Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
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.
News
Publish date: March 11, 1997
Written by: Igor Kudrik
News
On June 6th an officer was killed while defuelling operation conducted by radiological service boat PM-12. The steel wire holding lifted container for fuel broke off and the container weighing seven tons pressed down the officer who was standing below. The officer died on the way to the hospital in Polyarny. There is no avalible information about any crack in the container or damage on the spent nuclear fuel.
This was not the first incident onboard PM-12. In 1993 eight persons were exposed to high doses of radiation – four officers and four sailors. PM-12 is located at the Nerpa ship repair yard for nuclear-powered submarines.
In the end of June a Murmansk newspaper reported that there was a nuclear refuelling operation underway at Snezhnogorsk in Olenjya Bay. The officials from the Technical Department of the Northern Fleet did not allow representatives of Murmansk environmental committee to inspect the operation.
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.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.