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Publish date: April 1, 2005
News
“We estimate that it will take until 2010 to dismantle decommissioned nuclear submarines,” Interfax quoted him saying. “But that is just for the submarines. Regarding the liquidation of all the harmful consequences of the nuclear fleet’s activity, it will take at least 15 or 20 years.” The main problem for Federal Nuclear Power Agency is to clean up coastal navy bases that have big amounts of liquid and solid radioactive waste from nuclear submarines stored on their territory, Antipov said.
Of the 250 nuclear submarines built by Russia and the Soviet Union, 195 have been decommissioned. All radioactive materials have been removed from 111 of these. It is expected that more submarines will be decommissioned off in the near future, according to Federal Nuclear Power Agency. “But these will be single vessels. There will not be such a fast rate of decommissioning as there was before,” Antipov said.
Throughout the past year, our mission at the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center has focused on two key, but intertwined issues—nuclear and radiation safety as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, and the worldwide influence of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, which itself is actively involved in the war and has participated in the occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
At the beginning of the year, reports in the German and Russian press suggested an approximate 70% increase in uranium imports from Russia to Germany in 2024. But does this reflect broader European trends? It does not. Overall, imports of uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia to Western countries actually dropped sharply in 2024. Unlike the situation in Germany, this is already an established trend.
A Lingen, Germany plant could begin producing nuclear fuel in cooperation with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which is directly involved in the war in Ukraine and occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
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.