Shifting responsibility for its own actions onto opponents has long been the Kremlin’s trademark. So nobody was especially surprised by another scandalous statement from the press bureau of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which claims that Western countries are proposing Kyiv “to carry out a major sabotage with casualties among Ukrainians and EU residents similar to the MH17 tragedy in 2014”.
Allegedly, this would be done to put the issue of support for Ukraine back on the agenda in EU states. Although the EU’s and NATO’s positions on supporting Ukraine and countering Russian aggression have only been strengthening — especially after Moscow’s recent provocative drone attacks on Poland and Romania — the SVR considers it “urgent to change the negative course of the conflict for Westerners and its perception by Western public opinion”, and therefore deems it extremely necessary to influence Europeans:
“In this connection, the option of organizing a sabotage at the Zaporizhzhia NPP with a meltdown of the active zones of its nuclear reactors is being considered. The influential British NGO Chatham House has already calculated the consequences of such an accident. Data from specially conducted computer simulations show that, taking into account wind roses and air mass movements, residents of Kyiv-controlled areas and citizens of EU countries near Ukraine’s western border would end up in the area of radioactive particle dispersion. The most difficult part of carrying out such a plan, the “brain trust” judged, would be how to shift responsibility for the catastrophe onto Russia”.
First of all, we should note that this is not the first time Russian propaganda has tried to hint at the possibility of a dangerous provocation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. It gives the strong impression that these reports are a warning to Western countries and Ukraine: Moscow is seriously considering the Zaporizhzhia plant as a possible weapon in the war against both Kyiv and NATO. It is more or less stated outright: if we create an incident at the nuclear power plant, you will have to deal with all the negative consequences. That is why the message refers to an alleged “computer simulation by Chatham House”.
And the line about the need to change the course of the conflict and its perception by society only confirms the Kremlin’s intent. After all, Russia is trying by all means to intimidate NATO countries with its aggressive policy and to split their societies — especially against the backdrop of the fact that the offensive in Ukraine is going very differently from how Putin imagined.
