Press release, 25.01.2017

Mikhail Amosov, leader of the St. Petersburg YABLOKO and MP in the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg, demands from the authorities either to confirm or refute the information on their plans to launch a nuclear power reactor in the city centre. Amosov sent a corresponding inquiry to Alexei Likhachev, Director of the State Corporation Rosatom.

Environmentalists informed Amosov of the intention of Rosatom to load nuclear fuel into the reactor, as well as carry out physical and power start-up of nuclear power reactors of the floating block Akademik Lomonosov in the waters of the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg.

“As early as in the mid 1990s, Anatoly Sobchak, then City Mayor, prohibited performance of all works referring to the category of nuclear hazardous within the city boundaries. This was one of the reasons for the closure of the functioning nuclear reactor at the Dzerzhinsky Naval Institute, which was situated in the territory of the Admiralty, and rejection of construction of nuclear submarines at the Admiralty Shipyards,” Mikhail Amosov noted.

“For the same reason, loading of fuel and physical start-up of nuclear reactors of the last nuclear-powered cruiser built at the Baltic Shipyard was conducted at special bases outside the city. I do not understand why such dangerous practices are returning,” Amosov said.

According to the rules of nuclear safety, transportation of nuclear fuel, loading it into the reactor, as well as physical and power start-up of reactors are nuclear-hazardous works, that is, nuclear accidents or dangerous situations may emerge during such works.