Press Release, 13.03.2017

Mikhail Amosov, MP of St.Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly and Chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of YABLOKO, sent a deputy’s inquiry to Governor Georgy Poltavchenko. The parliamentarian asked in his letter whether the city’s executive authority had issued a permission to load radioactive fuel and launch nuclear reactors of the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov at the Baltic plant in the center of St. Petersburg.

“Do you as St.Petersburg Governor consider it reasonable to carry out such nuclear and radiation hazardous works as loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor installations and their physical and energy launches at an enterprise located in the central part of St. Petersburg?” runs the deputy’s request to the Governor.

Earlier in the year, Mikhail Amosov sent a letter to Oleg Markov, Vice Governor of St. Petersburg, but received no answer on the substance of the questions, and Vice Governor forwarded the appeal to the department of Rostekhnadzor (Russian Technological Control Agency). Amosov also sent an appeal to Rosatom (Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation) and received a response from Andrei Petrov, General Director of AO Rosenergoatom Concern, saying that loading of nuclear fuel agreed upon by the city administration and the preparations of the reactors for launching was to be carried out in the very center of St. Petersburg.

In early 2017, the media published information on the loading of nuclear fuel into the reactors of the floating nuclear power unit Akademik Lomonosov, as well as their physical and energy launches scheduled for the first quarter of 2017 in the waters of the Baltic Plant in St. Petersburg. In late February, the Bureau of St. Petersburg YABLOKO issued a statement on the inadmissibility of conducting potentially dangerous nuclear operations in the city. Anatoly Golov, member of the YABLOKO Bureau, published a petition against such a project. The petition got over 4,500 signatures.