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What Comes After Russia’s Attack on a Ukrainian Nuclear Power Station?

IN THIS ISSUE: What Comes After Russia’s Attack on a Ukrainian Nuclear Power Station?, Iran Nuclear Deal’s Final Hurdle Is Lifting Terrorism Sanctions on Revolutionary Guards, U.S. Rethinks Uranium Supply for Nuclear Plants After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, N.K. Weekend Artillery Firing Did Not Breach Inter-Korean Accord: Defense Minister, Russia Claims First Use of Hypersonic Kinzhal Missile in

Published on March 22, 2022

What Comes After Russia’s Attack on a Ukrainian Nuclear Power Station?

Mark Hibbs | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Russian assault on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine two weeks ago unleashed a destabilizing cocktail of events that, in the worst case, could still lead to a severe nuclear accident. And as Russia’s violence continues and spreads, it may threaten Ukraine’s other nine nuclear power plants, including older units in western Ukraine that may be less protected against some extreme hazards.

Iran Nuclear Deal’s Final Hurdle Is Lifting Terrorism Sanctions on Revolutionary Guards

Laurence Norman | Wall Street Journal

The effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal agreement now hinges on perhaps the most politically sensitive issue in the negotiations: whether to remove the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, the country’s powerful security force, diplomats said. The issue is galvanizing opposition to the nuclear deal in Washington and among Middle East allies such as Israel, where the government issued stinging public criticism of any attempt to remove the terrorism designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Senior U.S. officials say a failure to find a compromise with Iran on the issue quickly could cause a breakdown in negotiations that—over almost a year—have resolved nearly every other disagreement.

U.S. Rethinks Uranium Supply for Nuclear Plants After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Jennifer Hiller | Wall Street Journal

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the global market for uranium, a critical fuel for nuclear-power plants, prompting some in the U.S. to propose reviving domestic production. Russia enriches more uranium for use in nuclear plants than any other country in the world. Its increasing economic isolation following its attack on Ukraine—and talk of potential added sanctions on Russian uranium—have exposed the fragility of global nuclear-fuel supplies, which are controlled by a handful of countries. Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming—one of the main U.S. uranium-producing states—filed legislation on Thursday to ban Russian imports, calling the dependence on foreign uranium “simply unacceptable.”

N.K. Weekend Artillery Firing Did Not Breach Inter-Korean Accord: Defense Minister

Yonhap News Agency 

Defense Minister Suh Wook on Tuesday rejected President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s claim that North Korea’s weekend artillery firing violated a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction accord. During a parliamentary session, Suh said the North fired shots Sunday from a site “far north’ of a buffer zone in the Yellow Sea that the two Koreas agreed to set up under their Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA). Earlier in the day, Yoon called the firing a “clear” violation of the CMA that stipulates the buffer zone spanning around 135 kilometers in the Yellow Sea and around 80 km in the East Sea. It bans artillery firing and naval drills in the zone. “No, it’s far north,” Suh said in response to a lawmaker’s question of whether the firing took place within the buffer zone demarcated by the CMA. “It was not an area covered by the agreement.”

Russia Claims First Use of Hypersonic Kinzhal Missile in Ukraine

Paul Kirby | BBC News

Russia’s military has fired a hypersonic ballistic missile and destroyed a big underground arms depot in western Ukraine, the defence ministry in Moscow has said. If confirmed it would be Russia’s first use in this war of the Kinzhal, or Dagger, ballistic missile launched from the air, most likely by a MiG-31 warplane. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly highlighted Russia’s investment in hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5. . . . “I don't view it as that significant,” says James Acton, nuclear policy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I don’t know how much of an advantage Russia is getting from using hypersonic missiles.”

Deal on Ukrainian Nuclear Safety to Come ‘Soon,’ Says IAEA Chief

Louise Guilllot | POLITICO

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is closing in on a deal to guarantee the safety and security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine, according to its chief Rafael Mariano Grossi. “We are negotiating, we are approaching what we want to be the final stages of our consultations,” Grossi told European lawmakers on Monday, adding he hoped to reach a deal “very soon.” The discussions, which started on March 10, are “very delicate” diplomatically, he said.

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.