Titolo completo

Four Years of Nuclear Piracy: Zaporizhzhia and the Weaponisation of Civilian Nuclear Infrastructure

The prolonged occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) during Russia’s war against Ukraine marks the first sustained military control of an operational civilian nuclear power plant in an active interstate conflict. Over the past four years, the facility has been incorporated into the broader dynamics of territorial warfare, generating a hybrid nuclear safety and nuclear security crisis. Military presence at the plant, repeated disruptions of external power supply and interference with operations have embedded radiological risk within the conduct of war, transforming the latent possibility of nuclear catastrophe into a form of strategic leverage. This configuration can be understood as nuclear piracy: the coercive appropriation and instrumentalisation of civilian nuclear infrastructure by a state actor in order to exploit the threat of radiological release. Unlike earlier counter-proliferation strikes against nuclear facilities, which were episodic and destructive, the ZNPP illustrates a strategy based on prolonged occupation and the gradual normalisation of radiological vulnerability. The crisis exposes a significant gap in international humanitarian law and nuclear security governance, which remain poorly equipped to regulate the militarisation of civilian nuclear facilities in armed conflict.