Ukrainian ‘dirty bomb’ on the banks of the Dnepr river

A stubborn, maniac striving of Kiev’s authorities to inflict a blow to the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant is mind-boggling for all normal people. From where comes a suicidal intention to make up a new Chernobyl-like nuclear catastrophe on its own territory, to provoke nuclear explosion in hopes of to accuse of Russia of it later? Recently, artillery shells of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired from the Ukrainian town Marganets, already went off in the vicinity of the nuclear waste storage of radioactive isotopes of this power station, damaged the pools of cooling installations of nuclear reactors, thermoelectric power station and high voltage lines. 

Ukrainian ‘strategists’ regularly talk about a ‘dirty bomb’ hoping that the blowing up of this mass destruction weapon would become a long-awaited pretext to interfere for NATO headed by the United States. For that purpose, they are ready to contaminate a vast Ukrainian territory and make it uninhabitable for decades to come.

After all, such a colonial attitude to the native country of alternate representatives of the Ukrainian elite has been always noticeable. In fact, Kiev authorities have been living, verbatim, with a ‘dirty bomb’ in cocked position for 32 years already. They calmly look how winds of steppe disseminate radioactive dust in the surrounding area of dozens of kilometers, with rains and ground waters washing this jingling of radiation soil into the Dnieper river. In the same Dnieper that, as the famous author Nikolay Gogol once put it, ‘splendid in calm and glorious weather then it smoothly and lavishly carries through forests and highlands its generous waters’.

All this is not a poetical exaggeration. All this has been happening in the town Kamenskoye (former Dneprodzerzhinsk), which is famous thanks to two factors: Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was born there, and here, at the secret object No 906 (later called Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant (PKhZ), a preliminary processing of uranium ores was performed. In our days, the memory of the one of the leaders of the Soviet Union is being mercilessly routed out by Ukrainian authorities, and the plant itself is neglected and has turned out into a radioactive zone. 

The situation is so serious that in November last year, at a briefing, the official representatives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova, answering a question from mass media regarding nuclear-waste storage in Ukraine, said:

‘The situation with the storage of dangerous radioactive waste (DRW) in Ukraine is horrifying. Actually, the whole amount of the waste from the processing of nuclear ores at the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plan’ located in the town Kamenskoye (former Dneprodzenzhinsk) amounts to 42 million tons. For their storage at the plant itself and beyond its territory there are several repositories and special shops to produce uranium octoxide, and they occupy an area of nearly 600 hectares.

This waste is considerable and dangerous source of environment pollution. It’s highly likely that about 12 million tons of the radioactive waste can get to the Dnieper River and subsoil waters as the result of a possible dam failure of one of the storages situated in 800 meters from the river and its tributary Konoplyanka. In a year, nearly 14 tons of radioactive waste are being spread in the surrounding area, and some of them reach farming acreage.

According to our information, Kiev doesn’t provide money to assure ecological safety of objects belonging to the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’, and this, at the end of the day, can lead to ecological catastrophe not only on the territories under control of the regime in Kiev, but also beyond them’.

As you can see, at present, in time of war, the problem is not only ecology, as here, right on the territory of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’, there is the mentioned ‘dirty bomb’ that the crazy Kiev authorities may ignite in order to make another ‘Bucha case’.

The website Prigovor.ru has studied in detail the dangers coming from the abandoned ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant”.

TOTALLY INDIFFERENT AUTHORITY

In order to imagine to what extend Ukrainian authorities have been irresponsible, inhumane and totally indifferent, we would like to reproduce a story that we learned from the interview with Oleg Voitsekhovich, head of the Department of radioactive monitoring of environment at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute.

It turns out that, on one tragic day in 1992, the uranium processing plant was fully stopped, workers and engineers switched off the assembly line, left everything as it was and walked away…

‘The switching off of uranium production in 1992 was not planned — without necessary preparation and required resources, as well as without carrying out important measures aiming at cleaning and reorienting of the plant; in some buildings of uranium production there are still premises, technological machinery, facilities containing great amount of surplus radioactive materials.

