Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida photographed during a news conference on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.
Rodrigo Reyes-Marin | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The prime minister of Japan said Wednesday that his country would restart more idled nuclear power plants and look into the feasibility of developing next-gen reactors.
Fumio Kishida’s comments, reported by Reuters, build upon remarks he made back in May, and come at a time when Japan — a big importer of energy — is looking to bolster its options amid ongoing uncertainty in global energy markets and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
If fully realized, the move would represent a turnaround for the country’s energy policy following 2011’s Fukushima disaster, when a powerful earthquake and tsunami resulted in a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Most of Japan’s nuclear plants have remained idle since then, but attitudes appear to be shifting. Earlier this month, a former executive director of the International Energy Agency said public support in Japan for a nuclear restart now stood at over 60%.
Japan is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050. Under an “ambitious outlook,” the country’s 6th Strategic Energy Plan envisages renewables accounting for 36% to 38% of its power generation mix in 2030, with nuclear responsible for 20% to 22%.
“Stable use of nuclear power will be promoted on the major premise that public trust in nuclear power should be gained and that safety should be secured,” according to an outline of the plan.
met with the leaders of Turkey and the United Nations on Thursday to discuss food shipments from Ukraine and the increasingly tense situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Ukraine continued to hit Russian logistics with artillery strikes.
Following the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Mr. Zelensky said he pressed U.N. Secretary-General
António Guterres
about the nuclear plant, which Russia has occupied since the early days of the war. Explosions around the plant in recent days have knocked one reactor off the power grid and sparked fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
“Particular attention was paid to the topic of Russia’s nuclear blackmail at the Zaporizhzhia NPP,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media. He said the two men also discussed allegations that Ukrainian citizens were being forcibly deported to Russia and the treatment of captured Ukrainian soldiers.
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Russia has said Ukrainian forces threaten the nuclear plant’s security.
After meeting with Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Mr. Zelensky said they had discussed ways to protect Ukrainian grain that is being exported, as well as other security issues. Ankara helped broker with the U.N. a deal to lift a Russian naval blockade on Ukrainian exports, which had led to food shortages throughout the Middle East and Africa.
“This is a strong message of support from such a powerful country as Turkey,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
The Turkish president has sought to position himself as a mediator in the war, with Turkey hosting two rounds of unsuccessful peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Erdogan has said he hopes the U.N.-backed initiative that led to the resumption of Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports earlier this month could be a starting point for a broader peace between Russia and Ukraine.
At a news conference following the talks, he said he had “reiterated our support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” He added: “I have been preserving my belief that the war would come to an end at the negotiation table.”
Ukraine has exported 622,000 tons of grain and other food products from the three ports covered by the export agreement, the Turkish defense ministry said Thursday.
During the news conference, Mr. Guterres said “there is no solution to the global food crisis without insuring full global access to Ukraine’s food products and Russian food and fertilizer.” Global wheat prices, he said, have fallen up to 8% since the accord was signed.
Turkish military officers are helping to monitor implementation of the agreement alongside their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts and U.N. officials stationed at a control center that was set up in Istanbul in July. Four more ships loaded with agricultural products sailed from Ukrainian ports on Wednesday under the deal, according to Turkish officials.
Mr. Erdogan is increasingly posing as a friend to both sides in the Ukraine conflict. Turkey has delivered weapons to Ukraine, including armed drones that have been instrumental in Ukraine’s battle against the Russian invasion. In February, Turkey also invoked its rights under an international treaty to bar additional Russian warships from the Black Sea.
The leaders of the United Nations and Turkey met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in western Ukraine on Thursday. The group discussed food shipments and rising tensions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Photo: Handout/AFP/Getty Images
His visit to Ukraine comes less than two weeks after a visit to Russia where he held talks on the Ukraine war and the grain initiative with Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin.
“This will be another opportunity for Mr. Erdogan to be active in this mediation process,” said
Aydin Sezer,
a former diplomat who served in Turkey’s embassy in Moscow. “Erdogan is now the only person who is credited by the Kremlin when it comes to Ukrainian business.”
Turkish and Ukrainian officials also signed a memorandum of understanding calling for Turkey to participate in Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. The first project being considered under the agreement is the reconstruction of a bridge connecting Kyiv with the towns of Irpin and Bucha, where Russian soldiers carried out mass killings in March, the Ukrainian presidency said.
