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Publish date: May 21, 2021
News
As Russia begins its two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council, Bellona supports an international response to raising nuclear submarines and other radioactive debris scuttled by the Soviet Union in Arctic seas.
In a letter to council members sent this week, Bellona wrote that it “sincerely believes that the period of the Russian Federation’s chairmanship of the Arctic Council can and should become a new stage in fruitful cooperation between the Arctic countries to bring the Arctic seas to a safe condition.”
The organization wrote further that recovering and disposing of radioactive waste and nuclear submarines dumped in the waters surrounding the North Pole would be “not only to Russia’s benefit, but the benefit of all participating countries” that make up the seven-nation council.
To accomplish this, Bellona urges the council to adopt what it calls the “Safe Arctic Waters,” project, which would facilitate engineering surveys of the seabed where the waste lies, as well as galvanize international funding and expertise around its retrieval.
Throughout the past year, our mission at the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center has focused on two key, but intertwined issues—nuclear and radiation safety as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, and the worldwide influence of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, which itself is actively involved in the war and has participated in the occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
At the beginning of the year, reports in the German and Russian press suggested an approximate 70% increase in uranium imports from Russia to Germany in 2024. But does this reflect broader European trends? It does not. Overall, imports of uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia to Western countries actually dropped sharply in 2024. Unlike the situation in Germany, this is already an established trend.
A Lingen, Germany plant could begin producing nuclear fuel in cooperation with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which is directly involved in the war in Ukraine and occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.