Marius Laurinavicius: Lithuania's Fears About BelNPP In Astravets Confirmed

And this concerns not only unreliable Russian technologies.

Today, there was an emergency at the Kalinin NPP in Tver region of the Russian Federation: three out of four power units were shut down. At that, the reactor used at the Kalinin NPP was taken as a basis for designing the reactor at the BelNPP in Astravets.

Russian mass media claim that there was no radiation leakage in the result of the accident, but the increase of the radiation background was officially registered in the Belarusian city of Vitsebsk today.

Marius Laurinavicius, senior analyst of the Vilnius Institute for Political Analysis, commented on the situation for Charter97.org:

- This confirms once again Lithuania's fears about the Belarusian NPP in Astravets and the arguments we give against its construction. And it concerns not only the Russian technologies, which, as we all know, are not reliable.

As our former President Dalia Grybauskaitė said in her recent annual address, the reason for concern is the place itself, the very site for the construction of the BelNPP.

The incident at the Kalinin NPP once again confirms that Lithuania's position in relation to Astravets NPP is grounded.

- Does the fact of this incident increase the chances of success of the campaign to stop the construction and close down the BelNPP?

- I don't think so, because the Belarusian authorities can always say that the incident took place in Russia, but not in Belarus.

But the position of Lithuania with the new president, Gitanas Nauseda, will not change. Lithuania is not going to buy electricity from the BelNPP and will continue to fight for at least its compliance with European and world safety standards (as a minimum).

So this issue will not be removed from the agenda: this problem is too important and serious for Lithuania.

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