Bellona nuclear digest. March 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: October 17, 2008
News
Russia plan in coming years to build three to four new generation nuclear powered icebreakers to buttress the aging fleet that Rosatom took under its control from the Murmansk Shipping Company in August.
During the meeting, Putin highlighted the need to evaluate the condition of the nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet and the elaboration of a plan for the fleet’s development, the Russian government website reported.
“We must assess the state of the fleet and determine its development perspectives,” Putin said, adding that “I have in mind, of course, our plans for the further development of the Northern Sea Route”.
According to the transcript of the meeting published on government.ru, Kiriyenko said that Rosatom is currently developing a programme for the fleet’s development, and underscored the need to build new vessels.
“If we do not build new vessels, then our opportunities in the Arctic will decline after 2015,” he said, adding that a pivotal task is building new icebreakers – and the funding to do so.
Currently, Russia has seven nuclear-powered icebreakers in operation, the newest of them the 50-years Victory was launched in 2007. Last week, icebreaker Arktika was officially taken out or service.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has told the United Nations atomic energy watchdog that Russia plans to restart Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently occupied by Russian troops and technicians, fueling worries about a serious nuclear accident on the front lines of a grinding military conflict.
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Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.