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What really happened in Alaska

It’s clear that both Trump and Putin are playing a long game. Trump wants to get rid of the pesky two-bit actor in Kiev – but without applying old school US coup/regime-change tactics. In his mind, the only thing that really registers is future, possible, mega trade deals on Russian mineral wealth and the development of the Arctic. 

the US seeks a meek Europe subjugated to the strategy of tension, otherwise there’s no EU military surge, buying billions worth of over-priced American weapons with money it doesn’t have.

Pepe Escobar, AUG 18, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-in-alaska

Alaska was not only about Ukraine. Alaska was mostly about the world’s top two nuclear powers attempting to rebuild trust and apply the brakes on an out-of-control train in a mad high-speed rail dash towards nuclear confrontation. 

There were no assurances, given the volatile character of US President Donald Trump, who conceived the high-visibility meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. But a new paradigm may be in the works nonetheless. Russia has essentially been de facto recognized by the US as a peer power. That implies, at the very least, the return of high-level diplomacy where it is most needed. 

Meanwhile, Europe is dispatching a line-up of impotent leaders to Washington to kowtow in front of the Emperor. The EU’s destiny is sealed: into the dustbin of geopolitical irrelevance.

What has been jointly decided by Trump, personally, and Putin, even before Moscow proposed charged-with-meaning Alaska as the summit venue, remains secret. There will be no leaks about the full content.  

Yet it’s quite significant that Trump himself rated Alaska as a 10 out of 10. 

The key takeaways, relayed by sources in Moscow with direct access to the Russian delegation, all the way to the 3-3 format (it was initially designed to be a 5-5, but other key members, such as Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, did provide their input), emphasize that:

“It was firmly put [by Putin] to stop all direct US weapon deliveries to Ukraine as a vital step towards the solution. Americans accepted the fact that it is necessary to dramatically decrease lethal shipments.”

After that happens, the ball swings to Europe’s court. The sources specify, in detail: 

“Out of the $80 billion Ukrainian budget, Ukraine itself provides less than around $20 billion. The National Bank of Ukraine says that they collect $62 billion in taxes alone, which is a hoax; with a population around 20 million, much more than one million of irreversible battlefield losses, a decimated industry and less than 70 percent of pre-Maidan territory under control that is simply impossible.” 

So Europe – as in the NATO/EU combo – has a serious dilemma: ‘Either support Ukraine financially, or militarily. But not both at the same time. Otherwise, the EU itself will collapse even faster.’ 

Now compare all of the above with arguably the key passage in one of Trump’s Truth Social posts: “It was determined by allthat the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” 

Add to it the essential sauce provided by former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev: 

“The President of Russia personally and in detail presented to the US President our conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine (…) Most importantly: both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ending hostilities on Kiev and Europe.”

Talk about superpower convergence. The devil, of course, will be in the details. 

BRICS on the table in Alaska

In Alaska, Vladimir Putin was representing not only the Russian Federation, but BRICS as a whole. Even before the meeting with his US counterpart was announced to the world, Putin spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. After all, it’s the Russia–China partnership that is writing the geostrategic script of this chapter of the New Great Game. 

Moreover, top BRICS leaders have been on a flurry of interconnected phone calls, leading to forge, in Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s assessment, a concerted BRICS front to counteract the Trump Tariff Wars. The Empire of Chaos, the Trump 2.0 version, is in a Hybrid War against BRICS, especially the Top Five: Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Iran. 

So Putin did achieve a minor victory in Alaska. Trump: “Tariffs on Russian oil buyers not needed for now (…) I may have to think about it in two to three weeks.” 

Even considering the predictable volatility, the pursuit of high-level dialogue with the US opens to the Russians a window to directly advance the interests of BRICS peers – including, for instance, Egypt and the UAE, blocked from further economic integration across Eurasia by the sanctions/tariff onslaught and the accompanying rampant Russophobia. 

None of the above, unfortunately, applies to Iran: The Zionist axis has an iron grip on every nook and cranny of Washington’s policies vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic.    

It’s clear that both Trump and Putin are playing a long game. Trump wants to get rid of the pesky two-bit actor in Kiev – but without applying old school US coup/regime-change tactics. In his mind, the only thing that really registers is future, possible, mega trade deals on Russian mineral wealth and the development of the Arctic. 

