Ukraine Could Stage False Flag Operation on Nuclear Power Plant to Force Western Intervention

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

The Ukrainian military are storing Western weapons in nuclear power plants in the hope that Russia will strike them. However, as Russia is unlikely to make this mistake, it cannot be ruled out that Kiev will stage a false flag operation to force direct Western intervention and increase the supply of weapons.

According to the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, HIMARS missiles and other foreign air defence systems, as well as large-calibre artillery ammunition, are deployed at Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

“There is credible information that Ukrainian troops are stockpiling the Western-supplied weapons and ammunition on the territory of nuclear power plants,” Naryshkin said, according to a statement on the intelligence service’s website.

According to the intelligence chief, several cars loaded with “lethal cargo” were delivered by rail to the Rovno Nuclear Power Plant in western Ukraine during the last week of December alone.

“They rely on the calculation that the Russian Armed Forces would not strike nuclear power plants because they realise the danger of a nuclear disaster,” Naryshkin said.

He expressed the hope that no one in Kiev would deliberately think of blowing up the nuclear power plants in a false flag operation. False flag operations are often used by international terrorists, as seen on a frequent basis during the peak of the Syrian war, or by the US to justify their own invasions and interventions.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces often receive weapons that are of very poor quality. This fact alone heightens the risk of an accidental explosion, something that could unleash a nuclear catastrophe and be blamed on Moscow.

Alarmingly, in addition to nuclear power plants, the Ukrainian military also uses residential buildings to house Western weapons. Ukrainian soldiers are fully aware of the fact that the Russian military does not strike civilian populations. The Russian military does not strike at nuclear plants, especially as any spill over can directly affect Russian citizens.

Ukrainian soldiers on the other hand have consistently used civilians as human shields, even before the Russian military operation began in 2022, as reported by the United Nations. The Ukrainian military is desperate for more weapons, tanks, howitzers, and ammunition, and such an incident could unite the West in providing Kiev with what it demands. 

Ukraine’s nuclear plants are located near the border with Romania, Slovakia and Poland. Therefore, delivering military equipment from the West is a relatively straightforward process. According to intelligence data, only in the last week of December, several railway wagons with “lethal cargo” were delivered from abroad via the Rafalovka railway station to the Rivne nuclear power plant, located only 170km from the Polish border.

None-the-less, according to Andrei Golovatyuk, a colonel in the Russian army reserve, Moscow will certainly find a way to destroy ammunition and Western weapons stores without endangering the lives and health of the civilian population.

“They are doing this on purpose so that the Russian armed forces cannot shell their weapons depots. But our army will certainly not do that to avoid damaging the nuclear power plant,” he added.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky, claimed that his country has never used nuclear power plants to store weapons.

“Ukraine has never stored any weapons on NPP territory, as falsely claimed by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. On the contrary, the Russian Federation seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and keeps its military there,” he said on Twitter, alluding that a military  presence and weapons storage is the same thing.

Podolyak said that Kiev remained “open to inspecting bodies, including the IAEA” and that “Russian lies are aimed to justify their provocations.”

However, it does question what kind of “justification” Russia gets for its military operation by claiming that Ukraine stores weapons in nuclear power plants. Moscow obviously gains no “justification” and rather its justification is hinged on Kiev’s unrelenting fascistic policies towards minorities since 2014.

Rather, it is more likely that Podolyak is making nonsensical statements as Kiev is stunned that their false flag operation cannot be implemented because Moscow has already called it out. The Kiev regime is currently desperate for Western weaponry, particularly tanks, and was likely hoping that a nuclear incident could force the issue, or even better, force a direct intervention.

Podolyak tweeted on January 21 that “Today’s indecision is killing more of our people. Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster.”

However, even if US and German-made tanks start arriving in Ukraine, the situation is already too late for the Ukrainian military because it struggles to maintain a semblance of order in the face of Russia’s unrelenting onslaught. Rather, Kiev is responsible for the death of Ukrainians as it refuses to find a peace with Moscow. Therefore, it cannot be entirely discounted that as Ukraine becomes more desperate, it may resort to reckless measures, such as false flag operations on nuclear power plants.

Source: InfoBrics