CyberBerkut adherents from Kiev gave us a trove of national company Energoatom documents revealing the Ukrainian nuclear power plants’ operation.
The desperate state of the Ukraine nuclear power industry is not a myth. Experts forecast an increase in nuclear accidents due to keeping old reactors operating. The lifetime of numerous nuclear power units operating since the Soviet came to an end. But Ukraine has no money for constructing the new ones. That’s why the Ukrainian authorities adopted the plan to extend the technical lifetime of nuclear units over another ten years. The plan, however, turned out to be ineffective, crude and harmful to the environment. It also poses a threat of a new catastrophe like Fukushima or even Chernobyl.
We’ve obtained the documents from governmental bodies of Austria, Romania, Moldova and Belarus, Greenpeace and the CEE Bankwatch network. They all sound the alarm over Energoatom plans to extend the operation of old nuclear units.
Foreign experts’ concerns were tabulated by Energoatom employees.
Firstly, it’s striking that Kiev decided to extend the technical lifetime of nuclear units in 2015 without any review by foreign experts. Ukraine sent the program to its neighbors and international ecological organization only after adopting the plan to modernize its nuclear power plants.
Thus, Kiev violated two UN conventions that require getting international and social consents before putting nuclear plants into operation.