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Bellona nuclear digest. May 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: June 11, 2009
News
Reports circulated on the Internet and by SMS messaging claimed that major incidents had occurred at nuclear power plants at Kursk, Novovoronezh, Balakovo and Volgodonsk. However, Energoatom, which operates all of Russia’s nuclear power plants, denied the allegations.
"The reports (…) saying that there have been accidents at some of the Russian nuclear power plants are not true. It appears to be one more information attack," Energoatom said in a statement, and advised worries parties to consult Russianatom.ru, a website that purports to report background radiation levels in real time from all of Russia’s nuclear plants in Russian.
By 6 June, Energoatom said that the information attack was "subsiding", with the number of enquiries to the russianatom.ru website having peaked, World Nuclear News reported.
This is not the first time that Russian nuclear plants have suffered so-called information attacks, seemingly designed to cause panic.
In June 2008, rumours were circulated about a spurious accident at the Leningrad nuclear power station, as were allegations of radiation releases from the Volgodonsk nuclear plant. A July 2007 campaign against Volgodonsk, which according to Rosatom involved emails, SMS messages and telephone calls urging people to evacuate, led to over 500,000 telephone calls to the emergency ministry and panic buying of canned food, red wine and iodine pills, said WWN.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
But it’s unlikely to impact emissions from shipping along the Northern Sea Route.
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.
The following op-ed, written by Bellona’s Charles Digges, originally appeared in The Moscow Times. In recent months, the Russian nuclear in...