podcast
The military expert Carlo Masala analyzes the situation at the contested Zaporizhia nuclear plant and the calculations of Russia and Ukraine.
For military expert Carlo Masala, the contested Zaporizhia nuclear facility is increasingly becoming part of power games by Russia, but also by Ukraine. 42 states and the European Union had demanded the withdrawal of the Russian occupying forces from the nuclear power plant at the weekend. “Putin won’t be impressed at all by something like that,” Masala suspects. Russia wants to cut off Ukraine’s nuclear facility and divert power to occupied Crimea. “This is a strategically important goal for Putin.”
At the same time, with the occupied nuclear power plant, the Russian President has the possibility of a very massive nuclear threat in his hands. According to his logic, this gives him bargaining power. The confusion about the inspection visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been going on for days, would not be a coincidence, but a method. “We see that Putin is deliberately exploiting the situation to stir up fear,” says the politics professor from the Bundeswehr University in Munich. It is the typical Russian game: making promises and then making demands that reverse the promises made. That shows everything: “Putin is using this nuclear power plant as a potential threat.”
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dr Carlo Masala is Professor of International Politics at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.
Masala: AKW is “part of a power game in this war”
However, the Ukrainian President has also warned in dramatic terms of a nuclear catastrophe that could also affect the states of the European Union. According to Masala’s analysis, Zelenskyy’s goal is to strengthen and expand the 42-state front. International pressure should induce Russia to vacate the plant and return it to Ukraine. But while the threat posed by the nuclear power plant is a central issue for the Germans, for the actors on the ground it’s just “part of a power game in this war.”
Source: Stern
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