Counterpunch

10/06/2025

Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin last week eagerly confirmed that all “Peaceful Atom” nuclear power plants are fair game for military destruction and that the ensuing apocalyptic fall-out is not really his concern.

As Reuters reported, “Putin on Thursday warned Ukraine that it was playing a dangerous game by striking the area near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and suggested that Moscow could retaliate against nuclear plants controlled by Ukraine.”

The six-reactor Zaporizhzhia complex is, noted Reuters “Europe’s largest [and] has been cut off from external power for more than a week and is being cooled by emergency diesel generators.”

Zaporizhzhia was captured by Russian forces in the early days of the 2022 invasion.

The global crisis it now embodies was foreseen 45 years ago by Bennett Ramberg, in his book “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril.”

Ramberg holds a Ph.D. in international relations and a law degree. He’s been an analyst or consultant to the Nuclear Control Institute, Global Green, Committee to Bridge the Gap and the U.S. Senate and U.S. State Department. He now directs the Global Security Seminar. Published by the University of California Press, his book and a new edition out last year are beyond chilling.

William Alberque, former director of strategy, technology and arms control of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote in a piece on the website of the London-headquartered organization in 2023 that amidst “The wartime weaponization of nuclear power stations,” the “risks of a nuclear disaster remain high at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as Russia continues to threaten the health and safety of the entire region through its reckless behaviour.”

In the war on Ukraine, he adds, “a nuclear weapon state has decided that nuclear power reactors are legitimate targets and tools of coercion in war.”
Thus, atomic reactors provide “weapons for the enemy,” serving as pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction.