Ukraine cancels agreements with Russia on nuclear regulation

Two international agreements on the regulation of the industry have been nullified.

Ukraine's nuclear regulator has ordered it to stop working with Russia due to the hostilities between the two nations.

A short statement from the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said last week, acting Chief Inspector Oleg Korikov ordered that two agreements with Moscow on nuclear regulation be nullified. They signed in 1996 and 2002 and set the legal framework for the agency's cooperation and information sharing with its Russian counterpart, Rostekhnadzor.

The Ukrainian agency cited Russian aggression against the country as the reason for pulling the plug on the agreements. It notified the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry about the decision.

Ukraine's civilian nuclear industry was built when the country was part of the USSR, and for decades it relied on Russian expertise to keep it running. The Russian TVEL, the Russian producer of nuclear fuel rods, has been the primary supplier of fuel for the nation's power plants.

The crisis of 2014 resulted in a serious blow to the cooperation between the two countries, with Kiev declaring that it would use Western fuel instead. Attempts by America s Westinghouse Electric Company to create replacement products for Soviet-built plants in Eastern Europe only met with limited success. Ukraine needs the domestic infrastructure to store nuclear waste, a problem Russia usually deals with for its clients.

As of 2018, Kiev officials said they wanted TVEL to open a subsidiary company in Ukraine despite the souring relations between the two nations at the time.

Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February after Ukraine failed to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied that it was planning to retake the two republics by force.