Russia government issued on December 7 the resolution "Governmental support for social-economical developments in Tver region for 1997-1999". It includes 10 chapters on nuclear developments, local industry support, fossil fiel sources, water quality and others. The first and main chapter is describing the will of the russian government to complete 3th unit at Kalinin NPP, type - VVER-1000.

Third VVER of Kalinin nuclear plant is under construction since 1985. According to the source in Duma (russian parliament), this unit wasn't touched since 1992, at least, because of luck of funding and in fact the Russian federation has not money to complete Kalinin 3 until 1999.

Kalinin region, as well as the most of russian regions, is getting no money for the most of social programmes and employes at different industries sometimes getting no salaries for 6 monthes because of the crisis in the economics.

The view of some experts of the Duma: Such economical program of the government can easy cause social explosions in the region like strikes and citizen's direct actions.

At present time, all-russian strikes takes place in fossil-fuel industries as well as in the nuclear power industry.

More info:
contact x-USSR antinuclear campaign in Moscow

The environmentalists in Komsomolsk-na-Amure, industrial giant city in Far East of Russia, claimed a suit against the local Duma (local parliament).

Conflict started a year ago when the Duma formed the public commission on the analyzing of technical-economical conditions for new Nuclear Plant, i.e. Far East Nuclear Power Plant. The representatives of public environmental organiztions were not included in the commission as required by the federal law, but many politicians and industry leaders became commissioners there. In mid-1996, this commission conducted positive conclusions for the construction of nuclear plant in Far East. Own public expertize of environmentalists at same time concluded that nuclear plant in Far East will be extremely dangerous because of technical and georgaphical conditions.

December 11, the trial sent back to environmentalists a suit, but a re-written suit was claimed again on December 16.

More info:
contact x-USSR antinuclear campaign in Moscow

On December 15 the environmental committee of Kalinigrad Duma (local parliament) met and discussed different issues including the nuclear transit through the sea trade port of Kalinigrad.

Kalinigrad is a small russian city in Baltic Sea region with 400.000 population. But it plays very important strategical role for Russia: there is only ice-free russian port in Baltic Sea region in Kaliningrad. Since 1993 this port was often used for transit of such materials like plutonium and uranium, also nuclear wastes. The environmentalists in Kalinigrad organized big campaign to protest nuclear transit last August and industry already have lost up to US$ million because of protests.

On Sunday, Duma' environmental committee decided to recommend the Duma to accept some principally new documents that will ban all the transit operations with radioactive materials in the ports of Kalinigrad.

Previously enironmentalists' activity pushed the Baltic marine prosecutor of the russian government to ban all kinds of radioactive materials' transit in Kalinigrad until the port will get special licenses for. In 1993, same environmentalists' campaign forced the governor of the Kalinigrad to ban all the nuclear waste transit in the oblast (region of Kalinigrad where population is more than 700.000 of people).

More info:
contact x-USSR antinuclear campaign in Baltics

Experts in Ukraine are predicting that the country's nuclear power plants will again be meeting about half of total national electricity demand during peak load periods this winter.

This is in spite of the shut-down at the end of last month of Chernobyl-1. The shut-down may turn out to be final, but a restart has not been officially ruled out.

Ukrainian officials say there had been some doubt about the number of units operating this winter. Routine maintenance outages had been made extremely difficult, due to financial

problems caused by customers' non-payment of electricity bills.

This winter Ukraine is also undergoing a major transformation of its nuclear sector. For the past three weeks, Goskomatom has been in the process of redeploying senior staff. Some are being retained for ongoing management duties, while others are being assigned to the start-up of the new state power generating company, Energoatom, established only last month.

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the appointment of two Goskomatom deputy chairmen as the president and vice-president of the new company. They are Valery Starodumov and Vasily Kotko, respectively. One of the people to move in as a new deputy chairman of Goskomatom is a woman, Mrs. Valentina Kodanyova, formerly head of the organisation's economics department. Officials say Goskomatom itself could eventually be transformed into a new ministry of nuclear power and industry. Goskomatom now has the status of a state committee.

Still looking into the future, two round-table discussions, attended by members of the public, have been held at at the Khmelnitski and Rovno nuclear stations to focus attention on the completion and upgrading of two new units - one at each site.

Both events were devoted to discussing task lists for assessing the environmental impact of Khmelnitski-2 and Rovno-4, which the Ukrainians want to bring on line to compensate for the loss of generating capacity at Chernobyl. For the first time, members of the public were given the opportunity to review and discuss such a task list, and propose amendents.

More info:
contact x-USSR antinuclear campaign in Moscow

Canada and Russia have been co-operating on nuclear matters since 1989 when a bilateral nuclear co-operation agreement was signed. The agreement provides for the necessary nuclear non-proliferation assurances which are associated with any nuclear trade between Canada and Russia.

In June 1992, nuclear safety co-operation was undertaken with a three-year, $30 million Canadian Nuclear Safety Initiative (CNSI). The initiative was announced during the visit to Canada by President Boris Yeltsin and its purpose was to enhance the short-term safety of Soviet-designed nuclear power stations. Assistance covers three areas: reactor safety, regulations and utilities.

The safety initiative has used Canada's expertise in CANDU reactor technology, which is relevant to the Russian RBMK reactor design because it also is based on pressurized fuel channels. Since 1992, Canadian experts have worked with an international consortium and with the International Atomic Energy Agency evaluating the safety of the RBMK reactor.

Under the CNSI, bilateral projects in Russia include programs of technical assistance, technical improvements to the RBMK reactor design, safety procedures and regulatory training. A nuclear safety and engineering program undertaken by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has a team of Canadian nuclear experts in Moscow and working directly with RBMK nuclear plant management and employees at Sosnovy Bor, Kursk and Smolensk.

In September 1994, Canada and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding that launched the Nuclear Safety and Engineering Program. Under the $10 million program, Canadian personnel from AECL are contributing.

Another important element of the CNSI the Regulatory Co-operation Program began in June 1994. The program consists of a series of internships with the Atomic Energy Control Board for senior officials of the nuclear regulatory agencies of Russia, Lithuania and Ukraine. It familiarizes visiting officials with Canada's approach to regulating the nuclear power industry, including licensing and plant safety regulations.

Most unknown page of Russian-Canadian cooperation is the construction of CANDUs in the Far East of Russia. One of the proposed nuclear power plants (there are two proposed) in Far East of Russia is "russian-canadian" with 6 of CANDUs. The source in Canadian Embassy in Moscow told in mid-1995 about very strange expedition of AECL' officials to the Far East. The plane, full of canadian high officials including lot of AECL' people, was visiting Vladivostok and Moscow. In Moscow this delegation didn't visit any places like every delegation must do during all the official visits to Russia.

During 1994-1995 AECL and Minatom had discussed this proposal very often, but finally Minatom didn't accept canadian conditions. It's possible that issue will be discussed again soon thanks to planned future' cooperation of two countries on plutonium utilization and MOX fuel.

Sources: Ukrainian Nuclear Society, Minatom, NucNet, Anti-atom press, Various