NEXTA: Corruption Results In Defects In Belnpp Construction

Defects may cause failures in the system.

The Telegram channel NEXTA publishes the corresponding documents of the IC:

"More sad news from the construction site of the Belarusian NPP, which has more and more chances to turn into the second Chernobyl. This time, there were significant faults in the installation of safety-critical equipment, and one of the senior managers of the contractor company is even under Article 252 of the Criminal Code of Belarus – commercial bribery."

BelNPP director Mikhail Filimonau openly told about how bad and with what violations the construction was going on in his letter to the vice-president for security of the representative office of Atomstroyexport in Belarus, Alexander Tatko. And of course, he didn't tell this to the public, because it would ruin the image of the "safest NPP in the world." Well, we shall fill in the gap in information," - the blogger NEXTA writes.

The document reports that Hrodna Region Department of the Investigative Committee investigates a criminal case under Article 252 of the Criminal Code (commercial bribery) against the head of the Ventilation and Firefighting Systems Department of the Russian company Atomstroyexport, Dmitri Zinoviev.

On April 6th, he was detained by KGB representatives while taking bribes from the Russian company NPO Ventekhservis and the Belarusian Levanta Group.

The IC notes that Zinoviev's poor quality work resulted in the fact that BelNPP was equipped with ventilation units and fire stopping valves without relevant quality control.

Ventilation equipment was also installed without the necessary control. And the defects found can lead to "failures in the system as a whole."

BelNPP staff refused to comment on the detention of Zinoviev to Belsat, advising to contact Atomstroyexport. The Russian company also refused to comment, saying that the head of the information department was on a business trip.

We remind you that this is not the first incident at the construction of BelNPP. The reactor vessel was damaged twice. In 2017, while relocating the reactor vessel for the first unit of BelNPP slipped out and touched the ground.

And in July 2019, two employees were severely injured during construction work at Astravets NPP. The 59-year-old and 23-year-old workers fell from a height as a result of a truck tower failure.

The last scandal around the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant was connected with the fact that Russian builders did not receive salaries for their work.

It is planned to launch the first BelNPP reactor in the coming months.