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"No one can solve this problem alone, but together we can change things for the better." 

– Setsuko Thurlow
Hiroshima Survivor
June 6, 2016
July/August 2023
Edition Date: 
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Cover Image: 

IAEA Outlines Plan for Ukrainian Nuclear Reactor


July/August 2023
By Kelsey Davenport

The destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam has raised fresh concerns about the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, even as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) advanced a new plan to protect the facility from Ukrainian and Russian fighting in the region.

An explosion caused the dam on the DniepRafael Mariano Grossi (C), director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and his team visit the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine on June 15. (Photo by Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images)er River to fail on June 6. The dam is in Russian control, and imagery suggests that the explosion came from inside the structure. But Russia denied it was behind the destruction and blamed Ukraine.

The reservoir created by the dam is the primary water source for cooling the Zaporizhzhia reactors to prevent a meltdown and for cooling the spent fuel. The pumps that pull water to the nuclear facility cannot operate if the reservoir falls below a certain level.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on June 9 that there is no near-term risk that the plant will run short of water. He said the cooling pond on the site is full and will supply enough water “for months.”

After visiting the site on June 15, Grossi reiterated his assessment that there is no immediate danger, but said there is a need to “adapt the entire system” to the new water situation. He said that the plant managers are “taking concrete steps to address these challenges, stabilize the situation, and enable the plant to ensure sufficient cooling water also in the future.”

The plant came under Moscow’s control after Russian forces attacked the site in violation of international law early in the war, but it is still operated by Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, Energoatom. (See ACT, June 2022.)

The head of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, also said that there is no direct threat to the plant and that the cooling pond can be replenished from other sources, including mobile pumping units and underground drinking wells, if necessary.

But Grossi warned that although there is no “short-term threat,” the dam disaster is “causing major new difficulties” at a time when “the nuclear safety and security situation is already extremely fragile and potentially dangerous during the military conflict.”

During his trip, Grossi announced that the IAEA has expanded its permanent presence at the plant. Intensified fighting in the region “requires a strengthened IAEA presence,” he said.

Grossi sought for months to negotiate territorial protections for the plant before pivoting this year to a set of principles aimed at protecting it during conflict.

He presented the five principles he identified as “essential to avoid the danger of a catastrophic incident” to the UN Security Council during a May 30 meeting. The principles state that there should be no attack from or against the plant, particularly “targeting the reactors, spent fuel storage, other critical infrastructure, or personnel” and that heavy weapons and military personnel should not be based at the facility.

In addition, off-site power to the plant should be available and secure and not be put at risk; and the “structures, systems, and components” essential for safely and securely operating the facility should be protected from attacks and sabotage. Finally, Grossi proposed that “no action should be taken that undermines these principles” and “respectfully and solemnly” asked that Russia and Ukraine observe them. The IAEA team stationed at the plant will monitor implementation and report back to the agency, he added.

At the Security Council meeting, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that “ensuring nuclear safety and security” is an “overriding priority” for Russia. He described Grossi’s proposed principles as “consistent with measures” that Russia has been taking.

Nebenzia denied that any attacks were conducted “from the territory” of the plant and said heavy weaponry has never been deployed there.

But U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield cited imagery released by the United Kingdom that showed “military emplacements atop reactors at the plant.”

Thomas-Greenfield said that Russia continues to “demonstrate flagrant disregard” for the objectives that Grossi laid out.

She said that if Russia wants to show it is “serious about reducing nuclear risk,” it can “remove its weapons and civil and military personnel” from the plant and return control to Ukraine.

It is “entirely within Moscow’s control to avert a nuclear catastrophe,” she said.

Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said that Grossi’s principles must be accompanied by “full demilitarization and de-occupation” of the complex. Russia cannot be considered a “reliable partner,” given its violations of international treaties, he said.

The agency chief redoubled his efforts to protect the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as fighting in the Russian-provoked war intensified and a critical dam in the area was destroyed.

UN Council Fails to Condemn North Korean Launch


July/August 2023
By Kelsey Davenport

The United States and Japan called for a UN Security Council meeting after North Korea attempted to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, but the body failed to take any action to condemn Pyongyang for violating council resolutions.

