Russia’s Greenpeace Protests Against Nuclear Waste Import

MOSCOW. July 13 (Interfax) – Greenpeace activists are protesting against the construction of imported nuclear waste storage facilities in Russia.

“Dozens of thousand tonnes of our own nuclear waste have already been accumulated in Russia. The storage facilities are virtually ‘leaking’ and are not appropriately protected and supervised. Greenpeace demands that the construction of nuclear waste facilities in Russia be stopped and that other solutions to the nuclear waste problem be found. We propose to refrain from the construction of new reactors and the production of new waste,” says a statement by Russian Greenpeace Energy Department Coordinator Vladimir Chuprov released on Wednesday.

“Establishing new repositories in Russian will increase the risk of nuclear terrorism, due to the lack of appropriate protection on such facilities,” the statement says.

“The international nuclear lobby plans to solve one of the most complicated problems of the nuclear power sector–the utilization of nuclear waste–at the cost of Russia’s security,” Chuprov said.

The activists are also concerned about Russia constructing a nuclear power station in Iran and its plans to sell floating nuclear power stations to South-East Asia.

“The cases with North Korea and India have demonstrated quite clearly that any peaceful program turns into a military one in the end,” the statement says.