Statement by the Yabloko Bureau No. 2554 dated 22.04.2021

Published on 26.04.2021

Photo: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant / Photo by Nomadsoul1.depositphotos

The Chernobyl tragedy made it into human history as one of the largest man-made disasters.

Due to the explosion of the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the territory of the former Soviet Union and other countries were contaminated with hazardous materials. As a result, a significant number of settlements had to be relocated. Millions of people have been exposed to radiation. Even today, the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are present in the territories of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries. The contamination of vast areas with radionuclides was accompanied by clearly identifiable negative consequences for public health and predicted risks of radiogenic diseases in the future around the world. The affected territories have not been properly rehabilitated to date.

The negative consequences of radiation exposure are also present in other regions of our country. And today contaminated territories in the Chelyabinsk and Tomsk regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory and a number of other regions of the Russian Federation need remediation.

On the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on 21 April 21, 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin in his annual Address [to the Federal Assembly] called for looking for “new solutions in the field of nuclear generation”. Hydrogen energy and energy storage were named as promising areas. The President of the country has once again acted as a lobbyist for Rosatom [the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation] and other transnational nuclear corporations. According to the world expert community, nuclear power plants that produce hydrogen are no less dangerous than nuclear power plants that produce electricity. The only difference is that hydrogen is a gas that can be concentrated, stored, and transported. The technological chains remain the same. Fossil fuels based on uranium or a mixture of uranium and plutonium remain the primary source of energy. The development of hydrogen energy does not solve the main problems of the nuclear industry: reactors remain dangerous; uranium mining and nuclear waste management have the same unresolved problems that we will leave as a legacy to future generations of Russians. High environmental risks remain at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle: from uranium mining by the barbaric method of underground leaching to the nuclear power plants themselves, the operation of which has not become 100% accident-free.

In the modern world, there are no safe technologies for the production of nuclear energy.

The YABLOKO party states that Russia should put an end to the construction of new nuclear power plants in favour of the development of alternative, renewable energy. The civilized world is entering an era of rejection of dangerous technologies of the past, and Russia must find its place in the development of the economy in accordance with the current “green agenda”.

The state is obliged to really ensure the right of every citizen of Russia to nuclear and radiation safety, namely:

– amend the current legislation so that to prohibit the imports of nuclear waste from abroad, including spent nuclear fuel;

– abandon the construction of new hazardous nuclear facilities, including nuclear power plants, and terminate the operation of nuclear power plants that have exhausted their resource;

– create economic incentives to improve energy efficiency;

– stimulate the transition to alternative, renewable energy sources;

– maximally ensure safety in the field of atomic energy use and prevent the initiation of new projects and technologies that may create new threats and risks;

– eliminate the nuclear and radiation legacy left over from the times of the Cold War and the Soviet Union;

– sign and ratify the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman