Disinfo: Ukraine will turn into a radioactive zone

Summary

The transformation of Ukraine into a vast radioactive zone is only a matter of time. Unfortunately, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, copying his teacher and mentor Poroshenko, called the contract concluded by the state-owned company Energoatom and the American corporation Westinghouse on the supply of nuclear fuel for VVER-440 reactors for the Rivne nuclear power plant “historical”. Ukrainian nuclear scientists were afraid of “expanding cooperation”, as this leads to increased accidents in the operation of nuclear power plants.

Disproof

One of the Kremlin's disinformation narratives about a possible "new Chernobyl" in Ukraine, the accusation of Westinghouse and so-called experiments of the West in Ukrainian nuclear plants. Westinghouse Electric Company signed another contract with the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company (NNEGC Energoatom) on VVER-440 nuclear fuel for the Rivne nuclear power plant. This agreement illustrates another step in the continuation of the long-standing partnership between Energoatom and Westinghouse. The use of American technologies in the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants is completely safe. Westinghouse currently supplies fuel to 6 of Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors, and this will increase to 7 from 2021. The nuclear fuel is manufactured at the Westinghouse fuel fabrication facility in Västerås, Sweden. The claims about the dangerousness of usage of the Westinghouse's fuel are constant from the Russian side since Ukraine decided to use the fuel of other countries in its nuclear plants. Background: The spread of disinformation against the Ukrainian-American nuclear cooperation began in 2014, when Ukraine signed a number of agreements, including expanding an agreement on the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors produced by Westinghouse. The contract should reduce dependence on Russia, which has been providing Ukrainian nuclear power plants with energy resources for many years. Even then, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the document "unacceptable", "politically biased" and a "dangerous experiment" that would allegedly cause a "catastrophe" in Ukraine in the field of nuclear energy. Since then, Russia has resisted the expansion of Ukrainian-American nuclear cooperation in every possible way, and the Russian media systematically publish materials predicting apocalyptic scenarios for Ukraine, which will "come true" as a result of supplying Ukrainian nuclear power plants with the fuel of any production other than Russian. Experimental operation of Westinghouse fuel structures began at the South-Ukrainian NPP back in 2005. This Ukrainian nuclear power plant was the first on which it was used on mixed structures - Russian and American production. The process of transition from the exploitation of Russian fuel to American fuel has been going on for about 20 years. In July 2018, the third power unit of the South-Ukrainian NPP was completely transferred to American fuel. Now, Ukraine intends to replace Russian fuel structures with American ones in other Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

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news-front.info (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 214
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 01/10/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: US, Ukraine
  • Keywords: Volodymyr Zelensky, Nuclear issues, Chernobyl, Petro Poroshenko
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Disproof

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Disproof

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Disproof

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