FOR THE moment, the enormity of the suffering of the people of Ukraine makes a lot of other things feel less pressing.

The outrageous cruelty, murderousness and scale of the Russian attacks are so shocking that other concerns — rocketing energy prices, local government pay rises, even climate-change — are pushed for a while to the back of the stage.

Alongside the shock, there has been demolition of the assumption — uneasy, but there — that, following the end of the Cold War in 1989, countries with nuclear weapons all more or less subscribed to the working belief that a certainty of mutually-assured destruction (MAD), if such weapons were ever used, was keeping them ‘safe’.

That presumption crumbled just less than three weeks ago when, on 27 February, Vladimir Putin put Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent forces on alert.

In this elongated moment, one thing that survives is a renewed conviction of the importance of democracy — if enough Russian citizens knew clearly enough what was going on, if they had any influence over the Kremlin, it is almost inconceivable they would have backed an invasion of Ukraine. As it is, government-controlled news outlets ban reference to ‘invasion’ or ‘war’, and independent journalists flee under threat of being thrown in jail.

Not the ideal moment, then, for Wales to be celebrating the day almost exactly 40 years ago when it became the first country in Europe to declare itself a nuclear-free zone. The Clwyd Declaration, proclaimed with jubilation and excitement on 23 February 1982, was Wales’s manifesto for peace. All eight of the country’s then unitary authorities had declared themselves opposed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power in their domains.

The declaration called on other countries “to commit themselves to the cause of redeeming Europe from total destruction by taking the initial step of declaring their homelands nuclear-free zones.”

‘Nuclear-Free Wales’ was, sadly, never accurate — the country had nuclear power-stations at Trawsfynydd and Wylfa. It was a powerful statement of principle, but one without substance.

The twin reactor power-station at Trawsfynydd, six miles south of Blaenau Ffestiniog, was shut down in 1991 after operating, often controversially, for a quarter of a century. Wylfa, on Anglesey, stopped generating electricity in 2015. Taking the redundant Traws reactors down to the ground will take another 20 years.

Meanwhile, alarms over the last fortnight following Russian shelling of a building next to Ukraine’s biggest nuclear power-plant, and concerns about conditions for workers at the country’s Chernobyl plant — site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 — are a sobering reminder of Wales’s sometimes alarming nuclear past, as well as continuing safety concerns.

As recently as 2019, Cefas, a UK government research and monitoring agency, reported on its investigation of “three potential sources of public radiation exposure” from the Trawsfynydd power-station site.

It identified discharges of liquid radioactive waste into Llyn Trawsfynydd, the 1,200-acre man-made lake which, in 1965, became the source of cooling water for the nuclear plant. It also pointed to discharges of “gaseous radioactive waste to the atmosphere” and “emissions of direct radiation”.

Fishing on Traws lake has been actively promoted since at least the 1980s. In recent years, a cycling and walking route has been extended around this entire stretch of water and reopened. Kayaking and canoeing take place, and the area is part of the Snowdonia Centre of Excellence, resulting in a flood of visitors.

Yet Cefas reports that the “diet and habits” of members of the public, including anglers, people on the lake shore, farmers, allotment-holders, and people within the direct radiation survey area may be “exposed to radioactivity from the site.”

The agency says consumption of the lake’s fish, including brown trout and rainbow trout, increased significantly in 2018.

Radioactivity in fish caught at Traws was first revealed more than 30 years ago. Having pored over dense official monitoring reports, I was the first journalist, in the early 1990s, to report a series of sobering statistics on radiation levels — some high — in catches from the lake.

It seems odd, to put it very mildly indeed, that, so many years later, fishing on Llyn Trawsfynydd continues unabated. Has no-one heard of the precautionary principle?

But this power-plant threw up lots more dodgy stuff. There were the breaks in tie-rods constraining the graphite core of the reactor, leaks of radioactive aerosols, buckled railway-lines that carried containers of radioactive waste, and cracks in Maentwrog dam, which held back the lake water.

‘Nuclear-free Wales’ has been a dream, no more than a fervent statement of desire, without foundation in fact.

And realising the ambition could now be further away than ever. Rolls-Royce would like to site a new “small” nuclear plant at Trawsfynydd. Last October, it was confirmed that the UK government was discussing proposals for a new nuclear power-station at Wylfa. The month before, the Welsh Affairs Committee heard from the USA’s Bechtel and Westinghouse, who would like to build new reactors at Wylfa.

Wales must reiterate its opposition to nuclear. Perhaps this time it will mean something.