Ukraine war: Concerns about “dirty nuclear bomb”

“Dirty Bomb” is the name for an explosive device to which nuclear fissile material is added. “In order to blame Ukraine when it is ignited, they collect nuclear material from our nuclear power plants,” Demchenkov is convinced, calling the Russian president, who invaded his country, a “war criminal and nuclear terrorist.” In the case of nuclear material, the origin can be determined, which is why Russia – should it actually want to use a “dirty bomb” – would not be allowed to use its own nuclear material from Russian nuclear power plants.

No immediate boycott of Russia

Demchenkow had come to Berlin to discuss common energy issues with Economics Minister Robert Habeck before he left for the Gulf States. For example, Kyiv is proposing to the Germans to build one of the planned liquefied natural gas terminals on the Baltic Sea – to gradually replace the gas that arrives at Lubmin in West Pomerania via the Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

While international calls are for an immediate import stop for Russian oil and gas, Ukraine is more realistic: turning off everything at once is not possible. “It should already be replaced as much as possible by imports of oil products, coal and liquefied natural gas from other parts of the world,” says Demchenkov.

Within nine months, the Russian oil pipelines should be shut down and the income that Russia earns from its energy exports “must go to a blocked account at the UN, like with the Iran sanctions. Russia can only get money if UN requirements such as military withdrawal are met.”

However, an energy boycott against Russia is “urgently necessary, because the Russian state earns most of its income from these exports, and Putin does so personally through his holdings in energy companies,” emphasizes Demchenkov. Putin had assumed that Europe was so dependent that it would not do anything against the Kremlin.

It is also important to the Deputy Minister that an LNG terminal is built on the German Baltic Sea coast – at the landing point of Nord Stream 1. Because from there the Eugal and Opal pipelines run south. There – around the Baumgarten region, where half of the European gas imports from Russia arrive in Austria with the Ukrainian transit pipeline – the supply of southern Germany, Austria, northern Italy and France as well as eastern European EU countries is at stake. Should Russia stop its gas exports, this region would have to continue to be supplied and replace Nord Stream natural gas with something else in the medium term.

Russia is deliberately destroying energy infrastructure

Meanwhile, according to the deputy minister, more and more cities in the Ukraine are being attacked and, above all, the energy infrastructure is being deliberately destroyed: Only 20 of the 80 conventional power plants can still produce heating and hot water.

Entire cities are without electricity and heating because gas lines are also being deliberately destroyed – “but not the transit pipeline from Russia to the west, the Russians are not fighting there,” says Demchenkov, who worked for the World Bank in Washington for four years in 2003. Russian gas transit gives Ukraine military security at least along this route.

Conversely, Russia would fire rockets and projectiles at cities from the occupied nuclear power plants, “so that our army cannot fire back at these positions, so as not to hit a nuclear power plant.” The UN, the minister demands, should also urgently exclude Russia from international organizations: Russians are strongly represented in the IAEA and are manipulating the authority. With the International Red Cross, Russia has so far prevented it from bringing fallen Russians home – because Putin doesn’t want any dead people with him.

Electricity consumption in the Ukraine has not only fallen drastically because of destroyed power lines, pipelines and power plants, but also because “80 percent of the companies had to stop their work”. Eleven employees of network operators and power plants have already been shot while trying to repair destroyed systems, and ten others have been seriously injured.

Demchenkow is now banking on the Ukrainian power grid being linked to the European one. This was achieved for the first time on Wednesday and will take place permanently in a month. Not only could Europe’s largest territorial state be supplied with electricity, but after the war Ukrainian electricity would also eliminate the shortage in the EU during peak consumption times. One gigawatt of electricity can be delivered in the short term and two gigawatts in the medium term.

>>Read here: Scenarios for the end of the Ukraine war

In addition, it is very important to him that the war does not also destroy Ukraine’s plans for climate neutrality, explained the Deputy Minister. By 2035, his country wants to get out of coal and use the “enormous potential for solar and wind power,” says Demtschenkow. “Ukraine can then provide the EU with a large supply of green electricity and green hydrogen.”

A slight smile crosses the lips of the Ukrainian, who has visibly aged in just a few weeks. Above all, the still young politician is worried about his parents, the 72-year-old mother and the 70-year-old father, as well as his sister and five-year-old nephew.

On the run to Berlin

He fled with them to Kyiv in 2014 after the Russian-backed separatists seized the eastern Ukrainian metropolis of Donetsk. They were instructed not to speak Russian in Kyiv in order not to be attacked by nationalists. “What nonsense, in Kyiv most of them spoke Russian until the outbreak of war,” says Demchenkov.

At the beginning of last week they drove two and a half days from the capital to the Polish border. They have been safe in Berlin since last Monday. But he will return to his country.

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