Russia has lost contact with Iran’s nuclear sector leadership – Rosatom
Moscow has lost contact with the leadership of Iran’s nuclear sector amid the US and Israeli attack on the country, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, has said.
On Tuesday, Rosatom’s Director General Alexey Likhachev said the operations at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in southern Iran have been suspended due to airstrikes in its vicinity, with some 639 Russian personnel remaining at the facility. The company has been the key contractor at the plant, currently constructing its second and third power units.
While Rosatom continues to work with Iranian officials at the plant, the company has lost communications with the leadership of the country’s nuclear sector, and the status of other nuclear installations in the country remains unclear, Likhachev noted.
“The station is certainly under threat, as explosions are already being heard kilometers away from the station’s physical perimeter. They aren’t aimed at the station but at the military installations located there, but the threat is clearly growing,” Likhachev stated.
The situation at the power plant remains “under control,” Rosatom’s head added. On Saturday, Rosatom stated it had evacuated nearly 100 people from Iran, including nonessential staff and employees’ children. According to Likachev, the company plans to evacuate an additional 150-200 personnel from the facility “when the situation allows.”
The plant currently contains a large stockpile of fissive materials, including 70 tons of nuclear fuel and more than 210 tons of depleted fuel, Likhachev stated. Any hit on the stockpile is bound to result in a catastrophic incident of, at least, “regional” proportions, he warned.
Russia has played a key role in Iran’s civilian atomic program, notably at the Bushehr plant. The construction of the power plant was started in the mid 1970s by a West German company, but was suspended in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1980. The project was revived by Rosatom in the 1990s, with the Russian nuclear energy giant launching the plant’s first power unit in the early 2010s.
