Darya Dolzikova​

The Putin-Kim meeting, by validating closer coordination between the two nations, could also give some countries and private enterprises the green light to resume doing business with North Korea, said Darya Dolzikova, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense and security think tank. Russia enjoys veto power at the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member. The leader-to-leader summit "may legitimize trade with North Korea," she said. "It sort of suggests Russia won't stand in the way of other countries engaging with North Korea."

As you have mentioned, we have had reports- both from the Ukrainian side and the Russian accusing each other of preparing to attack the Zaporizhzhia power plant in some way. The Ukrainian have since come out saying that threat seems to be decreasing, although not disappearing entirely. At the end of the day, there is no way for us externally to validate any of that information. The IAEA, so the nuclear watch dog, has access to the facility, they have staff on site, and they say they have not found any mines. That should be caveated with the fact they don’t have access across the full facility.

Darya Dolzikova, a nuclear expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, takes a similar view. She formulates more carefully: "A catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl is extremely unlikely." She also emphasizes the safety precautions. The cooling water supplies from the emergency reserve would "suffice for several months", she analyzed after the blasting of the Kachowka dam , which called into question the regular water supply of the nuclear power plant. The power supply from diesel generators has been proven to bridge power failures for significant periods of time.