Mosgorsud examined the appeal filed by a group of the Russian citizens against the decision of the Zamoskvoretsky district court from May 5, 2003, to refuse to hear the case on illegal import of spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria.

The fuel was imported in accordance to the contract between JSC “Tekhsnabexport” and Bulgarian NPP “Kozlodui” The contract violated the Russian legislation that prohibits import of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel for storage. Several Russian citizens brought a suit on the case. However, judges, once again, forgot that according to the paragraph 1 of the contract, it is imported for storage (which was prohibited by the legislation).

“Such shortsightedness can easily be explained, – says Ivan Blokov, Greenpeace Russia campaign coordinator. – The global nuclear complex has no place to send their waste, but there is a Russian Atomic Energy Agency, which is ready to take dangerous waste without considering the consequences of this decision. Both the judges and top officials of Russia do not care about the citizens, 93% of them being against such projects, and their descendants who will have to be responsible for these burial grounds”.

Total 120 tons of spent nuclear fuel have been imported into the country since 2001. There are no facilities to reprocess it; this means that the spent nuclear fuel was imported for eternal storage. It is going to be stored in Zheleznogorsk (former Krasnoyarsk-26) – the town in the Krasnoyarsk region, where the Russian government is planning to organise an international nuclear waste storage ground, Greenpeace-Russia reported.