Ukraine seems to be a place where many of the issues of nuclear power and nuclear weapons converge. Since Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014, they have been ratcheting up the rhetoric about a possible military confrontation with NATO. Russian officials have commented that Russia could overcome NATO conventional forces with superior tactical nuclear weapons. They have also threatened to move nuclear weapons into the Crimea. Ukrainian officials are afraid that their existing nuclear reactors might be intentional targets or accidental collateral damage in the ongoing civil war. There are concerns about how to fuel Ukrainian nuclear power plants now that Ukraine and Russia, their current source of nuclear fuel, are no longer on friendly terms. And, finally, there is a dispute over the completion of two nuclear power reactors in Ukraine that were being built by Russia.
The Khmelnitski Nuclear Power Plant is located in Netishyn, Khmelnitski, Ukraine. There are two operational VVER-1000 nuclear power reactors generating a gigawatt each. Construction of the first reactor began in 1981 and it became operational in 1987. Construction of the second reactor began in 1983 with a projected completion date of 1991. A moratorium on nuclear plant construction halted work on the reactor in 1990. The reactor was completed and brought online in 2004 after the moratorium was lifted. Construction of a third VVER-1000 reactor was begun in 1985 and a fourth reactor in 1986. Work on both of these reactors was halted in 1990 because of the moratorium. The third reactor was about three quarters complete in 1990 and about a quarter of the work on the fourth reactor was done by 1990.
An intergovernmental agreement was signed between Ukraine and Russia in 2010 for the completion of the third and fourth reactors. Late in 2010, Russia’s Sberbank said that it would loan Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear plant operator, a billion dollars for the project while Energoatom supplied fifteen percent of the project costs.
In early 2011, a contract for the construction was signed between Energoatom and Atomstroyexport which is the Russian general contractor for construction of Russian reactors in other countries. However, in mid-2011, Energoatom said that it was not satisfied with the interest rate that the Sberbank was offering. Following the annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 2014, the president of Energoatom announced that Ukraine would not cooperate with Russia in the completion of the two reactors at Khmelnitski.
The deputy director of the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy and Coal just announced yesterday that Ukraine is preparing the legal documents necessary to cancel its contract with Russia for the completion of the third and fourth reactors at Khmelnitski. The deputy director said “Measures are being taken to cancel the agreement signed in 2010 with Russia. Today, an instruction was received from the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which gives the Foreign Ministry and other relevant bodies the authority to resolve this matter as soon as possible. The document will soon be prepared and sent to Russia.” The reason given for cancelling the contract was that “Russia failed to meet its obligations.”
The Ukrainian government is drafting legal documents to permit the alteration of the specifications for the two incomplete reactors so that they do not have to be Russian VVER-1000 models. The Czech company, Skoda JS, has been working with the VVER type reactors for forty years and has built three VVER-1000 reactors. The Ukrainian government wants to have Skoda JS complete the third and fourth reactors at Khmelnitski.
Khmelnitski Nuclear Power Station:
