Skip to main content
Do we face a disaster ‘10 times larger than Chernobyl?’
We have never seen a war break out in a region with functioning nuclear reactors — and Ukraine has 15. This spells potential armageddon for Europe, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
nuclear power in war

A CRISIS of potentially global proportions looks to have been averted at the massive six-reactor nuclear power plant site at Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. But the threat of a nuclear emergency is far from over.

As fire engulfed one of the plant buildings on March 3, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, warned we could be facing “the end of Europe.” The country’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that an explosion at Zaporizhzhia “will be 10 times larger than Chernobyl.” They are right.

There is good reason to be gravely alarmed. Never before in our history has a war broken out in a region where there are operating nuclear power plants.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Angie Zelter
Features / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
Activist Angie Zelter has been arrested more than a hundred times. She’s not stopping now, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
LABOUR’S LOST HERO: Tony Benn in Grosvenor Square, London,
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
Yanis Varoufakis and Jeremy Corbyn laid out a roadmap for peace, justice and equality as they celebrated the legacy of inspirational socialist Tony Benn, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Columbia University
Features / 3 April 2025
3 April 2025
Such betrayals to the authorities are strikingly at odds with the history of Jewish persecution, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Us President Donald Trump waves to supporters from his limou
Features / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
Bizarrely, Trump’s latest attacks now include the National Zoo, but his real and racist agenda is to strip everything black from the country’s cultural institutions, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Similar stories
HP dome
Features / 15 February 2025
15 February 2025
The government’s nuclear power expansion plan is a hollow betrayal of working people that panders to wealthy corporations and will rip off consumers, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
A view of the containment vessel that protects the remains o
World / 14 February 2025
14 February 2025
Both Russia and Ukriane deny responsibility for the strike
A general view of the Sizewell nuclear power plant in Suffol
Features / 6 September 2024
6 September 2024
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER condemns Starmer’s willingness to let children go hungry and the elderly shiver while pouring billions into doomed nuclear projects that won’t address the climate crisis