COULD UKRAINE BE LEFT ONE ON ONE WITH CHORNOBYL? G7 GIVES LITTLE MONEY, RUSSIA GIVES ADVICE

The Day has reported about the possibility of an accident at the Chornobyl sarcophagus. Now the situation has grown even worse, because the G7 countries tried to put private concerns in charge of collecting money to finance repair work at the sarcophagus.

Ukraine was strictly against this according to the head of international economic and scientific department of the Foreign Office Bohdan Sokolovsky. Ukraine signed a memorandum on shutting down the power station with the governments of the G7 countries and therefore will insist on those governments’ responsibility.

Coordinator of energy companies with Greenpeace Ukraine Ihor Kyrylchuk declared that his organization will support Ukraine, “because the sarcophagus problems can be predicted and should not cause any danger to people.” Private enterprises would give Ukraine loans, not grants, and Kyrylchuk thinks the situation would become unpredictable.

He also noted that according to the memorandum the G7 was to transfer $387 million to a special EBRD account, but as of December 12, 1997 only $170 million had been transferred. At a conference in New York in November another $35 million was granted by other countries, which are not G7 members. Russia, the eight member of G7 does not pay for Chornobyl. Its help goes only as far as advice. Russian experts suggested covering the sarcophagus with light concrete and leaving it like that. This project along with a cheaper one, to fill the sarcophagus with sand, does not meet ecological requirements. Suggestions to bury the unit is dangerous for all Ukraine, because radioactive underground waters would flow to the Dnipro and Prypiat, poisoning the whole country’s drinking water.

We need to hurry. Greenpeace experts note that before starting any work on sarcophagus, we need to extract the radioactive fuel from it. There are special robots developed for such purposes, but unfortunately they cost $2.5 million each.

Thus today Ukrainian citizens may once again become atomic hostages to both their own and the G7 governments.

Photo by Leonid Bakka, The Day:
Even in Chornobyl Lenin remains “the most alive of all the living”