Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, August 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: December 29, 1998
Written by: Thomas Nilsen
News
When Bellona Web last summer for the first time reported about the planned subcritical tests at Novaya Zemlya, officials from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy denied that any radioactive substances would be involved in what the Ministry call ‘hydrodynamic experiments’. But now, Deputy Minister Ryabev says to Interfax that both weapon-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium was used in the tests conducted at the northern test range near Matotchin Shar at Novaya Zemlya. The international Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) does not prohibit subcritical nuclear bomb tests, because the amount of radioactive plutonium or uranium used is considered insufficient to create a nuclear explosion.
"There was no discharge of radioactivity from any of the five tests," said Ryabev in the interview with Interfax. The last two subcritical tests were carried out in less than a week, between December 9 and 13. The tests are used both for improving old nuclear warheads and for developing new nuclear devices. Various physical-modelling experiments follow the subcritical tests.
Russian officials last autumn announced plans for more ‘hydrodynamic experiments’ in 1999, but according to Ryabev the five tests this autumn were the last.
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.
Introduction Competitiveness has been the dominating topic in EU political discussions in recent months and is set to be a key focus of the upcomi...
Russia is a world leader in the construction of nuclear power plants abroad. Despite the sanctions pressure on Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its nuclear industry has remained virtually untouched.
Today, the Bellona Foundation is launching the establishment of the Center for Marine Restoration in Kabelvåg, Lofoten. At the same time, collaboration agreements related to the center were signed with Norrøna, the University of Tromsø, the Lofoten Council and Blue Harvest Technologies