Monitoring Risks to Nuclear Facilities and IAEA Inspectors in Ukraine and Russia

Overview

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations (UN) system that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, supporting global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Physical missions travel to all 180 member states to assess their management of nuclear facilities and materials.

The Challenge

When war escalated in Ukraine, the IAEA aimed to continue its work of inspecting nuclear facilities and accounting for nuclear material. It became the only global organization with technical expertise allowed to visit sites that had become key military zones. Its in-field missions were operating in an unprecedented environment.

As part of an Agency-wide mobilization of resources, a small group of open-source analysts was tasked with monitoring military activity near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) and other nuclear facilities, identifying nuclear safety, security and safeguards risks and communicating findings to IAEA decision-makers.

The Solution

As a small team of analysts, we developed multilingual search strategies and integrated multimedia, satellite data, Russian and Ukrainian media feeds, news and think tank reports into the IAEA’s first OSINT monitoring system for nuclear facilities during wartime. I specifically worked on collecting sources for multimedia feeds, monitoring, collecting and verifying information, providing updates and briefings multiple times daily, following developments over weekends, looking into fire and conflict maps and compiling multimedia reports.

The Solution

We produced tailored reports using visuals like maps and multimedia for extra explanatory power. These briefings outlined threats and noteworthy events, informed safety recommendations, and provided information referenced in the Director General’s public reports.

Due to the success of my team’s work, we were later tasked with providing live threat intelligence to support inspector excursions outside the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, ensuring their security in real time.

In an evolving security landscape, we established a comprehensive, proactive threat monitoring system that continues to this day, directly influencing high-level nuclear safety decisions and crisis response efforts.