Stichting Laka

Publication Laka-library:
The Russian nuclear industry. The Need for Reform: Volume 4 – 2004 (2004)

Author	Bellona
	-
Date	2004
Classification	2.34.0.00/23 (RUSSIA - GENERAL)
Remarks	English version of 2.34.0.00/24
Front

Preface

The following pages represent Bellona's fourth report on sources of radioactive 
contamination within Russia, and on Russian nuclear politics as a whole. Unlike the
three previous reports (which focused on contaminati- on sources in Northwest 
Russia), this report has as its focus the broader scale of Russia's nuclear industry, and
the virtually unchecked power it has managed to maintain since 1949 with the 
explosion of the first Soviet atom bomb. For decades, the Russian nuclear industry, 
in its various guises as the PGU, Minsredmash, the Ministry of Atomic Energy 
(Minatom), and now the somewhat weakened Rosatom, has managed to maintain a 
position as a "supra-ministry," its budgets and projects shrouded in secrecy, its 
preferential treatment among other Ministry's guaranteed by the Cold War.This war-
like footing on which the Russian nuclear industry has always been able to place 
itself has also helped it whittle away at whatever independent nuclear regulation 
there has been in Russia.

Now those years are waning and the once well funded nuclear industry is in a 
shambles. As a pragmatic non- governmental organisation, Bellona is searching for 
solutions to stem the potential hazards posed by the decay of Russia's nuclear 
industry while at the same time ensuring that organisations and governments who 
are funding nuclear remediation projects in Russia are not simply bolstering the 
industry's further existence.

This publication is digitally available in the Laka library, but it's not on-line.
E-mail us (info@laka.org) if you would like the pdf sent to you (with the subject, number and title). Of course you can also come by.