For instance, dried complex radioactive solutions and other dangerous surplus materials can be found in extraction columns, instrumental boards and other facilities of the buildings No 103, No 104, No 2B, 6, 95 and others, which are, as a matter of fact, real and potential sources with high degree of radiation for personnel. That is why the work in such premises, as well as dismantlement of technical equipment inside them demand special security measures.

Exacerbating the problem is the fact that there are no protective caps, radioactive materials are spread on the floor and on the surface of technical equipment; the remains of uranium concentrate (the so-called ‘yellow cake’) are pouring out from fragments of the cut-out pipes as well as other contaminated materials. 

On numerous floors of the buildings there are no windows, roofs are leaking in many places (see the photo as an example of spreading of radioactive materials from the building No 103 on the production site). As the result, radioactive materials continue to spread not only inside the buildings but also in the surrounding territories’, told Oleg Voytsekhovich in an interview with the media outlet ‘Uatom.org’.

Thus, because of the catastrophic irresponsibility, a ‘dirty bomb’ was laid on the banks of the river Dnieper as early as thirty years ago, in 1992. During these almost thirty years, dozens, if not thousands of inhabitants of the town Kamenskoye (Dneprodzerzhinsk), of the town Zheltye Vody, of Dnepr (Dnepropetrovsk), regional center with almost a million of residents and other settlements of the Dnepropetrovsky and Kirovogradsky regions. Everything can be written off for the legacy of the Soviet Union. But Ukrainian authorities has done nothing during the past 30 years to disactivate the territory of the object No 906, the territory of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’. In Ukraine presidents, members of the government came and went, but radioactive danger in the Dnepropetrovsk region only grew up from year to year.

And now, one should imagine what can happen if a stray Ukrainian rocket comes to this place…

Photo from the ‘LiveJournal’

‘YELLOW CAKE’ FOR THE FIRST SOVIET ATOMIC BOMB

Until now, few people know that uranium for the first atomic bombs was extracted in the Dnepropetrovsk region. It’s here, in the outskirts of the town Zheltye Vody, that were found after the war by geologists of the Kirovsk expedition colossal deposits of uranium ore that allowed to organize its industrial mining at the fields Mikhaylovskoye and Zheltorechenskoye (now depleted). On the whole, there is a lot of uranium in Ukraine, and in the Soviet time, 21 deposits of uranium ore were found, with some of them have been never developed.

In 1948-1991, the object No 906 had dealt with processing of uranium ores. The activities of the object No 906 were disguised as production of mineral fertilizers, and in open documents the alliance was called ‘Cindery Fertilizers Factory’. In 1996, it received another name, a ‘peaceful’ one – production association ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ (PKhZ). It was decided to construct it near the mines and pits of Zheltorechinsk deposits, and, in fact, withing the borders of the town Dneprodzerzhinsk (now Kamenskoye) with 200 thousand residents. ‘PKhZ’ was the first production site of uranium in the USSR. For its construction German prisoners of war were recruited, as well as a great number of Soviet prisoners. The Object No 906 was put into operation in record-setting time – in two years, as the construction works were coordinated by Lavrentiy Beria himself.

Until the middle of 70s of the last century, in the blast-furnace of the Object No 906 of the Dnepropetrovsk Metal Plant (it was part of PKhZ) iron ore was smelted with production uranium content not less than 0.15 – 0.2%, as the result were made cast iron and slag with uranium which was being leached out at that chemical plant with acids made by the production association ‘Azot’ (now OJSC ‘Dneprazot’). As the result, uranium concentrate (‘yellow cake’) was produced and for further centrifugal refinement it was sent by rail to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR).

In 1948, the plant employed 255 workers, and in 1967 already 4878. In 1990, the number of personnel reached 16 thousand. All workers were on file with the medical department (MD-61) and received treatment only there, as other physicians and hospitals of the city didn’t have the right to provide treatments to patients that had received various radiation doses, and, apart from that, the secrecy regime was obligatory.

