Dalią Grybauskaitę : Belarusian NPP Remains Russia’s Geo-Political Project

Lithuania should by all means stop the construction of the nuclear power plant.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant which is under construction at the border with Lithuania, in Astravets, is a geopolitical project of Russia, aimed against Lithuania. President Dalią Grybauskaitę said this, Delfi writes.

"I reckon this project, the Belarusian NPP, as the Russian geopolitical project, unfriendly directed against Lithuania. It’s an opportunity to blackmail and exert pressure on Lithuania, to prevent its synchronization with the West ", — Dalią Grybauskaitę said on Thursday in Vilnius. According to her, Lithuania should by all possible means stop the Belarusian NPP project and to demand safety and transparency.

"There is no doubt that we need to accomplish our homework — to protect our market from the electric power from such a power station leaking into it, and accelerate and improve the synchronization process (the ETL with the West — BNS). Thus, we should do our business and assess the project as geopolitical and unfriendly towards Lithuania ", — the president told the reporters.

She noted that Lithuania should do everything so that the Belarusian NPP project would be considered economically unviable, malware and aimed against Lithuania. The Russian corporation "Rosatom" is building a nuclear power plant 50 kilometers away from Vilnius, in Astravets. The station will be equipped with two reactors (type VVER / PWR) with the capacity of 1200 megawatts each. The first reactor is expected to be started in 2019, and the second — in 2020. The Lithuanian government claims that the construction of the nuclear power plant near the capital of Lithuania is conducted without complying with the safety standards. Belarus rejects Lithuania’s claims and says that the highest safety standards will be implemented at the power plant.