Putin also needs to manage domestic critics who won’t forgive any concessions. The desperate western media spin that he would offer freezing the front in Zaporozhye and Kherson in exchange for getting all of the Donetsk Republic is nonsense. That would go against the constitution of the Russian Federation. 

In addition, Putin needs to manage how US business would be allowed to enter two areas that are at the heart of federal priorities, and a matter of national security: the development of the Arctic and the Russian Far East. All that will be discussed in detail two weeks from now, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Once again, follow the money: Both oligarchies – in the US and Russia – want to go back to profitable business, pronto.

Lipstick on a defeated pig 

Putin, bolstered by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – the undisputed Man of the Match, with his CCCP fashion statement – finally had ample time, 150 minutes, to spell out, in detail, the underlying causes of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) and lay out the rationale for long-term peace: Ukraine neutrality; neo-nazi militias and parties banned and dismantled; no more NATO expansion. 

Geopolitically, whatever may evolve from Alaska does not invalidate the fact that Moscow and Washington at least did manage to buy some strategic breathing space. That might yield even a new shot toward respect for both powers’ spheres of influence. 

So it’s no wonder the Atlanticist front, from Europe’s old money to the bling bling novices, is freaking out because Ukraine is a giant money laundering mechanism for Eurotrash politicos. The Kafkaesque EU machine has already bankrupted EU member-states and EU taxpayers – but anyway, that’s not Trump’s problem.   

Across Global Majority latitudes, Alaska displayed the fraying of Atlanticism in no uncertain terms – revealing that the US seeks a meek Europe subjugated to the strategy of tension, otherwise there’s no EU military surge, buying billions worth of over-priced American weapons with money it doesn’t have.

The Putin–Trump meeting dropped some important veils. It revealed that Washington views Russia as a peer power, and that Europe is little more than a useful American tool.

At the same time, despite covetous US oligarchic private designs on Russian business, what Washington’s puppet masters truly want is to break up Eurasia integration, and by implication every multilateral organization – BRICS, SCO – driven to design a new, multinodal world order. 

Of course, a NATO surrender – even as it is being strategically defeated, all across the spectrum – remains anathema. Trump, at best, is applying lipstick on a pig, trying to craft, with trademark fanfare, what could be sold as a Deep State exit strategy, toward the next Forever War.  

Putin, the Russian Security Council, BRICS, and the Global Majority, for that matter, harbor no illusions.  

August 19, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

French monitor: Ukraine, NATO provoked Russia in Donbas war

As Trump hosts Zelensky, an international monitor on the ground in Ukraine from 2015 to 2022 blows the whistle on Ukraine’s NATO-backed assault on the Donbas.

Aaron Maté, Aug 19, 2025, https://www.aaronmate.net/p/french-monitor-ukraine-nato-provoked?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=171287926&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Benoit Paré is a former French defense ministry analyst who worked as an international monitor in eastern Ukraine from 2015 to 2022.

In his first interview with a US outlet, Paré speaks to The Grayzone‘s Aaron Maté about the hidden reality of the Ukraine war in the Donbas region, where the US-backed Kyiv government fought Russia-backed rebels following the 2014 Maidan coup. Russia now demands that Ukraine accept its capture of the Donbas as a condition for ending the war.

“I will very clear. For me the fault lies on Ukraine… by far.” Paré also warns that Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, who violently resisted the Minsk accords, remain a major obstacle to peace. Paré worked as a monitor for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a predominately European group. He recounts his experience as an OSCE monitor in Ukraine in his new book, “What I saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022, Diary of an International Observer.”

When it comes to which party is responsible for the failure to implement the Minsk accords, the 2015 peace pact that could have prevented the 2022 Russian invasion, Paré says.

“I will very clear. For me the fault lies on Ukraine… by far.” Paré also warns that Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, who violently resisted the Minsk accords, remain a major obstacle to peace. Paré worked as a monitor for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a predominately European group. He recounts his experience as an OSCE monitor in Ukraine in his new book, “What I saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022, Diary of an International Observer.”

Benoit Paré’s book: “What I saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022, Diary of an International Observer.”

August 19, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Declassified: CIA’s Covert Ukraine Invasion Plan

While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.

Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.

“Inhabitants of Donbass strongly resisted Ukrainian nationalists and at one point created a separate republic, independent of the rest of Ukraine. In the following years, they defended Soviet rule and Russian interests, often attacking the Ukrainian nationalists with more zeal than the Russian leaders themselves. During the German occupation in the Second World War, there was not a single recorded case of support for the Ukrainian nationalists or Germans.”

