Nuclear energy in Russia

"If we differ on the most existential of issues, it will be hard to cooperate on other fronts," summarises Andrzej Sadecki, head of the Central Europe team and a Hungary specialist at OSW, the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies.

Hungary will veto European Union sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear power, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday, Reuters reported.

Ukraine has called on the EU to include Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom in the sanctions, but Hungary, home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant that it plans to expand with Rosatom's help, has blocked that.

Rosatom has announced that it manufactured and dispatched a shipment of nuclear fuel mock-ups for the first unit of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.

The fuel dummies are shipped together with mock-ups of control rods and tools for incoming inspections of nuclear fuel, the Russian company said in a statement.

Rusatom-Additive Technologies (RusAt), part of Rosatom's fuel company TVEL, has produced prototypes and is ready to launch a vent for venturi valves used in artificial pulmonary ventilation apparatus. The need for them has increased many times because of the coronavirus pandemic. RusAT's production facilities allow the production of about 300 products per week.

The power unit of the Russian corporation Rosatom - JSC Rusatom Service and Kozloduy NPP have signed a contract for the modernization of the neutron flux control equipment (ACNP) for the Fifth and Sixth units of Kozloduy NPP after the open tender back in september 2019.

All 5 companies from the shortlist of approved strategic investors for Belene NPP have confirmed their offers. The deadline was January 31st. The shortlisted companies are the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Atomenergoprom AD which is part of Rosatom, Korea Hydro-Nuclear Power, Framatome SAS - France and General Electric - USA.

The construction of the second unit of Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear power plant may start in the first quarter of 2020, Russia's atomic energy corporation Rosatom's Director General Alexey Likhachev has said.

By the end of the year or at the beginning of the following year at the latest, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) must license the project for the construction of the Belene NPP in view of changes in the legislation and requirements of the European Commission.

The position of Bulgarian government on the construction of Belene Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has changed because we now have serious offers and know details about the construction, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said in response to a question in parliament, Focus News Agency reported. 

Russian nuclear power plant shut down three of its four reactors automatically because of a short-circuit in a transformer, the radiation level remains normal, said Rosenergoatom.

The first, second and fourth reactors of the Kaliningrad NPP were disconnected. It is located 350 km northwest of Moscow in the Tverskoy District.