Igor Chestin, Director of WWF Russia, member of Public Chamber of Russian Federation

— The decision of the nuclear powers to concentrate the production of enriched nuclear fuel in the territories of a limited number of countries, including Russia, is certainly right in terms of safety

WWF believes that the development of nuclear power engineering has no prospects and the Russian authorities and the Rosatom managers are aware of this position.

In our opinion, the best way would be to adopt a program for curtailing nuclear power engineering and gradually closing down NPPs in the coming decades. Hence, it is inadmissible to allocate any funds, especially budgetary ones (i.e. money received from tax-payers) for the construction of new reactors.

However, we are forced to admit that, unfortunately, the leaders of many countries, including Russia, do not share our opinion. Moreover, more and more countries, first of all, developing ones, are building or are going to build NPPs. Though firmly believing that this is a wrong policy and constantly persuading people in Russia and abroad to stop it, WWF Russia is aware of the present realities and urges the Russian authorities to, at least, make the existing NPPs as safe as possible.
This does not mean that we have given up or have accepted the policy for increasing the share of the «peaceful nucleus» in Russia’s energy balance, but we consider that it would be irresponsible to refuse to take part in the discussions of safety problems.

In terms of safety, the decision of the nuclear powers to concentrate the production of enriched nuclear fuel in the territories of a limited number of countries, including Russia, is certainly right. The best scenario would be not to produce this fuel at all, but, since they produce it, they must do it professionally under close international control.

Before choosing places for such centers, one should ask people. It is for the Angarsk residents to decide if the local combine should be turned into such a center or not.