Global Delinquents, Kit Klarenberg, Aug 17, 2025, https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/declassified-cias-covert-ukraine

On August 7th, US polling giant Gallup published the remarkable results of a survey of Ukrainians. Public support for Kiev “fighting until victory” has plummeted to a record low “across all segments” of the population, “regardless of region or demographic group.” In a “nearly complete reversal from public opinion in 2022,” 69% of citizens “favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.” Just 24% wish to keep fighting.  However, vanishingly few believe the proxy war will end anytime soon.

The reasons for Ukrainian pessimism on this point are unstated, but an obvious explanation is the intransigence of President Volodymyr Zelensky, encouraged by his overseas backers – Britain in particular. London’s reverie of breaking up Russia into readily-exploitable chunks dates back centuries, and became turbocharged in the wake of the February 2014 Maidan coup. In July that year, a precise blueprint for the current proxy conflict was published by the Institute for Statecraft, a NATO/MI6 cutout founded by veteran British military intelligence apparatchik Chris Donnelly.

In response to the Donbass civil war, Statecraft advocated targeting Moscow with a variety of “anti-subversive measures”. This included “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations,” as well as “propaganda and counter-propaganda, pressure on neutrals.” The objective was to produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Russia, which “Britain and the West could win.” While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.

In August 1957, the CIA secretly drew up elaborate plans for an invasion of Ukraine by US special forces. It was hoped neighbourhood anti-Communist agitators would be mobilized as footsoldiers to assist in the effort. A detailed 200-page report, Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas, set out demographic, economic, geographical, historical and political factors throughout the then-Soviet Socialist Republic that could facilitate, or impede, Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.

The mission was forecast to be a delicate and difficult balancing act, as much of Ukraine’s population held “few grievances” against Russians or Communist rule, which could be exploited to foment an armed uprising. Just as problematically, “the long history of union between Russia and Ukraine, which stretches in an almost unbroken line from 1654 to the present day,” resulted in “many Ukrainians” having “adopted the Russian way of life”. Problematically, there was thus a pronounced lack of “resistance to Soviet rule” among the population.

The “great influence” of Russian culture over Ukrainians, “many influential positions” in local government being held “by Russians or Ukrainians sympathetic to [Communist] rule, and “relative similarity” of their “languages, customs, and backgrounds”, meant there were “fewer points of conflict between the Ukrainians and Russians” than in Warsaw Pact nations. Throughout those satellite states, the CIA had to varying success already recruited clandestine networks of “freedom fighters” as anti-Communist Fifth Columnists. Yet, the Agency remained keen to identify potential “resistance” actors in Ukraine:

“Some Ukrainians are apparently only slightly aware of the differences which set them apart from Russians and feel little national antagonism. Nevertheless, important grievances exist, and among other Ukrainians there is opposition to Soviet authority which often has assumed a nationalist form. Under favorable conditions, these people might be expected to assist American Special Forces in fighting against the regime.”

‘Nationalist Activity’

A CIA map split Ukraine into 12 separate zones, ranked on “resistance” potential, and how “favorable population attitudes [are] toward the Soviet regime.” South and eastern regions, particularly Crimea and Donbass, rated poorly. Their populations were judged “strongly loyal” to Moscow, having never “displayed nationalist feelings or indicated any hostility to the regime,” while viewing themselves as “a Russian island in the Ukrainian sea.” In fact, as the study recorded, during and after World War I, when Germany created a fascist puppet state in Ukraine:

“Inhabitants of Donbass strongly resisted Ukrainian nationalists and at one point created a separate republic, independent of the rest of Ukraine. In the following years, they defended Soviet rule and Russian interests, often attacking the Ukrainian nationalists with more zeal than the Russian leaders themselves. During the German occupation in the Second World War, there was not a single recorded case of support for the Ukrainian nationalists or Germans.”

Still, invading and occupying Crimea was considered of paramount importance. On top of its strategic significance, the peninsula’s landscape was forecast as ideal for guerrilla warfare. The terrain offered “excellent opportunities for concealment and evasion,” the CIA report noted. While “troops operating in these sectors must be specially trained and equipped,” it was forecast the local Tatar population, “which fought so fiercely” against the Soviets in World War II, “would probably be willing to help” invading US forces.

