Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday that the government will consider establishing a new police unit in charge of protecting the nation’s nuclear power plants.
"Now that the public is becoming increasingly concerned about nuclear power plant safety, I would like to discuss the possibility of deploying a dedicated nuclear power plant special security force across the nation,” Kishida said during an Upper House Budget Committee meeting.
The prime minister's remark comes in the wake of Russia’s attack in early March on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in which Russian forces fired heavy weapons in the direction of the plant’s reactors. In addition to occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant, Russian troops also control the Chernyobyl plant, which has been nonoperational since a 1986 accident resulted in a core meltdown. A third Ukrainian plant, Yuzhnoukrainsk, is also at risk, with reports last week indicating that Russian troops were about 30 kilometers away.