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Nuclear physics was a research subject in Ukraine long before the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl was built – research that contributed to the development of both nuclear power and the atomic bomb. Despite this, the country’s role in nuclear history is largely unknown, says Tatiana Kasperski, whose research aims to broaden the picture.
“When Ukraine and nuclear power are mentioned, we often immediately think of the accident at Chernobyl, but research in nuclear physics was underway as early as the 1920s. Ukrainian researchers have contributed to the development of nuclear power and Soviet atomic weapons, so it is necessary to study both civilian and military nuclear technology to understand the significant role played by Ukraine,” says Tatiana Kasperski, PhD in political science at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University.
Funding from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies will now allow her to study Ukrainian research’s relationship to and dependence on the central power of the Soviet Union, and later Russia. She has chosen specific sites at which uranium was mined, weapons developed, or where nuclear power was produced, and will investigate items such as policy and decision-making documents, as well as issues relating to environmental impact.
“Historically, Russia and Ukraine have had close ties in the nuclear power industry. The reactors that were built were of Soviet design. Ukraine has mined uranium, but was unable to enrich it, so was forced to rely on Russia following independence. They were also dependent on their neighbour for expertise, spare parts and the management of nuclear fuel. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had to start from nothing to build up new institutions and infrastructure for controlling and managing nuclear power plants,” she says.
Apart from Russia, only three of the USSR’s national republics had nuclear weapons during the Soviet era: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the international community encouraged these three countries to give up their weapons, something to which Ukraine was initially very opposed. At the same time, it wanted to earn the recognition of democratic states in the west.
“The three countries wanted some guarantees in exchange. This resulted in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which guaranteed their territorial integrity. The nuclear powers of the USA, UK and Russia promised that they would not use force against them. Russia breached this agreement in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, which may lead to other countries being less willing to give up their nuclear weapons,” says Kasperski.
Her doctoral thesis from 2012 was dedicated to the memory of the Chernobyl disaster and, subsequently, she has primarily studied Ukraine’s nuclear history focusing on the time after the catastrophe and the fall of the Soviet Union. She has examined how the nuclear power industry developed, its dependence on Russia, and attempts to democratise the industry’s governance. She will take all of this knowledge with her into a new project titled “Ukraine and the Global Nuclear Order: an Environmental and Technological History”.
Integrates an environmental perspective
She also wants to integrate an environmental perspective into this project. Uranium mining, nuclear power and nuclear weapons programmes have had a huge impact on the environment in Ukraine. For example, there are military facilities at which radioactive waste is stored without the authorities knowing its type or quantity. There are no inventories, as the information disappeared in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The escalation of the war in Ukraine has brought the issue of nuclear weapons and nuclear power to the fore, partly due to the Russian threats to use nuclear weapons, partly because Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have become battle sites.
“Though this research, I’ll be showing how Ukraine’s role and history are linked to global development, and demonstrate that nuclear technology does not only produce energy. Security, weapons development and the issue of nuclear power are all interconnected. Risks related to nuclear power are always said to be exceptional, always dependent on external factors. Still, if we didn’t know it before, the war has proven that civilian nuclear power can also be used for military purposes,” concludes Kasperski.
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