein said: If a crisis has developed in the system, then a way out of the crisis cannot be found if the same stakeholders who caused this crisis are involved in this.
The world needs new ideas and new stakeholders. A few ideas that can stimulate recovery from the crisis.
- It is reasonable for organizations of the "For Peace" movement to unite with environmental, human rights organizations and organizations that support the traditional way of life of indigenous peoples.
- Our countries need "Ministries of Peace" to form a new culture of relations between countries. This culture should be based on non-violent mechanisms for overcoming the crisis.
- We need not only a ban on nuclear weapons, but also a gradual phasing out of nuclear energy.
And last, but not least: at present politicians in Russia and Western countries are forming an image of an enemy in the countries of their political opponents.
They see in it an opportunity to consolidate the society inside the country. But can we, workers, fishermen, scientists, artists be enemies in Japan, Russia, and other countries? We are neighbors on our common living planet Earth.
Let us hold hands and act together for the health of our living planet!
I support the traditional slogan of the conference: NO MORE HIROSHIMA, NO MORE NAGASAKI, NO MORE FUKUSHIMA; NO MORE HIBAKUSHA!
[1] A.V. Yablokov, V.B. Nesterenko, A.V. Nesterenko, N.E. Preobrazhenskaya, Chernobyl: consequences of the catastrophe for man and nature. 1986-2016, KMK Scientific Publications Association, 2016, 826 pages. (А.В. Яблоков, В.Б. Нестеренко, А.В. Нестеренко, Н.Е. Преображенская, Чернобыль: последствия Катастрофы для человека и природы. 1986-2016, Товарищество научных изданий КМК, 2016, 826 стр.) https://www.yabloko.ru/files/chern_8_vsya_kniga_25_marta.pdf
