Ukraine’s plan to buy Russian-made nuclear reactors sparks uproar

Lawmakers argue buying aging atomic energy equipment from Bulgaria won’t help keep the lights on and could fuel corruption.

Politico, August 15, 2024 , By Gabriel Gavin

Ukraine’s government is fighting off growing opposition to a multimillion-dollar scheme to buy mothballed nuclear reactors, facing accusations that officials are opening the door to corruption just as they push to clean up the country’s energy sector.

The government wants to bring two new units online at the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Station in Western Ukraine, arguing they will help shore up the country’s energy grid that Russian bombs have decimated. The quickest and fastest way to do so, they argue, is to buy Russian-made reactors currently sitting in storage in Bulgaria at an estimated cost of $600 million.

But the deal needs lawmakers’ sign-off, and several parliamentarians — including at least one from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s own party — are alleging the deal could blow a massive hole in the country’s tattered budget for outdated technology that won’t necessarily help Ukrainians stave off looming blackouts.

………………………………………The row has created another point of contention as Ukraine tries to crack down on corruption in its energy sector. Earlier this week, Galushenko’s deputy minister, Oleksandr Kheil, was arrested over allegations he pushed for a bribe of half a million dollars in exchange for transferring coal mining equipment belonging to a state enterprise.

Zhupanyn and his colleagues claim the Russian nuclear reactor purchase will become another venue for such dodgy dealing.

“In the last 10 years, there have been many criminal cases against people using tenders to extract cash from Ukraine’s state nuclear power company,” he said in an interview. “If you allow them to spend billions of hryvnia on this, you can expect a pipeline of criminal cases in the next 10 years.”

Galuschenko denied accusations the government was withholding information…………………………………….

“There are a lot of MPs from basically all factions that are not supporting it,” Yaroslav Zheleznyak, an economist and MP from Ukraine’s liberal Holos party, told POLITICO following the meeting on Tuesday. “We are concerned about corruption in this procurement process and we have not received any explanations.”………………………………………………………………………..

Ukrainian energy and environment NGO Ekodiya has also raised concerns about the proposals for Khmelnytskyi, arguing that the project would rely on “obsolete Russian-made equipment” and that “the use of outdated technology can lead to serious safety and efficiency problems.”

Instead, the group argues, the better investment would be in smaller electricity-generating facilities, including renewables, distributed across a wider area. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chief executive of state power firm Ukrenergo, told POLITICO earlier this year that building a broad green energy network would make the grid less susceptible to Russian attacks……………………………………….. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-buy-russia-made-nuclear-reactor-uproar-war-corruption/