Areas of western Ukraine, including former regions of Poland such as Lviv, Rivne, Transcarpathia and Volyn, which were heavily under control of “Ukrainian insurgents” – adherents of MI6-supported Stepan Bandera – during World War II, were judged most fruitful “resistance” launchpads. There, “nationalist activity was extensive” during World War II, with armed militias opposing “pro-Soviet partisans with some success.” Conveniently too, mass extermination of Jews, Poles and Russians by Banderites in these regions meant there was virtually no non-ethnic Ukrainian population left.

Furthermore, in the post-war period, “resistance to Soviet rule” had been “expressed on a great scale” in western Ukraine. Despite “extensive deportations”, “many nationalists” resided in Lviv et al, and “nationalist cells” created by Bandera’s “task forces” were dotted around the Republic. For example, anti-Communist “partisan bands” had taken up residence in the Carpathian Mountains. The review concluded, “it is in this region [US] Special Forces could expect considerable support from the local Ukrainian population, including active participation in measures directed against the Soviet regime.”

It was also determined that “Ukrainian nationalist, anti-Soviet sentiment” in Kiev was “apparently moderately strong,” and elements of the population “might be expected to provide active assistance to Special Forces.” The capital’s “large Ukrainian population” was reportedly “little affected by Russian influence,” and during the Russian Revolution “provided greater support than any other region for Ukrainian, nationalist, anti-Soviet forces.” Resultantly, “uncertainty about the attitudes of the local population” prompted Moscow to designate Kharkov the Ukrainian SSR’s capital, which it remained until 1934.

The CIA document further offered highly detailed assessments of Ukrainian territory, based on their utility for warfare. For example, “generally forbidding” Polesia – near Belarus – was noted to be “almost impossible” to traverse during spring. Conversely, winter provided “most favorable to movement, depending on the depth to which the ground freezes.” Overall, the area had “proved its worth as an excellent refuge and evasion area by supporting large-scale guerilla activities in the past.” Meanwhile, “swampy valleys of the Dnieper and Desna rivers” were of particular interest:

“The area is densely forested in its north-western part, where there are excellent opportunities for concealment and manoeuvre…There are extensive swamps, interspersed with patches of forest, which also provide good hiding places for the Special Forces. Conditions in the Volyno-Podolskaya Highlands are less suitable, although small groups may find temporary shelter in the sparse forests.”

‘Strongly Anti-Nationalist’

The CIA’s invasion plan never formally came to pass. Yet, areas of Ukraine forecast by the Agency to be most welcoming of US special forces were precisely where support for the Maidan coup was highest. Moreover, in a largely unknown chapter of the Maidan saga, fascist Right Sector militants were bussed en masse to Crimea prior to Moscow’s seizure of the peninsula. Had they succeeded in overrunning the territory, Right Sector would’ve fulfilled the CIA’s objective, as outlined in Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas.

Given what transpired elsewhere in Ukraine following February 2014, other sections of the CIA report take on a distinctly eerie character. For instance, despite its strategic position facing the Black Sea, the Agency warned against attempting to foment anti-Soviet rebellion in Odessa. The agency noted the city is “the most cosmopolitan area in Ukraine, with a heterogeneous population including significant numbers of Greeks, Moldovans and Bulgarians, as well as Russians and Jews.” As such:

“Odessa…has developed a less nationalistic character. Historically, it has been considered more Russian than Ukrainian territory. There was little evidence of nationalist or anti-Russian sentiment here during the Second World War, and the city…was in fact controlled by a strongly anti-nationalist local administration [during the conflict].”

Odessa became a key battleground between pro- and anti-Maidan elements, from the moment the protests erupted in November 2013. By March the next year, Russophone Ukrainians had occupied the city’s historic Kulykove Pole Square, and were calling for a referendum on the establishment of an “Odessa Autonomous Republic”. Tensions came to a head on May 2nd, when fascist football ultras – who subsequently formed Azov Battalion – stormed Odessa and forced dozens of anti-Maidan activists into Trade Unions House, before setting it ablaze.

In all, 42 people were killed and hundreds injured, while Odessa’s anti-Maidan movement was comprehensively neutralised. In March this year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a damning ruling against Kiev over the massacre. It concluded local police and fire services “deliberately” failed to respond appropriately to the inferno, and authorities insulated culpable officials and perpetrators from prosecution despite possessing incontrovertible evidence. Lethal “negligence” by officials on the day, and ever after, was found to go far “beyond an error of judgment or carelessness.”

