117 



previously announced that they dumped into the Sea of Japan. This accident (with its 

 radioactive source) was not included in the Yabiokov Report 



Russian policy on nuclear waste is murky and subject to sudden changes because 

 of the large number of organizations involved and constantly changing laws and decrees- 

 -some of which are conflicting. Russia has several laws and government decrees that 

 stipulate procedures for accepting, handling ^d disposing of nuclear wastes. One murky 

 area is the acceptance of foreign nuclear waste, which can be accepted for reprocessing 

 but cannot be pemianently stored on Russian territory. However, permanent storage has 

 been the subject of a variety of definitions and the question of Russia's acceptance of 

 nuclear wastes from other former Soviet states and countries with Russian nuclear 

 reactors remains unresolved. 



Some of the Russian government's recent actions send a troubling signal 

 regarding Moscow's commitment to stop dumping nuclear waste in Arctic waters. For 

 example: 



• A presidential decree issued in July rescinds an earlier edict establishing civilian 

 oversight of the military's management of radioactive waste-although Russia's chief 

 nuclear safety authority, Gosatomnadzor, has complained all along that it has been 

 denied access to information about the navy—and effectively allows the military to 

 police its own dumping practices. 



• According to a report released last month by the Norwegian environmental group, 

 Bellona, which works closely with Russian environmental groups, the main nuclear 

 storage facility of Russia's Northern Reet is makeshift, dilapidated, and contains 1,000 

 times more radiation than the largest of this year's French nuclear tests. 



• While the report was being prepared, Bellona' s office in Murmansk was raided by the 

 Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which confiscated all of Bellona's materials 