And with radiation security at the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ the situation was always deplorable:

‘Workers, engineer-technical employees of lower and middle chain didn’t know and didn’t have the right to know with what raw material and end product they had to deal with. In shops there were constant spills and overflows of radioactive pulp that got into the storm water drain, and levels in machines were kept ‘manually’.

‘An open storage of uranium ore was located just on the west side of the plant. Uranium dust was blown by winds. Radioactive dust was always in the air, besprinkling was not carried out. In June 1952, first norms of maximum allowable levels of personnel radiation were adopted by the Third Main Department at the Ministry of Health of the Soviet Union. This allowable radiation level was 7.5 times higher as nowadays. In 1953, the plant was studied by specialists of the biophysical department of the Institute of working hygiene and professional diseases of the Soviet Union. Following things were found: radioactive dust pollution of working places on the level of 200-300 of norms, content of radon in the air – 35 norms, pollution of hands, bodies, special working clothing – 130 – 300 norms’, reported former workers of ‘PKhZ’.

There was time when the Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant processed 65% of all soviet uranium ore. Radioactive production waste during dozens of years, up to the closure of the plant in 1992 with the collapse of the USSR, were put simply in ravines or in clay pits right on the territory of the plant (the so-called tail storages). During half a century here was amassed more than 40 million tons of radioactive and chemically dangerous materials – uranium, products of its disintegration, arsenic, thorium, radium. These wastes take up 2.5 million square meters!

In the town Kamenskoye (Dneprodzerzhinsk) and its neighborhood there are 9 ‘tail storages’ (West, Central Yar, South-East, Dneprovskoye (tail storage D), Sukhachevskoye (first and second sections), Base ‘S’, Lantanovaya Fraction, DP No 6), and on the territory of the Dnepropenrovsky region there are only 12 of them. Yet, due to Soviet secrecy, nobody knows today the exact number. Six of the nine ‘tail storages’ were put into operation as early as in 1949 – 1956.

And only one of the nine ‘tail storages’ was specially prepared for receiving radioactive waste. That is why on these burial sites the level of radiation sometimes reached off the scale limits. And radioactive contaminations here is of such extent that, in our days, experts have delivered the following verdict: there is now no danger of explosion, but, with regard to the level of concentration, they fall into the category of a ‘dirty bomb’.

Chart from the scientific paper ‘Radon danger estimate of objects of nuclear-fuel circle by way of example of the ‘tail storages’ of the Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant, authors N. Durasova and G. Kovalenko, Research and Development Institute of Ecological Problems (Kharkov)

RADIOACTIVE GOLGOTHA

The first ‘tail storages’ organized on the territory of the “Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ (PKhZ), for instance, the storage ‘Dneptovskoye’, didn’t have a special water-proof defense, although they were located in the flood plain of the river Dnieper. This ‘tail storage D’ had been used from 1954 to 1968, and it contains, on the territory of 70 hectares, 13 million waste of nuclear production with a general level of radioactivity amounting to 17 thousand curies. 20 years ago, from the waste of coke-chemical factory, they, actually, made a ‘decorative’ storage dam. That is why, this nuclear storage situated, to the letter, in stone throw of the river Konoplyanka which falls into the Dnieper river, thus this nuclear storage can ‘swim’ at any moment. According to the information at our disposal, the first breakthrough to the Dnieper river through the Konoplyanka river took place as early as in 1958. It’s unknown how many of them have taken place since then. The last of the known breakthroughs into the river Konoplyanka happened in 2000. The means that were slowly allocated at that time helped to patch up only the largest holes in the dam of this water-flooded ‘tail storage’. 

