MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. The safety of nuclear materials kept on the premises of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not a reason for concern at the moment, the head of the non-profit organization ANO Atominfo-Center, editor-in-chief of the Atominfo.ru media resource, Alexander Uvarov, told TASS on Wednesday.
"As for the IAEA’s concerns about the loss of remote data transmission from the Chernobyl NPP, it’s all about the safeguards monitoring system that keeps track of the nuclear materials at the radioactive waste facilities, preventing their use for malicious purposes. The IAEA’s report concerns the system of control of NPT treaty observance guarantees. The IAEA’s reaction is natural, but I can say that the IAEA is under the control of Russia’s regular army and also Ukrainian military personnel, which guarantees the safety of nuclear and radioactive materials in store at the site," Uvarov said.
He believes that replacing the NPP’s personnel is a far more serious problem and an urgent need.
"The Chernobyl plant’s real problem is its personnel cannot be replaced at the moment. This is very bad, because tired people are prone to making mistakes," he said, adding that the Chernobyl NPP had been shut down and its personnel’s main function was monitoring.
The Chernobyl NPP is located in northern Ukraine, on the Pripyat River, a tributary of the Dnieper 16 kilometers away from the border with Belarus. The original plan was to build six 1,000 megawatt graphite-moderated RBMK-1000 reactors. After the accident at the fourth reactor in April 1986 the construction of the 5th and 6th reactors was curtailed. The second reactor was shut down in 1991 and the first one, in 1996. The last operational unit was shut down in 2000.
In 2021, the Chernobyl NPP’s territory began to be used for storing spent nuclear fuel in a dry container-type facility from the Rovno, Khmelnitsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants.