The said ministry acts in Belarus as nuclear safety regulator.
"Both units of Belarusian NPPs are currently shut down – it was announced that Unit 1 is undergoing scheduled maintenance repairs, but there is a very little information on the reasons for the shutdown of Unit 2. The Belarusian NPP is being operated with intermittent and unreported disturbances, and the safety problems at the plant continue to go unaddressed," says Michail Demčenko, head of VATESI.
In its letter to the MES, the Lithuanian inspectorate requested clarification of the information published in the public domain concerning the contamination of the Unit 2 reactor cooling loop with organic substances, the contamination of the Unit 1 secondary circulation loop with radionuclides, the deficiencies in the fixing of the reactor vessel as well as the detected defects and outstanding work.
VATESI also called on the MES and other responsible Belarusian authorities to publish all international expert missions’ recommendations and their implementation results and provide additional information, which is necessary for more accurate forecasting of releases during possible accidents.
Copies of the letter were sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), European Commission, Chairs of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) and Western European Nuclear Safety Regulators Association (WENRA).
The Belarusian nuclear plant has a generating capacity of 2,900 megawatts (MW) and was launched in 2020. It is located in Ostrovets, 50 kilometres away from Vilnius.