Objective date about what is happening inside the ‘Storage D’ can be obtained only by way of monitoring. But here is what said on this matter the former director of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ Nikolay Shikutin: ‘Such studies cost a lot of money, and our plant, after it stopped to produce nuclear fuel, cannot afford itself such expenses. During ten years we have not become any kopeks from the state budget. I have to acknowledge that, in connection with the rise of the ground water level, the situation has become uncontrollable. Emitting of waste can happen at any time now. The scope of this catastrophe could be tens time higher as the aftermaths of the Chernobyl catastrophe. We will simply contaminate not only ourself, but the whole Europe’.

‘Base S’ (former storage of nuclear ore) is located 700 meters away from a residential area of the community Taromskoye, and in had been in use from 1960 to 1991. Earlier, this territory was under strict guard, and simply mentioning the “Base S’ could provoke serious ‘practical conclusions’ from the secret service KGB. The ‘Base S’ contained up to 300 thousand tons of solid nuclear waste in form of semi-destroyed constructions of bunkers for uranium ore, polluted railroad lines, grounds on the surface and under bunkers. Only in 2005, 300 railway trains with remains of uranium ore, but that didn’t solve the problem. 

There are here also 40 thousand tons of solid radioactive wastes in form of dismantled constructions of the blast furnace No 6. The ‘Base S’ has been making the main contribution to the day-to-day formation of off the scale radon doses for the residents of the communities Gorkyi, Pashena Balka, Novoye what are also situated in the near of this object.

Next to the ‘Storage S’ there are two sections of the ‘tail storage’ ‘Sukhachevskoye’ with almost 25 million tons of radioactive waste. In comparison, the amount of waste that is inside the Chernobyl sarcophagus is approximately 2.5 million tons. Yet, the Chernobyl sarcophagus protects relatively well, while he level of protection of the ‘tail storages’ of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ is just the opposite.

The surface of these burial sites is partially covered by pulp of 3-4 meters wide, mainly by phosphogypsum and water as a natural barrier against radiation. But all this is just dummies, their radioactive stuff is being obviously washed away by ground waters. In the nearest community Tomskoye (nowadays it is one of 9 districts of the town Dnepropetrovsk, almost 20 thousand residents) it is prohibited to take water from wells and bore holes. Because a high concentration of heavy metals was found there which is 40 times (!) higher as maximum permitted concentration. But they were, naturally, being in use, as, until recently, there was no running water there. And when it was finally created in a slipshod manner, the situation is now like this: when in one part of the community people are watering their gardens, the hill-side part of it remains without running water. Transported in cistern water was not enough for all. At the end of the day, according to unconfirmed reports, from 10 residents of Taromskoye who died in recent years 9 died of cancer.

As early as January 2009, the leaders of the ‘Dneprodzerzhinsk Human Rights Union’ informed the Office of the Prosecutor of the Dnepropetrovsk region about facts of steeling pipes in the ‘tail storage’ ‘Sukhachevskoye’. Through these pipes radioactive pulp was pumped, as well as water needed for keeping ‘tail storages’ in ecologically safe conditions. The diameter of these pipes was 350 and 500 mm, and their combined length was more than 51 kilometers. Everything was stolen and brought to metal scrap, despite over-the-top readings of Geiger counters.

These pipes were in the books of the ‘Pridneprovsky Hydro-Metallurgical Plant’ (PGMZ) which was in a pre-bankruptcy situation. Unfortunately, crime of omission of the arbitration manager of PGMZ led to multimillion losses from the part of the state. But this is only half of the trouble. As water-pumping station and pipelines were totally eliminated, delivery of water to ‘tail storages’ for defense of the neighboring territories from radioactive dust was stopped. As the result, this led to formation of open sites which specialist call ‘radioactive beaches.

From all directions, these ‘beaches’ bordered on farming lands belonging to the agro-industrial firm ‘Naukova’. According to ecologists, as the result of wind erosion more that 30 tons of radioactive dust were settled down on fields of corn and sunflowers. To find contamination of agricultural production is a bothersome matter, that is why nobody is dealing with it. So, each day, on family tables of tens of thousands of Ukrainians, was brought food with radioactive supplements. Moreover, products of this agricultural firm ‘Naykovo’ are also exported.