The South Korean Defence Ministry says that this object, salvaged by the South Korean military, is presumed to be part of a North Korean spacelaunch vehicle that crashed into the sea following a launch failure on May 31 off Eocheongdo Island. (Photo by South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images)The new three-stage Chollima-1 space launch vehicle was launched from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station on May 31. The satellite and remains of the launch vehicle crashed into the Yellow Sea after the engine in the second stage of the rocket failed.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) acknowledged the failure and said the National Aerospace Development Administration attributed it to “low reliability and stability of the new-type engine” used in the Chollima-1.

The aerospace administration will “thoroughly investigate” the defects, and another satellite will be launched “as soon as possible,” according to KCNA.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement calling the launch a “serious provocation that threatens peace and security on the Korean peninsula and the international community.” South Korea and Japan issued alerts for people to take shelter once the launch was detected.

South Korea launched its first commercial-grade satellite into orbit just days before North Korea’s failed attempt. But Pyongyang is prohibited from launching satellites under UN Security Council resolutions because the launch vehicle technology is applicable to missile development. Despite those restrictions, North Korea has launched what it described as earth observation satellites into orbit in the past, but said this is the first one intended for military reconnaissance. (See ACT, March 2016.)

In a June 4 statement in KCNA, Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, defended the satellite launch as a “sovereign right.”
Kim, who is also the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Pyongyang will never recognize the “illegal” Security Council resolutions.

She justified the launch as a “legal countermeasure” to cope with U.S. and South Korean military threats that “have already crossed the red line.”

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee, comprising North Korea’s top party leaders, criticized the officials responsible for the launch failure. According to a June 19 report in KCNA on the party meeting, the successful deployment of a military reconnaissance satellite is necessary for North Korea’s military to make “full preparations for combat.” The bureau, which was holding its eighth plenum, commended advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, but called for “increasing the production of powerful nuclear weapons.”

The United States and Japan called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council following the launch, but that June 2 meeting did not lead to any statement or resolution condemning North Korea’s actions. The Security Council also failed to act after a similar meeting was called in response to North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in April. (See ACT, May 2023.)

During the June 2 meeting, Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, called the launch a “brazen violation of multiple Security Council resolutions” and said North Korea “raised tensions and risked destabilizing the already sensitive security situation in the region.”

Wood raised concerns about the Security Council’s failure to respond to the illicit activity and said North Korea is “emboldened by the silence.” Wood argued that Pyongyang is “trying to normalize these unlawful launches” with the “support of its two staunch defenders” on the Security Council. He called on members to condemn North Korea’s action and urged Pyongyang to refrain from conducting another launch.

Similar to the April meeting, China and Russia resisted these calls. Anna Evstigneeva, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, said the United States is the “root cause” of escalating regional tensions and pointed to U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises as destabilizing.

North Korea conducted the satellite launch during a large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercise. The joint training ended on June 15 with a live fire drill that Yoon called an “annihilation” exercise designed to repel enemy strikes and conduct a counterattack on North Korea. Yoon oversaw the drill and said afterward that South Korea will respond “without a moment’s hesitation” to North Korean provocations and that it is South Korea’s “overwhelming power that will bring about real peace.”

In addition to blaming the U.S.-South Korean military exercises for stoking the crisis, Evstigneeva said Russia opposes the “inhumane policy of enhancing the sanctions pressure.”

She said Moscow supports a “comprehensive settlement of the situation on the Korean peninsula” by addressing the “legitimate concerns and rights of all the states involved.” She said that, despite U.S. rhetorical support for diplomacy, Russia is not sure if the United States is “truly prepared to hold meaningful discussions” with North Korea.

Geng Shuang, China’s UN ambassador, argued that it is not productive to “to put all the blame on one party.” He added that U.S. military activities undermine statements in support of diplomacy.

In response, Wood said it is “hard to imagine that we should ease sanctions” on North Korea while it continues its destabilizing activities because that would send a message that countries can “willfully violate” Security Council resolutions and “be rewarded.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the international community, specifically China, to do more to encourage North Korea to act responsibly. “China is in a unique position to press Pyongyang to engage in dialogue and to end its dangerous behavior,” Blinken said on June 19 during a trip to Beijing.

