Cyprus Mail
CM Regular ColumnistCyprusOpinion

The danger of nuclear contamination over Europe

file photo: surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during shelling in enerhodar
The explosion at Ukraine’s largest nuclear reactor complex set off alarm bells
There is an urgent need to open lines of communication and bring this war to an end

By Alper Ali Riza

 

Ukraine has been pleading for help from Nato and the EU to repel Russia’s invasion ever since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022.

The passionate lecture cum rant of the Ukrainian journalist Daria Kalenuik at Boris Johnson during his press conference in Poland last week about the West’s impotence in the face of Russian aggression stunned and stung the prime minister.

He recovered sufficiently to tell her the bitter truth that Nato was unwilling to go to war with Russia to save Ukraine despite being encouraged by Britain and the US before being attacked to take a stand on its right to seek membership of Nato

Nato’s excuse is that it is a collective defensive military alliance that does not have a role in the defence of non-member states under attack. This was not what it argued when it bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 when it claimed that while membership of Nato obliged the alliance to defend member states, it also had legal authority under the Nato treaty to engage in the defence of non-member entities for humanitarian reasons.

Nevertheless, most people agree that discretion is the better part of valour and that Nato should not engage with Russia militarily over Ukraine and that a pragmatic approach is the wisest course even if it is neither noble nor heroic.

Ukraine has also been calling for protection from Russian attacks at its nuclear reactors; immediate EU accession; reparations for the damage and destruction of its cities and infrastructure; the prosecution of Russia’s leadership for war crimes including firing at nuclear installations; and closure of the Straits of Eurasia in Turkey. The list is borne of the exigencies of invasion and war but not any less worthy of serious consideration for it.

The explosion at Ukraine’s largest nuclear reactor complex in southern Ukraine sent alarm bells ringing in my ears as I turned in and tuned into the BBC World Service last Friday morning. The two sides blame each other for the fire outside the perimeter of the reactor but the evidence suggests it was caused by Russian soldiers firing artillery shells in its direction by accident.

There are a number of nuclear power stations in Ukraine which apparently had not been publicly factored into the geopolitical equation by Nato before the invasion. There is now, however, an urgent need for the military in Russia, Ukraine and Nato to reactivate previous deconfliction lines of communication and bring this dangerous war to an end before a nuclear reactor is blown up and Europe and Russia are contaminated with radiation.

EU accession for Ukraine, like Nato membership, is problematic. The attempt last week by Ukraine president Vlodymyr Zeleneskiy to bounce the EU into fast-tracking his country’s entry into the EU on the back of the extraordinary sympathy Russia’s aggression, has considerable purchase among the Baltic states but as an EU apparatchik put it, accession is not the priority at present.

Reparations for the destruction of Ukraine’s cities, towns and villages and prosecuting Russian leaders both turn on whether Russia fails it its ill-conceived mission in Ukraine. The tragedy is that not even the Russians know the end game of their attack on their kith and kin in Ukraine. In practical terms, however, if the Russians take Ukraine, they will have to reconstruct the infrastructure they destroyed.

Prosecuting Russian leaders after the dust settles can only come about as victor’s justice; it presupposes not just Russia’s defeat in Ukraine but the overthrow of the government of Vladimir Putin in Moscow. At present the priority is to get a ceasefire and bring peace to the people of Ukraine and to do this it is necessary for Nato to reengage with Russia and its leadership.

Of course if there is evidence of wilful killing of civilians and wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages not justified by military necessity, these are war crimes, and prosecutions may be brought against the individuals responsible; but as I say actual proceedings will depend on the outcome of the war.

Of all the demands of Ukraine’s leadership the easiest to satisfy was closure to warships of the Straits of the Dardanelles to the Sea of Marmara through to the Straits of the Bosporous to the Black Sea and vice versa.

Freedom of navigation through the Straits is governed by the Montreux Convention of 1936. The Convention provides for freedom of transit and navigation and takes into account the security, economic and sanitary concerns of Turkey and the Black Sea states.

The Convention is divided into three broad sections that deal with merchant ships, warships and aircraft. It is further subdivided into sections that regulate the passage of warships in time of war in which Turkey is not a belligerent state and when it is a belligerent state.

By article 19 in time of war when Turkey is not a belligerent state such as the present war in Ukraine, passage of warships of belligerent powers through the Straits is prohibited except that they may return to bases from which they have become separated.

It looks as though Turkey in the end accepted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing military operations there is a war within article 19 of the Convention even though Russia deems it a special military operation rather than war. In the event it has not made much difference as most Russian warships returned to the Black Sea before the invasion begun.

The original state parties to the Convention were Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Japan, France Britain and the Soviet Union. Russia was the successor state of the Soviet Union of which Ukraine was a part although Ukraine and Belarus were separately represented at the UN – on the insistence of the Soviet Union in 1945. The other Black Sea State is Georgia and it too was famously part of the Soviet Union.

When Russia succeeded the Soviet Union as its successor state, it was given the Soviet Union’s seat on the UN Security Council and control of its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons to Russia for decommissioning and agreed to security assurances from Russia the US and Britain contained the Budapest memorandum on security assurances of 1994 after the US refused to guarantee it would intervene if its sovereignty were breached.

The fact that Ukraine wanted American guarantees is the result of the influence around the world of American exceptionalism that Vladimir Putin loathes – it seems to the point of ordering his internecine attack on Ukraine.

 

Alper Ali Riza is a queen’s counsel in the UK and a retired part time judge

Follow the Cyprus Mail on Google News

Related Posts

Cypriot ministers visit DP World headquarters — pledge to elevate Limassol port further

Kyriacos Nicolaou

F1 stars used IAME power on their way to the top

Press Release

Fire at Omonia clubhouse under investigation

Iole Damaskinos

Woman arrested for string of thefts

Staff Reporter

Daily News Briefing

Staff Reporter

Gaza naval blockade lifted only for Cyprus, says Israeli ambassador

Iole Damaskinos