Activists are exploring the possibility of setting up an Unarmed Civilian Protection team at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine ‘to prevent a nuclear explosion that would impact Ukraine – and the world’. A deliberate attack or an accident at Zaporizhzhia could create a Chernobyl-like disaster.
On 30 September, it was reported that 30 people were killed when a Russian missile struck a civilian convoy waiting to go into Zaporizhzhya. According to the authorities, there were no military targets in the area.
The Unarmed Civilian Protection team idea is being developed by the Peace Action Training Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR), working with US peace activist John Reuwer, who previously carried out unarmed civilian protection in South Sudan with Nonviolent Peaceforce.
John, a board member of World Beyond War, wrote on 27 September that he was about to go into Ukraine with PATRIR: ‘We are in touch with leading experts in the field of unarmed protection and nuclear risk, and will be meeting with activists in Ukraine to recruit and strategize. This project would require at least a symbolic presence of a few dozen people (a few for each UN inspector).’
John asks for volunteers to contact him in case there is ‘a call for training and planning for deployment to protect the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant’.