Who are they - useful idiots or enablers?

According to the official announcement, "Energoatom has identified seven key substations for NPPs. These facilities are critical for power distribution from nuclear power plants. The IAEA mission will be working at these substations". https://reform.energy/news/misii-magate-pratsyuvatimut-na-semi-kritichnikh-pidstantsiyakh-glava-energoatoma-23001

The Ukrainian Regulator also reports enthusiastically at https://snriu.gov.ua/news/mahate-provedeno-rozshyrenu-monitorynhovu-misiiu-na-elektrychnykh-pidstantsiiakh-iaki-vazhlyvi-dlia-bezpeky-aes-ukrainy?fbclid=IwY2xjawGMKPtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWWIOdX3X-0Xffpsz3haX3WmYfIcFeyJkmiKmYzaTzGl4-AlljzdIPqU5g_aem_g8D8eukgnTkXAQ3hKUUE0w:

"Last week, IAEA experts together with specialists from NPC Ukrenergo, Energoatom and SNRIU visited the power substations identified by the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine as priority ones and considered the operational consequences of actual damage to the energy infrastructure, which provides power from nuclear power plants to the consumers and ensures power supply for the power units' own needs. 

Ukraine has experience in preventing information leakage on key issues related to protection of the Power System of Ukraine, the protocol for balancing NPPs operating to the grid during missile attacks, and the appropriate timing of technological operations and switchings. Such information has never been available, including for the IAEA, and after the attack on the Power System of November 23, 2022, it is extremely critical for survival. 

The alleged presence of unauthorized persons within the open switchgears, both near the NPP and at adjacent substations of the Ukrenergo system, makes our measures on the first and second level protective structures, high-voltage circuit breaker control systems, auxiliary power systems and the state of electric fields extremely vulnerable. 

The analysis of design solutions, their comparison between sites, peculiarities and differences are of strategic importance, as they take into account the experience in this war, which is now being scaled up from Ukrenergo’s passive protection systems to Ukrainian NPPs’ switchgears, and therefore cannot be visually accessible to the IAEA. 

The access and presence of IAEA experts at the critical infrastructure facilities cannot be considered as a preventive measure or a guarantee against their striking. Passive defense measures are not only specific experience, but also have a positive practice of their use, which is of great interest to russia, as an effective means of countering their attacks and using them to protect the power system in russia. 

Measures to involve the IAEA at the sites of seven open switchgears will have the opposite effect and will make all our efforts to protect, improve reliability and reserve power distribution and output systems near NPPs useless. 

We have no control mechanisms, neither with regard to the composition of IAEA specialists nor their experience gained in the past, and we cannot control all the information coming from them through cybersecurity protocols that are closed to us. We might equally install industrial surveillance cameras within these switchgears and broadcast all changes in their status to the open space.

Such openness and transparency, without appropriate security measures and protocols to disable the leakage of sensitive and critical information, even through IAEA representatives, is extremely unwise and dangerous for our survival in the coming winter. It is impossible to share information with those who do not have special clearance and obligations to preserve the official information of Ukraine, which the enemy will try to obtain, through the same IAEA sources where russian citizens work in the governing bodies. 

Ukraine should take appropriate measures to prevent leakage of critical information, and the PR decision to allow random representatives of other states to access the critical infrastructure at open switchgears, it should be canceled immediately. 

Georgiy Balakan, October 28, 2024