The ECHR was apparently unwilling to consider the incineration of anti-Maidan activists was an intentional and premeditated act of mass murder, conceived and directed by Kiev’s US-installed fascist government. However, the findings of a Ukrainian parliamentary commission point ineluctably towards this conclusion. Whether, in turn, the Odessa massacre was intended to trigger Russian intervention in Ukraine, thus precipitating “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow that “Britain and the West could win” is a matter of speculation – although the Institute for Statecraft was present in the country at the time.

August 19, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Dumbing down: UK Taskforce charged with pushing nuclear deregulation .

The ‘reset’ is clearly driven by the frenzied demands of nuclear operators, developers, lobbyists, industry trades unions, politicians and sections of the media who are all interested at securing new nuclear with minimal red tape.

18th August 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/dumbing-down-taskforce-charged-with-pushing-nuclear-deregulation/

Despite conceding that the UK has a ‘strong track record in safety, delivered within a well-respected regulatory system’, the Government-appointed Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce has just published an interim report proposing deregulation of Britain’s civil and military nuclear sectors.

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are gravely concerned that this agenda amounts to the dumbing down of regulation in order to reduce the associated costs and administrative burden on nuclear operators, and that this will inevitably compromise safety, environmental and public protection, transparency and accountability.

Deregulation in the civil nuclear sector was a direct contributory factor in the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, and the latest pivot towards nuclear deregulation in the UK worryingly mirrors the direction taken by the Trump Administration, with the President having recently dismissed the Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Although the remit of the NRT is supposedly to support energy security and national security’ it is based upon several falsehoods.

It is assumed that civil nuclear power is necessary to meet Britain’s future energy needs and that nuclear weapons are necessary for her defence:

‘Nuclear technology is critical to the UK’s future, both for low carbon energy and for our national security’.

And it is assumed that nuclear regulation is excessive, and therefore to facilitate the expansion of nuclear power and Britain’s nuclear arsenal there is need for reform:

Such sentiments have sadly been echoed by senior politicians. The Prime Minister has called for the nuclear sector to be freed to ‘Build, Baby, Build’, and Ministers have publicly stated their desire to railroad new nuclear projects past legitimate community objections with activists opposed to Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C having been dismissively branded ‘Nimbies’. Government intends to change the law to limit the ability of campaigners to challenge project approvals through the courts and is introducing new policies that grant considerable autonomy to developers in siting new nuclear projects.

Now the Taskforce proposes measures that represent a ‘radical reset’ and a ‘once in a generation’ transformation of the regulatory landscape.

This despite that fact that the report concedes that ‘The UK nuclear sector has a strong safety record overseen by expert and independent regulators’ with many consultees emphasising ‘the high level of credibility and trust in UK regulators’, which begs the question of if it ain’ t broken, why fix it?

It is assumed that civil nuclear power is necessary to meet Britain’s future energy needs and that nuclear weapons are necessary for her defence:

‘Nuclear technology is critical to the UK’s future, both for low carbon energy and for our national security’.

And it is assumed that nuclear regulation is excessive, and therefore to facilitate the expansion of nuclear power and Britain’s nuclear arsenal there is need for reform:

‘Over time, the regulation of civil and defence nuclear programmes has become increasingly complex and bureaucratic, leading to huge delays and ballooning costs, often for marginal benefit. With the UK’s ambitious civil and defence programmes set to expand to meet energy security, net zero, and deterrent demands, a reset is needed’.

The ‘reset’ is clearly driven by the frenzied demands of nuclear operators, developers, lobbyists, industry trades unions, politicians and sections of the media who are all interested at securing new nuclear with minimal red tape.

In response to the NRT’s Call for Evidence earlier this year, these parties clearly responded by bewailing the current ‘system’ as ‘unnecessarily slow, inefficient, and costly’.

Such sentiments have sadly been echoed by senior politicians. The Prime Minister has called for the nuclear sector to be freed to ‘Build, Baby, Build’, and Ministers have publicly stated their desire to railroad new nuclear projects past legitimate community objections with activists opposed to Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C having been dismissively branded ‘Nimbies’. Government intends to change the law to limit the ability of campaigners to challenge project approvals through the courts and is introducing new policies that grant considerable autonomy to developers in siting new nuclear projects.