As the shut-down of the uranium production at the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ in 1992 was unscheduled, in some premises of uranium production there are still rooms and equipment with high residues of radioactive materials. For instance, dried complex radioactive solutions and other dangerous surplus materials can be found in the extraction columns, instrumental boards and other facilities of the buildings No 103, No 104, No 2B, 6, 95 and others, which are, as a matter of fact, real and potential sources with high degree of radiation for personnel. That is why the work in such premises, as well as dismantlement of technical equipment inside them, demand special security measures.

Exacerbating the problem is the fact that there are no protective caps, radioactive materials are spread on the floor and on the surface of technical equipment; the remains of the uranium concentrate (the so-called ‘yellow cake’) are pouring out from fragments of the cut-out pipes as well as other contaminated materials. 

Production site ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ (PKhZ) is an active source of radon arrival in the atmosphere (it can spread up to 5 kilometers from the source of an emission source), and its integral contribution to the pollution is higher that the contribution of ‘tail storages’. 20 formers shops of the PKhZ (in particular, No 103, No 104, No 2b, No 95) which are located within the borders of the town Kamenskoye (former Dneprodzerzhinsk) are contaminating the air in the town not only with radon but also with tons of radioactive dust, as there are no fensters in some of the buildings, there are also fractures in walls, and roofs are leaking in many places. These deadly gas and dust are being accumulated in apartments and basements of residential houses of the town Kamenskoye.

It’s not surprising that in this town such diseases as skin and lungs cancer are leading with significant margin among other oncological diseases. ‘The level of malignant neoplasms found in inhabitants of the town Kamenkoye in the last ten years, exceeds average figures in the Dnepropetrovsk region and in Ukraine in general’ – specialists of the Sanitary-Epidemiological Station of Dnepropetrovsk were refusing to provide further details in 2008.

The reason is understandable: according to the estimates of the Scientific and Project Institute UkrNIPIpromtekhnologiy, additional dose of radiation of the local residents is 3.15 microsiverts (mSv) whereas maximum permitted concentration is 1 mSv. According to radiation norms, a lethal dose is 6-7 mSv/hour and more. Moreover, even a constant high level of radiational background, with a high degree of probability, will be the reason of mutational development in a living organism.

By the way, in the town Kamenskoye there is a Monument of Christ comparable in its dimensions to monuments of Lenin and Artyom. Locals call this place ‘Golgotha’. Thus, they live here – on radioactive Golgotha.

RADIOACTIVE PRIVATIZATION

Instead of cleaning the territory of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ from radioactive waste after its sudden stop in 1992, Ukrainian authorities didn’t make up something better as to privatize the most valuable pieces of the erstwhile secret production association. And the reconstruction of the ‘Pridneproovsky Chemical Plant’ led to creation, in 90s, of about 30 different private companies that have bought or have been leasing out its premises – GP ‘Smoly’, GNPP ‘Zirkoniy’, GP ‘PGMZ’, GP ‘PKhZ’, GP ‘Polikhim’ and others.

Activities of the majority of these enterprises are not directly connected with processing of uranium ores. Acting productions on the bases of ‘PKhZ’ is specializing on making metallic zirconium, ligatures and alloys, chemical compounds on the basis of hafnium, zirconium, ion-exchanged materials for sorbate extraction from pulps and solutions uranium, molybdenum, wolfram, gallium, as well as technologies of water purification for production use.

To all owners of contaminated objects were handed over maps and necessary information about radioactive situation, and also recommendations were given about the necessity of guarantying measures of radioactive security and concerted actions with regard to moving such objects to safe conditions. But calculations that private owners and not the state would do the job pertaining to liquidation of radioactive danger at the ‘PKhZ’ were in vain. During all these years, people have been working in 50-100 meters from contaminated objects!

As of today, the assignment of objects on the territory of the former ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ doesn’t take into account peculiarities of their locations, level and character of radioactive pollution, technical conditions and negative influence of accumulated waste of processing uranium ores on environment and health conditions of people working there. The amount of a dose of gamma-radiation in some buildings and sites on the territory of the former ‘PKhZ’, according to the data of radiation monitoring, is more than 10 mSv/hour, and the background concentration happens to be 0.02-0.05 mSv/hour. Thus, thousands of workers are exposed to uncontrollable outside and inner radiation.

‘Symbolic’ guard and barriers of barbed wire on contaminated locations of ‘PKhZ’ appeared only in 2008. That is why the main direction of activities for some enterprises on the territory of ‘PKhZ’ have become works connection with cutting metallic constructions and equipment. The attractiveness of secondary reprocessing of scrap iron has become for many private entrepreneurs a tempting direction of their activity, and the fact that these objects and metal constructions have a high level of radioactive contamination didn’t stop many of them

A LEAKY ‘BARRIER’

In 2000, by the decision of the Ukrainian Ministry of Fuel and Energy, the state enterprise ‘Baryer’ (Barrier) was created, and it was given the task to guarantee radiational control and monitoring of the environment as well as to provide technical support to rehabilitating measures on the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’. Since then the ‘tail storage’ of the ‘PKhZ ‘(apart from the second section ‘Sukhachevskogo’) has been on the books of the GP ‘Baryer’.

In 2003, the first targeted program was worked out with the purpose directed at solving primary goals connected with lowering the level of radioactive influence on personnel of local enterprises. Yet, regular and systematic monitoring of radioactive situation at the ‘PKhZ’ and environment pollution was started only after 2005.

Within the framework of the first state program (2003 – 2007) contaminated pulp pipelines were dismantled and put out to storage on sites for temporary keeping (the ones that later disappeared); apart from that, partial repairs of dams were carried out and re-established protective covers of some ‘tail storages’. Apart from that, some projects were prepared of dismantling and disactivating of former shops of uranium production, yet the project didn’t go as far as to practical measures.

In the period from 2009 to 2011, within the framework of the second stage of the state help program on the production site of the “PKhZ’, inventory efforts were carried out for the first time with regard to conditions of building construction  of the most contaminated premises, apart from that, drilling works were made as well as control of the conditions of radioactive materials in the ‘tail storages’, and preliminary estimates were received of contamination level of the territory, as well as surface and ground waters. Works were started on studying the most polluted production sites and equipment of former uranium processing shops. But this work was not carried out to the end, as also after 2011 the financing of this state program had been limited to 50% of the planned one, and in 2013 the financing was, in fact, completely stopped.

For more than 20 years the state has spent on the activities of “Baryer’ only 12 million dollars, and it couldn’t develop itself into a professional company capable of taking responsibility for solving a complex of tasks necessary for fulfilling rehabilitating measures. During this time, the company had changed 10 consecutive directors. Employee turnover caused by underfunding led to the situation where most employees of ‘Baryer’ worked as volunteers. The lack of funding in the needed volume didn’t allow ‘Barryer’ to engage professional organizations as partners for carrying out rehabilitation projects. There was enough money only to make fences with barbed wire around dangerous objects and minimal security.

During 2014 – 2016, the European Union in cooperation with the Ukrainian government made the first step in the direction of creating a safe environment at the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’. But the project worth 1.1 million dollars with the purpose to find effective and long-time solution with regard to decommissioning and rehabilitation of the former plant of uranium processing was never carried out in proper way. The European Commission (INSC) planned to spend on the whole 10 million euros for cleaning ‘PKhZ’, but providing of money was postponed until normalizing of the financial situation of the GP ‘Baryer’.

From 2018, the company GP ‘Baryer’ didn’t receive any significant funding and the project was completely closed. The debt of ‘Baryer’ amounted to 1.2 million dollars. As strange as it may seem, 80% of the debt is connected with the arrears regarding land tax, of which the company must be exempt as a zone of radioactive disaster. But to repeal the tax would mean to recognize the situation of the ‘PKhZ’ as completely disastrous, but the Ukrainian government, while it was busy working out the budget, ‘had no impression that ‘PKhZ’ is in a critical situation’. 200 court cases have been filed against ‘PKhZ’, most of them connected with not paying salaries to its employees. The arrest of accounts completely froze the work of the company. In the report of the GP ‘Baryer’, published in 2021, it was said that it could not control the influence of radiation on health of local population. 

On the basis of calculations of the German company ‘Visutek’ (world leader of reprocessing uranium ‘tail storages’) it has been announced that about 200 million euros are needed to bring the whole contaminated infrastructure of ‘PKhZ’ to a safe condition. The cost includes spending (up to 100 million euros) on fulfilling projects, construction of new covering and rehabilitation of safety of the ‘tail storages’ ‘Dneprovskoye’ and ‘Sukhachevskoye-1’. The rest of the sum  (around 100 million euros) is to be allocated for a full complex of work of the main site of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’, as well for cleaning of the former base of loading and unloading of uranium ores (‘Base S’), as well as for the renovation of approach roads to the ‘tail storage’ ‘Sukhachevskoe’ (Section-2).

Taking into account billions of dollars that Ukraine has received in recent time from its sponsors from the United States and European Union, the sum is quite realistic. But the Ukrainian authorities are not going to ‘burn’ money in order to contain the radioactive winds and waste. But why?

Total indifference of Ukrainian authorities. ‘The financing of tasks and measures of Program had not been provided during four years. In 2019, there was ‘no funding at all. In 2020 the sum ‘was cut down’. In 2021 the program was ‘completely cut down’. In 2021, the program of urgent measures to get to safe conditions objects and premises of the former uranium production plant ‘PKhZ’ for 2019-2023 ‘was completely cut down’. In 2022, no money ‘was envisaged for this program.’ (This Explaining note of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers was found out by specialists of the group ‘Beregini’)

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

In a war time conditions, the radioactive ganger coming from the contaminated uranium shops and ‘tail storages’ of the ‘Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant’ could be further aggravated to catastrophic proportions. Millions of tons of nuclear wastes accumulated there represent now clear and present ganger not only for residents of the surrounding towns and communities, but also to millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, and states of the European Union.

Only in a horror dream one can see what can happen if Zelensky’s regime takes on fulfillment of the operation ‘Uranium Bucha’, when a ‘Russian’ rocket would suddenly hit at least one of the buildings of ‘PKhZ’ contaminated with radioactive and dispersive dust or a ‘tail storage’. Or, for that purpose, saboteurs from the Main Intelligence Department of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense would move there one or two wagons loaded with explosives?

As it is known, each year, from the ‘tail storages’ of the Dnepropetrovsk region are exuded, spread through water and scattered as the result of wild erosion about 300 thousand curies of radionuclides. And this is 1.5 times more that the known one-time ejection of radionuclides behind the ‘exclusion zone’ during the catastrophe in 1986 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Station. I.e., with such a detonation of a ‘dirty bomb’ on the banks of the Dnieper river radioactive clouds could close the skies not only over Ukraine, bit also above most part of Europe.

But there is still a chance to avoid such an Armageddon in such a case – perhaps, suddenly, there will be no wind. But, if a certain stray Storm Shadow rocket will hit, for instance, the ‘tail storage’ ‘Dneprovskoye’ which, as we remember, is in the flood land of the Dnieper river, in such a case it will be impossible to avoid spilling of 13 million of radioactive waste in one of the main waterway of Ukraine. And in a certain period of time, the content of this Ukrainian ‘dirty bomb’ will be in the Black sea, and then elsewhere.
Author: Sergey Borisov

See the Russian version at: «Украинская «грязная бомба» на берегу Днепра. Режим Зеленского готов к операции «Урановая Буча»