Konstantin Zaytsev, Vice Chairman of State Duma Energy Committee

– This poll quite adequately reflects the attitude of our people towards nuclear energy

On the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, from Apr 10 till 22 2009 Levada-Center held a poll concerning the attitude of the Russians towards nuclear energy. 1,602 people over 18 took part in the survey. “35% of the Russians advocate the preservation of nuclear energy, almost as many support its active development,” say the results of the public opinion poll conducted by Levada Center on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Deputy Director of Levada Center Aleksey Grazhdankin says that the results of this poll are not very much different from those of the survey held in 2006. This proves that the Russians show stably positive attitude towards nuclear energy. Only 5% of the respondents have said that Russia must give up nuclear energy, 12% advocate a gradual phase-out (against 15% in 2006).

This poll quite adequately reflects the attitude of our people towards nuclear energy. I think that were it not conducted on the eve of the Chernobyl accident, the results might be even more positive.

The fears caused by Chernobyl are fading away due to not only subjective factors like time but also objective reasons: the point is that the attitude towards nuclear safety has drastically changed since those times. The information about the work of nuclear power plants has become much more open. People simply have no grounds for fear. I think that we must continue active information campaign: we must enhance public awareness of the things happening in the nuclear power industry. Today, the percentage of the Russians supporting nuclear energy has amounted to 70%. People see that nuclear energy implies investments, industrial development, employment and social guarantees for specialists and it is quite natural that emotions are gradually giving way to pragmatism.