As a result, Putin changed his strategy: He directed his military to shell the plant sites and electrical power nodes critical to powering the plants’ coolant pumps and safety equipment. Russia’s invasion, however, quickly stalled. And he did: On the first day of the invasion, Russian forces took control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and in early March they seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. His initial aim wasn’t to disable Ukraine’s reactors or electrical supply systems but to seize them. When he launched his full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Putin hoped Ukraine would immediately surrender. How these countries might, if at all, follow Russia’s example depends on what they make of Putin’s current assaults against reactor sites. Beijing and Pyongyang have considered targeting reactors. His strategy is unlikely to be a one-off. North Korea and China also have “wayward provinces”-South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. Instead, Putin has aimed to damage them and Ukraine’s electrical supply system as part of a larger effort to erode Ukrainian morale. Otherwise, they would have been demolished long ago. So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has avoided destroying Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. More than 15 months into the war, though, Russian attacks against Ukraine’s nuclear plants have released no radiation. For more than a year, nuclear experts have wrung their hands about the risk of radiological releases from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine and how best to prevent them.
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