It is estimated that a Russian Shahid drone costs up to 75,000 pounds, has caused tens of millions of damage to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, according to initial assessments and engineering experts.
Western governments may bear the cost of full reform, including the United Kingdom, because preliminary estimates indicate that full reform will cost more than 25 million euros available in a special international emergency fund.
The strike in mid -February It did not cause immediate radiation risks, but he greatly damaged the containment of 1.5 billion euros that was built in 2017 to overcome the devastating reactor and may take months if not years to completely fix it.
The 110 -meter high steel structure was hit in Chornobyl before 2 am on February 14, when sensors were recorded “something like an earthquake from 6 to 7 volume”, according to Siri Bokov, chief engineer in the service. “But we clearly understood that it was not the case,” he said.
The attack-quickly concluded that it is caused by a drone flying below at an irreplaceable level by radar-15 square meters hole in the outer ceiling. It also caused a particularly complicated fire with the interior of the structure that took a week to disappear.
It consists of two double and longer plots of two jumbo planes, the new safe prison (NSC) was completed in 2017 to secure an unstable hurry coffin in the Soviet era, which covers the bright Cornobel reactor No. Four, which is the site of the worst nuclear disaster in April 1986.
But the attack in February made the coffin open to the elements again, which means that radioactive dust can come out and rain water, although the country’s environmental protection Ministry says, “The background of radiation is currently at the normal level and is under constant control.”
More importantly, the structure of imprisonment is now more vulnerable to the long -term rust due to increased exposure to the elements and damage to the cladding. Two hundred small wells were also drilled in the structure in the efforts made to cancel the cladding fire with water.
“Not repairing this is not an option,” said Eric Shamiman, an American engineer who worked in the design and construction of the Chornobel shelter for 15 years. He said that the full reform will cost “less than tens of millions of dollars and can easily go to hundreds of millions” with the continued reforms “from months to years.”
Shamiman added that the shelter was previously aimed at a 100 -year design life, allowing time to save the coffin and nuclear waste below, but this is now in doubt without repairing it. Unlike other large metal structures, Like Eiffel TowerIt was not possible to redraw it to prevent corrosion.
Below the coffin, very radiant lava lies like a mass, a mixture of 200 tons of uranium from the Chornobyl reactor number four and 5,000 tons of sand, lead and boric acid that was dropped to the site by Soviet helicopters in the wake of the disaster caused by the reactor that is out of control.
It is expected that a more detailed evaluation of the influence will be issued in May, but the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which funded the construction of the shelter and participates in the post -bombing bombing analysis, “It is clear that the attack caused great damage.”
Other sources, who are aware of the evaluation exercise, told the Guardian newspaper that Shamman estimates appear correct. Although EBRD holds 25 million euros of money to allow emergency work, it is noticeably “more funding required” to address the challenges he made in the long term made by the accident.
A similar account was made by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in Ukraine. “It is possible that the elimination of the consequences of Russian aggression requires more money, which is currently available in the CHORNOBYL international cooperation account [the €25m EBRD fund]The ministry said in a statement.
When the attack took place in February, Moscow blamed Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the accident was “intentional by the Kiev regime.” However, Ukrainian public prosecutors, after reviewing the drone from the north, believed that the attack was a “intended strike” by Russian forces and a possible war crime.
Sean Borni, a senior nuclear specialist in Greenpis Ukraine, said he believed that the attack would have “decades -long consequences” and said that it happened because “Putin and the Russian state have made a form of nuclear terrorism against Ukraine and Europe” that “was unjust.”
More cash is likely to come from reforms from Western governments. Twenty-six countries contributed to the cost of the original shelter, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and even Russia-which cost the vast steel bow of 1.5 billion euros out of a total of 2.1 billion euros. Others also made donations, including Türkiye.
The habitat of the remains of a nuclear reactor that departed from control and exploded in April 1986, Chornobyl is seven miles from the border with Russia’s ally. It was occupied by Russian soldiers trying to seize Kiev in February 2022, and remained on the confrontation lines after Ukraine recovered it in April.
Two people were killed in the 1986 disaster and 28 others died due to radioactive poisoning immediately, while 350,000 nearby cities were evacuated. There are still areas of exclusion in place, 18 miles (30 km) of the factory, where small numbers of people live and work, and the second is 6 miles away, including the deserted ghostly prieyat town, which are unlimited Soviet residue.
Tourists were allowed to visit until the Russian invasion on a large scale, but now the site is located in a military border area, making efforts to remove pollution. Russian soldiers dug the contaminated land while building trenches at the sight of the reactor, but the Ukrainian soldiers who were shipped in the sand to build their own fortifications.
The wreckage, which recovered from the website of the Ukrainian prosecutors, led to the conclusion that the damage caused by a martyr 136, who is drone from the wing of the Iranian designer Delta who has become a long -term weapon in Russia. It is now made in locations in Russia, its cost from 50,000 to 100,000 dollars is much lower than the amount of damage caused.
Ukrainian officials say that the first step is to “develop and implement” a temporary seal to the hole in the shelter, although Shaman warned that “one thing that is not clear from the distance is that with your ascension to the shelter, the radiation dose increases. Therefore, you have to train workers and its rotation based on the limits of the safe annual dose.”
There is a fundamental option for full repair, and it may be applied only at the time of peace, is to nullify the shelter again along a group of bars that were originally built 180 meters, to reduce the exposure of radiation to workers. But this will be a “multi -year project” that is estimated at Shamiman.
Bokov said that the cranes run by the hanging distance from the detention shelter were aimed at dismantling the coffin and nuclear materials below, and hitting the strike near the Pocov maintenance garage. This may also weaken disaster dismantling plans and stop it gradually.
“We designed this building for many emergency situations, but we did not design it for war,” Shamiman said. “Although most nuclear plants are designed to survive in a plane on it, we did not do this because after the accident in 1986 there was a flying area in Chornobyl. We thought there would be nothing flying in the sky of the area.”