Now the Taskforce proposes measures that represent a ‘radical reset’ and a ‘once in a generation’ transformation of the regulatory landscape.

This despite that fact that the report concedes that ‘The UK nuclear sector has a strong safety record overseen by expert and independent regulators’ with many consultees emphasising ‘the high level of credibility and trust in UK regulators’, which begs the question of if it ain’ t broken, why fix it?

The Taskforce has said that it ‘will continue to gather evidence and views [on its initial proposals] over the Summer and will publish final recommendations in Autumn 2025.’

The interim report can be found at:  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-regulatory-taskforce/nuclear-regulatory-taskforce-interim-report

‘Concise and evidence based’ responses to the report are invited by email to nuclearregulatorytaskforce@energysecurity.gov.uk by 8 September.

For its part, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities wish to see no watering down of Britain’s current arrangements and will be robustly outlining our objections to any changes which favour expediency and profit over safety, public health and environmental protection. We urge all those with a similar mindset to do the same.

For the NFLAs, the only points of consolation to be found in the interim report are that nuclear fusion is excluded from the NRT’s remit and that the Taskforce cannot ‘make recommendations for devolved governments in devolved areas’..For more information, please contact the NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk

August 19, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear Reactor Faces 18 Hours Without Cooling as “Pipes Burst Like Burning Arteries” Following Technician’s Mistake in Shocking Safety Breakdown.

In a dramatic turn of events, a technician’s error at the Golfech nuclear power plant in France nearly sparked a catastrophe, highlighting the ever-present risks of human error in high-stakes environments.

Eirwen Williams, Sustainability Times, August 17, 2025 

The potential for human error in high-stakes environments is a persistent concern, highlighted by recent events at the Golfech nuclear power plant in France. On June 15, 2025, a critical mistake was narrowly averted, preventing potentially severe consequences. A technician inadvertently closed the wrong cooling valve, leading to an 18-hour shutdown of a critical system. This incident, reminiscent of historical nuclear mishaps, underscores the essential role of vigilance and robust safety protocols in nuclear operations. As we examine this event, it serves as a crucial reminder of the delicate balance required to maintain safety in nuclear power facilities.

An Operation That Almost Went Awry

Human error remains a significant risk in routine operations, particularly in high-stakes environments like nuclear power plants. The incident at Golfech underscores this reality. During a standard inspection of Unit 2, a technician inadvertently closed the cooling valve for Reactor No. 1, which was still operational. This mistake resulted in an 18-hour interruption of the reactor’s cooling system, elevating the risk of a major incident.

The cooling system is vital for preventing overheating in nuclear reactors. The technician’s error interrupted this critical process, but the mistake was detected late in the evening, and the system was restored within 30 minutes. Although the swift response prevented severe consequences, the incident serves as a cautionary tale about the potential dangers inherent in nuclear operations and the need for constant vigilance.

Why Is Cooling Essential for Nuclear Reactors?

Cooling is a fundamental aspect of nuclear reactor operations, critical for preventing overheating and potential disasters. In nuclear reactors, electricity is generated through the fission of uranium atoms, which produces significant heat. This heat transforms water into steam, driving turbines to produce electricity. Without proper temperature regulation, a meltdown could occur, leading to catastrophic consequences.

To manage the heat, reactors typically use water from nearby rivers or seas to maintain a stable temperature. The importance of these cooling systems cannot be overstated, as their failure could result in severe environmental and human impacts. The incident at Golfech highlights the critical role these systems play in ensuring the safety and stability of nuclear operations.

Lessons Learned from the Golfech Incident

The Golfech incident serves as a potent reminder of the challenges involved in nuclear plant operations and the importance of stringent safety protocols. The occurrence of such an error during a routine task underscores the need for continuous training and vigilance. It raises questions about the adequacy of current safety measures and whether additional checks are necessary to prevent similar incidents.

In response to this event, nuclear facilities globally may need to review their procedures and consider implementing more robust systems for monitoring and error prevention. The Golfech incident is a valuable lesson in the critical nature of nuclear safety and the potentially devastating consequences of human error in such sensitive environments………………………………………………………………………. https://www.sustainability-times.com/energy/nuclear-reactor-faces-18-hours-without-cooling-as-pipes-burst-like-burning-arteries-following-technicians-mistake-in-shocking-safety-breakdown/

August 19, 2025 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment