Could Ukraine’s nuclear industry face another Chernobyl?

Thirty-five years after the disaster, the nuclear industry is Ukraine’s most reliable economic lifeline. But critics say it faces a perennial crisis caused by corruption, safety problems and politicised decision-making.

Kyiv, Ukraine – The radioactive cloud that briefly hovered over most of Europe after the April 26, 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station had, after all, a silver lining, Petro Kotin says. Thirty-five years after a botched security test caused the worst nuclear disaster in history, he is at the helm of Energoatom, a state-run consortium in charge of Ukraine’s four nuclear stations and their 15 reactors. “We are unique because no other nation has the practical experience of overcoming such a disaster,” Kotin, who was appointed as Energoatom’s acting president in March 2020, told Al Jazeera in his office in central Kyiv.