By Biswajit Choudhury,
Moscow : A top Russian nuclear industry official Thursday discounted the possibility of any disruption in the nuclear cooperation with Ukraine over the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
“Rosatom (Russia’s nuclear energy corporation) is a commercial organisation and is not involved in politics”, Kirill Komarov, deputy CEO and head of the corporation’s international business told IANS on the sidelines of Atomexpo 2014 international nuclear energy conference.
“There are fifteen nuclear units in Ukraine all built on Russian design and using Russian fuel, while there are practically no issues between us in this regard”, he added.
These 15 reactors in Ukraine were inherited from the Soviet Union, while a major portion of its nuclear fuel needs are met by Russian supplies.
Ukraine’s power sector is the twelfth-largest in the world in terms of installed capacity, with 54 gigawatts.
“At Rosatom we work quietly, whether it is Ukraine or the United States”, Komarov said.
He said that whether it was supplying fuel or removal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) waste, “Rosatom meets 100 percent of its obligations and our Ukrainian colleagues too meet their obligations hundred percent”.
Explaining that for a number of years Rosatom had been dealing with Ukraine on a pre-payment basis, Komarov said: “We have already received 80 percent of funds on current obligations and have shipped fuel for 4 nuclear plants.”
In another indication of the importance of commercial relations amidst political problems, Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday instructed the government to formulate measures that will keep a proposed gas discount to Ukraine for a certain period of time.
In April, Russia’s gas major Gazprom cancelled discounts on gas supplies to Ukraine and set a price of $485 per 1,000 cubic metres, which the latter called overpriced and temporarily suspended gas imports.
In March, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, claiming it had to protect Russian speakers following the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
(Biswajit Choudhury can be reached at [email protected])