Putin leaves Kazakhstan without deal to build nuclear plant
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.
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Publish date: March 27, 2000
Written by: Thomas Nilsen
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For the inhabitants of Gadzhievo, a remote naval base city at the Kola Peninsula, only one question would have been of more importance than the name of the next Russian president on Sunday. A proposed onshore storage site for reactor sections in Sayda Bay – just over the hill from their neighbourhood – was of a bigger concern. The plan has met tremendous local protests led by the city council. The outcome was a proposal filed on January 21 to put this issue on local referendum at the day of the presidential elections in Russia. The question to answer sounded scary: "Do you want nuclear-hazardous items stored in you neighbourhood?" The City Court of Gadzhievo, however, overruled the decision on March 23.
"The city council decided to obey the decision and not to arrange referendum this time," said Vladimir Musakyan, the chairman of the local city council, to Bellona Web. "We are going to evaluate now our position and decide what we shall do next," Musakyan added.
The administration of the Murmansk County was sceptical to the whole idea of referenda when reached by Bellona, saying that it would have no effect on the eventual decision regarding the location of the storage site. The finally outlined proposal for the storage location is said to come shortly.
Chain reaction of protestA 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.
While Moscow pushes ahead with major oil, gas and mining projects in the Arctic—bringing more pollution to the fragile region—the spoils of these undertakings are sold to fuel Russia’s war economy, Bellona’s Ksenia Vakhrusheva told a side event at the COP 29, now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.