AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the war in Ukraine as Russia continues its largest aerial assault since it invaded the country in 2022. This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped to present President Joe Biden with a plan for victory when he visits the United States for the U.N. General Assembly next month, but he’s ruled out any immediate ceasefire with Russia. The Kremlin has dismissed the plan.

Meanwhile, as Ukrainian forces press their counteroffensive deeper into Russia, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency toured Russia’s Kursk nuclear facility Tuesday. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned of the heightened risk of a nuclear catastrophe and said the aging Soviet-era nuclear plant’s reactors are not protected by containment domes often found in modern facilities, making them more vulnerable in an attack.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Berlin, Vladimir Slivyak is with us, co-chair of the Russian environmental organization Ecodefense. He won the 2021 Right Livelihood Award, the Alternative Nobel, for defending the environment and mobilizing grassroots opposition to Russia’s coal and nuclear industries. And in Washington, D.C., Matt Duss is with us, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders.

We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! I want to begin with Vladimir Slivyak. This extreme situation at the Kursk nuclear plant, the head of the IAEA has said that it is an old plant that doesn’t have much of the safety mechanisms. Can you explain what’s happening there? That’s in Russia. It’s been invaded by Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And also, what’s happening with Zaporizhzhia, which is in Ukraine, but it’s occupied by Russia right now, and it’s the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Vladimir?

VLADIMIR SLIVYAK: Hi, Amy. Thank you very much for having me on the show.

So, the situation on the Kursk nuclear plant is getting worse and worse by, basically, every day. There is fighting between Russia and the Ukrainian army — well, it was officially said it was in the few kilometers from a nuclear power plant. And today, Russian army already said that Ukrainians been trying to get into the city that is next to a nuclear power plant, where the workers from the plant are leaving.

And it’s true that it’s very old reactors. It’s very similar to the one that exploded back in 1986 in Chernobyl, causing the largest nuclear accident in humankind history. And right now situation, well, you can call it worst of the worst, for the reason that those are very old reactors. It’s not protected, but can’t contain them. And, well, for example, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, it’s more protected. I mean the reactors itself. In Kursk, reactors are not protected, and basically any big rocket, missile or the bomb dropped on the reactor itself may lead to a very big nuclear accident. I wouldn’t say it’s going to be second Chernobyl, but it could be very, very big, with a radioactive release approaching a few countries that are close to Russia.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Matt Duss, if you could respond to what Zelensky hopes to do meeting with Biden when he comes to the U.S. next month, also hoping to meet with Trump and Kamala Harris?

MATT DUSS: Well, I think what he wants to do with Biden is to continue to increase the level of support, the quality of armament the United States has been providing since the beginning of this war in February 2022. President Biden, in my view, has taken a fairly restrained approach to the level and quality of support that he’s given to the Ukrainian military, steadily increasing that as the Ukrainian military shows that it’s capable of using those arms productively. I think what he’s — there’s going to be some tension here, because I think, again, President Biden has been pretty cautious and been criticized, including by some voices in Washington, D.C., about being too cautious about the possibility of an escalation. Certainly, no one wants to see a nuclear escalation, which would be catastrophic. But there is some, I think, difference of opinion about the utility right now of Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, although I think many are impressed with what they’ve been able to achieve after two years of a solely defensive war.

AMY GOODMAN: Matt, if you can talk more about what has taken place, this huge change in the last weeks, with Ukraine invading Russia, not clear how Putin will respond, and how he’s responded so far, and Zelensky saying at this point he’s not interested in any discussion of a ceasefire or any kind of peace deal?

MATT DUSS: Right. Well, I think what we’ve seen over the past months, before this incursion, was Ukraine being a bit more aggressive in the way it was striking sites inside Russia, specifically sites that were used to launch rocket and drone attacks inside Ukraine. They were restrained from doing that for a long time by their U.S. and European partners out of escalation concerns — once again, I think reasonable escalation concerns, given the nuclear aspect here. But I think they showed that those escalation concerns may have been slightly overblown, given Russia’s relatively muted response to those attacks. And once again, I think we should note that attacking sites being used to launch missiles, rockets and drones into Ukraine is a pretty legitimate tactic.