“Turkey is our strategic ally. We are grateful to our Turkish partners for their willingness to cooperate in the recovery of the infrastructure destroyed by Russia,” said Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister
Oleksandr Kubrakov
according to the Ukrainian president’s office.
Earlier on Thursday, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said that it had struck an ammunition depot in the village of Bilohirka, near the front line of fighting in the Kherson region. The rocket strike is the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted logistics in the Russian-occupied south—part of a strategy to starve Russian troops in the region of supplies and force them to withdraw from the territory they are holding west of the Dnipro River.
Unidentified civilians exhumed from a mass grave after Russia’s occupation of Bucha, near Kyiv, were reburied Wednesday.
Photo:
Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Emergency workers preparing for a potential nuclear disaster in Zaporizhzhia took part in a presentation watched by Ukrainian officials.
Photo:
Justyna Mielnikiewicz/MAPS for The Wall Street Journal
A day earlier, the Ukrainian military posted video to social media that appeared to show the aftermath of a long-range rocket strike on Nova Kakhovka, also in the Kherson region. And on Tuesday, pro-Ukrainian saboteurs destroyed an ammunition depot in Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. Video on social media Thursday also showed large explosions overnight in Russian-occupied Amvrosiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region; Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately comment on the cause.
As Ukrainian strikes inside Russian-held territory increase, Russian forces are attempting to crack down on pro-Ukrainian insurgents. A Ukrainian army veteran was arrested in the Kherson region on suspicion of sending locations of Russian troops and bases to Ukrainian forces, Russian state-run news agencies reported on Thursday. In addition, Russia’s FSB intelligence agency on Wednesday said it had detained six Russian citizens in Crimea who belonged to a cell that spread what it called terrorist ideology with the support of Ukrainian emissaries, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Russia has said it would give International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant—but only if they come via Russian-controlled territory and not through Kyiv, a plan that Ukraine opposes.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday said Ukraine was planning a false flag provocation for Friday at the plant to frame the occupying forces. Maj. Gen.
Igor Konashenkov,
a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, didn’t provide evidence to support the claim. The Russian-installed head of the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, meanwhile, said a plan was in place to evacuate residents in case of an attack on the plant. Kyiv didn’t immediately respond to the claim.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also said Thursday that Moscow would consider shutting down the plant if the situation surrounding the facility continues to deteriorate.
The Ukrainian government, international nuclear-power watchdogs and the plant’s staff have accused Russia of stealing Zaporizhzhia’s power by severing its connection to Ukraine’s remaining territory.
In Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, a Russian missile hit a residential building in the Saltivka neighborhood on Wednesday night, killing seven people and injuring at least 17 more, according to the city’s mayor. More missiles launched from Russia hit the city early Thursday morning, killing two more people. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces were targeting foreign fighters.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it has deployed three MiG-31 combat jets armed with hypersonic Kinzhal ballistic missiles to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, a chunk of Russia wedged between North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Lithuania and Poland, according to Russian state news agencies. Such missiles, when fired from jets, have farther reach than the ground-launched missiles already deployed in Kaliningrad.
—Nikita Nikolaienko contributed to this article.
Ukrainian fighters took part in a military drill on the country’s south coast.
In the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city that hosts Europe’s largest nuclear-power plant, residents are taping up windows in fear of a radioactive leak and sticking close to home as fighting rages around the complex and Moscow-installed authorities gear up for a possible annexation of the region by Russia.
Residents in Enerhodar, a city that has been under Russian occupation for more than five months, paint a picture of a pitched battle on the front lines in Ukraine’s south that risks sparking Europe’s biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
Enerhodar has become the focus of an international crisis as Russia and Ukraine trade blame for attacks on the city’s sprawling Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The plant is being defended by hundreds of Russian soldiers—effectively transforming it into a military garrison—who are facing off against Ukrainian soldiers stationed just a few miles away.
There has been no reported damage to the reactors and no radioactive release so far, but Ukraine said plant staff had to close one of six reactors over the weekend after a high-voltage power line was severed and three radiation monitors damaged.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant is being defended by hundreds of Russian soldiers.
Photo:
ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
“God forbid something irreversible happens,” Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
said in a video address Sunday. “No one will stop the wind that will spread radioactive pollution.”
