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: September 12, 2006
News
The subs will be dismantled under the “Star of Hope” programme for the dismantlement of decommissioned nuclear submarines in Russia’s Far East. The “Star of Hope” programme was inaugurated during a 2003 visit to Russia by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the Mosnews website reported.
“The international “Star of Hope” programme is oriented on the disassembly and dismantlement of Pacific Fleet Submarines that have been taken out of service with the financial support of the government of Japan,” a Naval source familiar with the project told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.
Deputy Foreign Minister Shintaro Ito told a news conference in Vladivostok, where the headquarters of the Russian Pacific Fleet are located, that Japan had allocated 20 billion yen (about $171 million) for the project, said Mosnews.
Ito, who will remain in Russia until Friday, said the dismantling of the first decommissioned Victor I class sub under the project would start in the “near future” at the Far East shipyard of Zvezda, near Vladivostok, and would take some 10 months to complete, Russian news agencies reported.
During the dismantlement process spent nuclear fuel is removed from the submarine’s reactors and sent to storage. The hull is then cut into three sections, and the bow and stern sections are removed and destroyed. The reactor section is sealed and transferred to storage.
There are some 30 to 40 decommissioned nuclear submarines moored at various ports over a vast area in the Russian Far East.
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.