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Deutche Welle On Astravets NPP: This Is Soviet Union #2

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Deutche Welle On Astravets NPP: This Is Soviet Union #2
PHOTO: TUT.BY

The journalists of the broadcasting company Deutche Welle visited Astravets where the Belarusian NPP remains under construction.

Deutche Welle notes that the inhabitants of Astravets should have put up with the order on construction, taken in Minsk (translated by svaboda.org).

They were scared of resisting to the decision and still remain reluctant to speak about the NPP openly. The builders are also unwilling to talk. Their salaries fell from USD 100 to USD 300. Those who complain get fired.

“The villagers do not tell what they think on this issue, you will find no one in Belarus who would speak up openly, everyone is frightened,” – says the man in the video. –This is Soviet Union #2.”

An anonymous builder tells about the “horrible conditions” at the construction site and salary delays, demonstrating photos of a demolished section at the construction site –the reason for the demolition could have been concrete of low quality or poorly calculated static. Belarus does not reveal any details regarding safety and financing of the NPP.

“It remains disturbing that the technical components are shipped by the Russian enterprise which has very little experience as it hasn’t participated in the NPP constructions for 30 years,” – Deutche Welle adds.

About a half of power resources produced at the NPP will be exported, the media outlet notes, and it would be the easiest to export it to Lithuania, the border with which is located some 50 kilometers away from the NPP. However, the Lithuanian government is not just uninterested in purchasing power from the Belarusian NPP, but insists on preventing Belarus from exporting it to other EU countries.

“We know about the new construction of the nuclear reactor but it hasn’t been tested anywhere here,” – says Lithuanian Minister of Economy Evaldas Gustas. – The Rosatom has different standards. For example, if an NPP is under construction in some place in the world, it has protection in case of a plane falling on the reactor. There is nothing like this in Belarus”.

Alongside with that, there is a threat for Vilnius in case of leakage from the reactor as the city is located at the same river with the NPP. In the meantime, Lithuania plans to build its own NPP in cooperation with the Japanese company Toshiba:

“Lithuania remains the country of nuclear power,” – the Minister adds. – We are not against nuclear energy, we are scared of unsafe nuclear energy at the border, in close proximity to our capital. To us, safety of nuclear energy is an issue that demands solving.”

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