But what we’ve seen just over the past week is, you know, actual U.S. — excuse me, Ukrainian military forces invading into Russia, the first time, I believe, since World War II that Russia’s territory has been invaded by a foreign army. And I think part of the approach here is, again, to kind of turn the tables and show that Russia is not immune to these incursions. It’s certainly a propaganda loss for President Vladimir Putin, though it’s hard to say what Russians are actually seeing, given the almost complete control that the Russian government has over what Russians are allowed to see in their media. But I do think just taking the initiative, as we saw about a year and a half ago in the first counteroffensive, I think that’s one benefit of this, is for just Ukraine to show that it is not simply on its back foot and defending, it is now taking the initiative and taking the fight into Russia.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Vladimir, if you could speak about the Rosatom State Corporation, which is the Russian state corporation focused on nuclear energy, and its role in the occupation of Zaporizhzhia, Russia having replaced France now as the world’s leading player in international nuclear power plant production?

VLADIMIR SLIVYAK: Well, first of all, it’s not just a nuclear corporation. It’s a military organization. In fact, it’s part of the Russian government. And it’s in charge of a nuclear weapon and civil — so-called civil nuclear power in Russia.

But it’s also being used by Vladimir Putin as an instrument of geopolitical fight around the world. Like, Russia is going around to different developing countries, proposing them to build new nuclear power plants of Russian design, even giving them loans because most of the developing countries cannot pay such big sums of money, because, well, like, one Russian nuclear power plant with, let’s say, two reactors in it would cost over 10 billion of American dollars, and not many developing countries can afford it. So, Russians would just loan this money to other countries. And in exchange, they get, well, basically, economic control and some sort of political control over those countries, because once you sign up with Russian Rosatom to build reactor in your country, you get into dependence. It’s dependence on Russian engineers, Russian technology, supplying of Russian fuel — nuclear fuel, I mean. And also, when the nuclear plant will go offline because it’s old, you will be dependent on the decommissioning technology, which is also coming from Russia. And we’re talking about roughly 100 years or even 120 years, you know. So, new nuclear power extension that Rosatom is doing around the world are under order of Vladimir Putin, its extension because Vladimir Putin wants more control over developing world. He wants to use developing world in his, well, opposition to the West, I would say.

AMY GOODMAN: And we also have to say that the Kursk nuclear power plant is similar to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which melted down in 1986. Matt Duss, before we go, at the Democratic National Convention, we bumped into you. We were covering the uncommitted sit-in that took place there, and it was around U.S. policy around Gaza. From Ukraine to Gaza, if you could comment on the Harris-Walz policy — we’re going to know a lot more tonight, maybe, in their first sit-down interview — and Vance and Trump, Vance who said in 2022, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other”?

MATT DUSS: Yeah. I mean, what we heard from Vice President Harris in her speech, she didn’t talk about foreign policy a lot, but Ukraine and Israel-Palestine — excuse me, Ukraine and Israel-Palestine were two issues she did touch on. She said that the United States would continue to support Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. She was very clear about that. And on Israel and Palestine, you know, she said the usual things about continuing to support Israel’s right to defend itself, but she also lifted up the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and very strongly reiterated support for Palestinians’ right to freedom and self-determination. Now, that language was unsatisfying for a lot of people, myself included. I wish she could have leaned into it a bit more. But I do think it’s worth noting that this is the first time we’ve heard that kind of language from a candidate for president from the Democratic Party in their speech, their acceptance speech, at the convention. So, again, while I expect the uncommitted movement and other allies to continue pushing on this, I think it’s worth just noting that.

Now, from Vance and Trump, yes, as you said, Trump has been kind of a fan of Putin for a long time, doesn’t seem to really care about Ukraine. Vance himself has suggested that our support for Ukraine is distracting from the real enemy, which is China. I think that’s a pretty consistent approach between Trump and Vance. They see China as the new big enemy and Ukraine as more of a distraction.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. So much more has to be discussed, but we have to leave it there. Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, speaking to us from Washington, D.C. And Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Russian environmental organization Ecodefense, who won the 2021 Right Livelihood Award, speaking to us from Berlin, Germany.

That does it for our show. Democracy Now! is currently hiring a camera operator to work during our live TV broadcast. Learn more at democracynow.org.

Democracy Now! produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Deena Guzder. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks for joining us.