With the Stone of Truth around the Neck

Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow on April 17th. His colleagues condemned the murder as an apparent political assassination. In this article in «Environment and Rights» Grigory Pasko tells about one of the last Yushenkov’s instructions to him — made on April 4th — to visit the navy shipyard Zvezda in Bolshoy Kamen in visit Zvezda shipyard in the town of Bolshoy Kamen in the Russian Far East. Grigory Pasko went to Zvezda on April 11th and his goal was to meet its manager and to get from him a confirmation that a facility for unloading spent fuel from nuclear submarines was launched and would really function. Pasko’s was mostly interested in the utilization of Landysh — an enormous waste treatment barge, designed by an American engineering firm, and assembled by the Russians and the Americans. Purification tests on the vessel began in 1999 and it officially went into operation in November 2001. But manager’s secretary took Yushenkov’s letter, and Pasko was let to visit the shipyard, but the manager refused to speak with him. The Manager’s reluctance to meet caused a delay, and Pasko actually got information about Landysh only after Yushenkov was killed.

Environment & Rights #7, June 2003