Lindsay Rand | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Injecting AI into nuclear policy discussions at the diplomatic level presents potential pitfalls. The P5 process and NPT forums, such as preparatory committee meetings and the NPT Review Conference, are already fraught with challenges. Introducing the complexities of AI may divert attention from other critical nuclear policy issues, or even become linked to outstanding areas of disagreement in a way that further entrenches diplomatic roadblocks.
Reuters
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Ukraine of trying to strike Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant in an overnight attack and said Moscow had informed the U.N. nuclear safety watchdog about the situation. Putin, who did not provide further details about the incident or provide documentary evidence to back up his assertion, made the comments at a meeting of senior officials. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine whose lightning incursion into Kursk, the biggest into Russia by a foreign power since World War Two, saw thousands of Ukrainian troops punch through Russia's western border on Aug. 6, apparently catching Moscow by surprise.
Jonathan Tirone | Bloomberg
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said it’s enormously concerned by fighting near a Russian nuclear power plant because the old Soviet reactors in operation are particularly exposed. The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant has been thrust onto the front line of the war between Russia and Ukraine after an incursion by Kyiv’s forces placed them within artillery range, according to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Making matters worse, the two units in operation use the same so-called RBMK technology that melted down during the notorious 1986 accident in Chernobyl. Unlike modern nuclear reactors, the two units operating near the fighting don’t have extra layers of protection to contain radiation in the event of an accident.
A Robot’s Attempt to Get a Sample of the Melted Fuel at Japan’s Damaged Nuclear Reactor is Suspended
Mari Yamaguchi | Associated Press
An attempt to use an extendable robot to remove a fragment of melted fuel from a wrecked reactor at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was suspended Thursday due to a technical issue.The collection of a tiny sample of the debris inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel would start the fuel debris removal phase, the most challenging part of the decades-long decommissioning of the plant where three reactors were destroyed in the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disaster. The work was stopped when workers noticed that five 1.5-meter (5-foot) pipes used to maneuver the robot were placed in the wrong order and could not be corrected within the time limit for their radiation exposure, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said.
Reuters
A classified nuclear strategic plan approved by President Joe Biden this year is not a response to a single country or threat, the White House said on Tuesday, after the New York Times reported it reoriented the U.S. deterrence strategy to focus on China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal for the first time…Asked about the report, White House spokesperson Sean Savett said: "This administration, like the four administrations before it, issued a Nuclear Posture Review and Nuclear Weapons Employment Planning Guidance. "While the specific text of the Guidance is classified, its existence is in no way secret. The Guidance issued earlier this year is not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat."
The Economist
In the pentagon these days, those who plan for Doomsday have a new nightmare: no longer yesteryear’s dread of one big nuclear foe, but of several at the same time. What if, asks one official, Russia attacked a nato country, drawing America in to defend Europe; then China seized on America’s distraction to invade Taiwan; and then North Korea decided to attack the south? Three wars; three sets of friends and allies; three unpredictable nuclear crises. Could America handle them all?...James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, dc, says such talk points to “the increasing inevitability of a new arms race”. It is also evidence that, as he puts it, the Pentagon and Strategic Command, which would oversee any nuclear war, “are increasingly convinced that they need more nukes” and are winning the bureaucratic battle.