Ishikane Kimihrio, Japan’s UN ambassador, also pushed back on calls that the Security Council should not provoke North Korea. He said the silence will encourage “rule breakers to write the playbook as they like.”

Kim Yo Jong denounced the Security Council meeting as a “discriminative and rude action.” She said North Korea will continue to take “proactive measures to exercise all the lawful rights of a sovereign state, including the one to [a] military reconnaissance satellite launch.”

North Korea violated UN Security Council resolutions when it tried to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite, but the Council declined to take any action.

Congressman Aims to Bolster U.S. Hypersonics Testing


July/August 2023
By Shannon Bugos

The Pentagon’s efforts to develop and deploy new hypersonic weapons to rival those of China and Russia may receive a funding boost from Congress in order to overcome its insufficient testing infrastructure.

Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. (R), talks with Admiral John C. Aquilino, commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, during the House Armed Services Committee hearing in April that included discussion of hypersonic weapons. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, vowed to make hypersonic capabilities a top priority in the U.S. national defense budget process for fiscal year 2024,
which is now underway.

Lamborn said on May 13 that he aims to speed up the “way too slow” hypersonic weapons systems development programs, primarily by increasing funding for “different testing capabilities and facilities.”

Adm. John Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, acknowledged during an April hearing before the full committee that the Pentagon’s advancements in hypersonic weapons programs must
“go faster.”

“We are in a race with peer competitors that are determined to beat us in hypersonics,” Mark Lewis, a former Pentagon official with expertise in hypersonic weapons systems, stated on June 5. Lewis now works at Purdue University’s Applied Research Institute, which opened a new hypersonic technologies research and testing facility on June 6.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department identified significant inadequacies with ground-test capabilities and missile test ranges for hypersonic weapons, such as insufficient flight-simulation abilities and the need for new or upgraded instrumentation. (See ACT, March 2023.) In March, the Air Force announced that it was canceling the purchase of its Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a hypersonic boost-glide system, due to a lackluster testing record. (See ACT, May 2023.)

But in April, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall suggested that all might not be over for the ARRW system, telling Congress that “we haven’t stopped on ARRW.” Kendall, a known skeptic of the ARRW program, said that the service will wait to see how the missile system finishes its testing program before making a judgment on its future.

Lamborn also emphasized the need for the United States to focus more on building up systems to defend against hypersonic weapons. This type of defense system received increased attention due to Ukraine’s interception on May 4 of a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile over Kyiv with a U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missile defense system.

After much media speculation, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed on May 9 that Ukraine used the Patriot system to down a Russian missile.

The United States, Germany, and the Netherlands all have supplied Ukraine with Patriot missile defense systems.

In late June, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees marked up their respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2024. The two chambers still need to merge their drafts into one piece of legislation and approve the final version.

Meanwhile, Iran claimed on June 6 that it has created a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile weapons system, named Conqueror, with speeds as high as Mach 15. Experts doubted Iran’s claim. John Krzyzaniak of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, tweeted, “[D]on’t be dazzled by ‘hypersonic’ claims,” noting that the system resembled a ballistic missile with maneuverable reentry vehicle capability.

 

The Republican chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee agrees with the Pentagon that the development of hypersonic weapons systems needs to be accelerated. 

PSI Celebrates 20 Years


July/August 2023
By Kelsey Davenport

States met in South Korea to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a multilateral initiative aimed at preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and discuss actions to address new proliferation threats.

A U.S. Coast Guard team clears the main deck of USNS Henry J. Kaiser during a live training exercise at sea in the Indo-Pacific region in 2014. The exercise is designed to build regional capacity to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction under the Proliferation Security Initiative. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st class Amanda Dunford)Founded in 2003, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) focuses on disrupting the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and related materials through information sharing and interdictions. More than 100 states have endorsed the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles, which includes commitments such as strengthening national legal authorities
to allow for interdictions, interdicting illicit shipments of WMD-related materials, and sharing information about such shipments with other countries. Seventy countries participated in the May 31-June 1 meeting on Jeju Island.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Dohoon, who opened the PSI meeting, noted the significant contributions that the initiative has made to countering proliferation over the past two decades. He called attention to North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs and said its actions demonstrate why states must commit to maintaining the PSI as an effective tool.

