Ozharovsky on the IAEA Mission at the Belarusian NPP: It's Just a Journey

An IAEA mission will not be able to stop the construction of Astravets NPP.

On 16 January SEED-IAEA mission arrived in Belarus, its experts will inspect the construction of Astravets NPP and make a report. The text of the document will appear as earlier as March. Such report usually requires 3-6 months.

A Russian nuclear physicist, expert in atomic energy Andrei Ozharovsky explained Euroradio why the IAEA mission could not stop the construction of the NPP in Belarus.

"Admittedly, the IAEA is a dependent organization. The IAEA Statute, its second paragraph, states that the purpose of the organization is the promotion of atomic energy use... Therefore, it is natural to expect that the IAEA mission will not notice many violations of the construction of the Belarusian NPP. As well as this well-respected organization failed to see problems in operation of the Chernobyl NPP up to 1986. And did not notice minuses in the Fukushima project up to 2011. The IAEA proved its political bias in practice. So I wouldn't pay attention to the mission and its final report. This is a journey," Ozharovsky says.

The expert also adds that, most likely, the report will contain a piece of advice for the Belarusian authorities, but they will not touch upon critical moments.

"There has been no precedent that IAEA could ban the project of potentially hazardous object. Chernobyl is a great example. But the IAEA would like to act as expert organization. So they often find dozens of small, although important minor violations. Not core problems. They ask to fix them, and it is done. It has already happened at Russian NPPs and will occur at the Astravets one. But they miss the most important things," expert believes.