The city, with a prewar population of 53,000 and whose name means “the giver of energy,” has been running out of food supplies and begun circulating the Russian ruble as reserves of Ukraine’s hryvnia currency run out, residents say.
Andriy, a former car salesman and a 36-year-old resident of Enerhodar, said that occupying authorities told residents the area around the plant is mined and that unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions litters the city.
“They told us that the Ukrainians were shelling the plant and that it was necessary to seal window frames with Scotch tape so that if they hit the warehouse of radioactive waste, the dust would not enter our homes,” he said by phone. “They say that the first day will be the most dangerous, so you have to stay at home and not go out. Everyone is afraid that something will happen to the plant.”
Occupation authorities in Enerhodar have begun circulating the Russian ruble as reserves of Ukraine’s hryvnia currency run out.
Photo:
ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
Andriy said Russian forces positioned beside the plant are firing artillery from the city at Ukrainian forces positioned across the Dnipro River near Nikopol. At night he sees what look like tracer bullets in the sky as the Russians fire antiaircraft guns from the territory of the station.
Communications with Enerhodar residents are steadily worsening as the occupying authorities tighten their control and fear spreads among locals. Many people worry that their phones have been tapped. Russia is also gradually disconnecting Ukrainian telecom providers and attempting to roll out Russian cell service. Sim cards from major Ukrainian providers no longer work properly.
“People are afraid,” said the Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar,
Dmytro Orlov,
who fled after the occupation. “Workers of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant go to work not knowing if they’ll return home after their shift, or whether everything is fine with their loved ones while they’re away.”
One Enerhodar woman in her early 60s said shelling of the city has become much more frequent in recent days, adding that she has seen trucks and armored personnel carriers driving regularly toward the plant complex. The woman said residents are trying to go about their daily lives, buying produce from local markets because supermarket prices have become too high, and increasingly paying in Russian rubles circulated by occupation authorities as supplies of Ukraine’s hryvnia run out.
Himars—long-range rocket launchers from the U.S.—have helped Ukraine target Russian ammunition stores, command posts and fuel depots, slowing down Moscow’s forces. As Washington sends more weapons, WSJ looks at why Kyiv is asking for other advanced tools. Photo composite: Eve Hartley
People fear speaking in public, she said, afraid that a passerby could inform on them to the occupation authorities. The woman said her son, a city council member before the war, is now in hiding after having failed to escape to Ukrainian-controlled territory. He was sleeping in friends’ garages and basements, escaping both the Russian-installed government and the constant shelling.
“Most people keep their opinions to themselves because you can’t know what your interlocutor might do,” said Yury, a local resident. He added that many Russian-installed officials and security service members now appear in civilian clothing, making residents even more afraid of inadvertently saying something that could be used against them.
“Sometimes people you know disappear,” the woman said. “We think they probably said something wrong.” Mr. Orlov, the mayor, said several hundred residents of the city have been abducted and are being held in Russian custody, and months have passed in some cases with no information about their whereabouts. The Kremlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
When Russia took control of Enerhodar in early March, residents like Andriy and Yury came out to stage protest rallies and shout “Ukraine!” and “Go home!” at the occupying troops. The last protest, on April 2, was violently dispersed by Russian troops and outward signs of dissent quickly disappeared as Russia installed a collaborationist administration in the city and clamped down, residents say.
The Russian-installed head of the surrounding Zaporizhzhia region, Evgeny Balitsky, on Monday announced a coming referendum on whether the region should join Russia. Andriy, the local resident, said police are checking courtyards and building entrances for posters and leaflets against the referendum and searching for anyone who distributes them.
The woman in her 60s said fear is rising that battles raging in the area could cause damage that would leak radioactive chemicals.
“It’s scary to live near the plant,” she said. “Some fear that storage facilities have already been destroyed and are emitting radiation, and we just don’t know about it. People are afraid that if it explodes, we will all die here.”
She said most residents still hold out hope that Ukraine, which has announced a major counteroffensive on southern areas taken by Russia, will liberate Enerhodar too. But the occupation is becoming entrenched.
“It feels like most people are on Ukraine’s side,” she said. “But they are getting tired of waiting.”
A serviceman with a Russian flag on his uniform standing guard near the nuclear-power plant in early August.