One of the incidents that spurred the United States to work with other countries to establish the PSI involved an illicit North Korean shipment of Scud missiles to Yemen in 2002.

Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said that the PSI’s challenges are twofold. She noted that “long-standing trends” in proliferation “have worsened over time” and that new challenges are emerging. The PSI “must build upon its existing lines of effort while adapting to a rapidly changing strategic and technological environment,” she said in remarks on May 30. Jenkins called for PSI states “to undertake dedicated efforts” to address the threats posed by new technologies.

The PSI holds workshops and training activities, including regular exercises in the Mediterranean Ocean and the Asia-Pacific region. This year’s annual Asia-Pacific exercise, Eastern Endeavor 23, was held alongside the high-level political meeting and included a multinational ship-boarding demonstration under “cooperative and non-cooperative situations” to build interdiction capacities, according to a description released on June 1 by South Korea.

Ahead of the exercise, the South Korean Defense Ministry described the activity as an opportunity to work with other countries to deter North Korean threats and demonstrate advanced capabilities to counter proliferation.

Jenkins said the Asia-Pacific exercise rotation has proven to be “hugely successful in developing regional partnerships” and urged the PSI to look to “replicate that effort in other regions.”

She also said the United States will expand PSI-related outreach efforts in 2024, including to countries in Africa, and encourage new states to endorse the initiative’s statement of principles. Africa, she said, is “underrepresented” in the PSI.

At the end of the meeting, participating countries adopted a joint statement committing to strengthen the PSI’s training activities and to address new proliferation challenges, such as cryptocurrency financing for WMD efforts and intangible technology transfers.

More than 100 states have endorsed the Proliferation Security Initiative principles to disrupt trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.   

States Prepare for NPT Meetings


July/August 2023
By Jupiter Kaishu Huang

During a moment of heightened nuclear danger, states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are gearing up for the first of three preparatory committee meetings ahead of the 2026 NPT Review Conference.

Preparatory committees engage in procedural work; “consider principles, objectives, and ways” to promote the full implementation of the NPT; and forward recommendations to the review conference.

This year’s meetings will be held July 31-Aug. 11 in Vienna. Jarmo Viinanen, the Finnish ambassador for arms control, has been appointed the preparatory committee’s chair-designate.

The last NPT review conference, in 2022, marked the second consecutive meeting to fail at reaching an outcome document. (See ACT, September 2022; June 2015.) Russia broke the consensus in the final hours of the conference by demanding changes to several paragraphs of negotiated language. Among Russia’s objections was a statement stressing that control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant should return to Ukraine.

The recent destruction of the Kakhovka Dam has further increased anxiety over a nuclear accident in Ukraine. The dam’s collapse has led to a severe drop in the water levels of the Kakhovka reservoir, which supplies water to the Zaporizhzhia plant’s cooling pond. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated on June 8 that there was no immediate danger but “the general nuclear safety and security situation remains very precarious.”

Despite the lack of an agreed outcome, the 2022 review conference did establish a working group on strengthening the review process. (See ACT, October 2022.) It will convene on July 24-28 in Vienna, immediately preceding the preparatory committee.

States-parties at the working group will discuss adjustments to the review cycle, such as an increase in interactivity in debate, greater agenda flexibility, a change in the length of committee meetings, and a shift to a more regional approach.

“The failure of several review conferences…to reach a consensus has been primarily the result of major differences among the states-parties rather than the fault of the structure and operation of the review process,” Gaukhar Mukhatzhar and Thomas Markram, senior experts at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-proliferation, wrote in May 2023. “However, states-parties have also acknowledged that the preparatory cycle could be made more effective.”

The first of three meetings to prepare for the 2026 NPT review conference will be held July 31-Aug. 11 in Vienna.  

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