CNN
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The US has delicate nuclear expertise at a nuclear power plant inside Ukraine and is warning Russia to not contact it, in keeping with a letter the US Division of Vitality despatched to Russia’s state-owned nuclear power agency Rosatom final month.
Within the letter, which was reviewed by CNN and is dated March 17, 2023, the director of the Vitality Division’s Workplace of Nonproliferation Coverage, Andrea Ferkile, tells Rosatom’s director common that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant in Enerhodar “accommodates US-origin nuclear technical information that’s export-controlled by america Authorities.”
Items, software program and expertise are topic to US export controls when it’s doable for them for use in a means that undermines US nationwide safety pursuits.
The Vitality Division letter comes as Russian forces proceed to regulate the plant, which is the most important nuclear energy station in Europe and sits in part of the Zaporizhzhia area that Russia occupied after its invasion of Ukraine final February. The plant has continuously been disconnected from Ukraine’s energy grid because of intense Russian shelling within the space, elevating fears throughout Europe of a nuclear accident.
Whereas the plant continues to be bodily operated by Ukrainian employees, Rosatom manages it. The Vitality Division warned Rosatom within the letter that it’s “illegal” for any Russian residents or entities to deal with the US expertise.
CNN has reached out to Rosatom for remark.
Satellite tv for pc photographs present modifications Russia are making to occupied nuclear plant
“It’s illegal below United States regulation for non-authorized individuals, together with, however not restricted to, Russian residents and Russian entities,” the letter says, “reminiscent of Rosatom and its subsidiaries, to knowingly and willfully entry, possess, management, export, retailer, seize, evaluate, re-export, ship, switch, copy, manipulate such expertise or technical information, or direct, or authorize others to do the identical, with out such Russian entities changing into licensed recipients by the Secretary of the US Division of Vitality.”
It isn’t clear whether or not Rosatom has responded to the letter. The Vitality Division’s Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration informed CNN in a press release that the letter is genuine.
The letters had been first reported by the information outlet RBC Ukraine.
“The Division of Vitality’s Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration can affirm that the letter is authentic,” mentioned Shayela Hassan, the deputy director of public affairs for the Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration.
She added: “The Secretary of Vitality has the statutory duty for authorizing the switch of unclassified civilian nuclear expertise and help to international atomic power actions. DOE doesn’t touch upon regulatory actions.”
One other letter from Ferkile to the Vitality Division’s Inspector Basic, reviewed by CNN and dated October 24, 2022, outlines the expertise the US has exported to Ukraine to be used within the Zaporizhzhia plant and reiterates that the division has “no file of any present authorization to switch this expertise and technical information to any Russian nationwide or entity.”
The Vitality Division’s Workplace of Nuclear Vitality has been public in regards to the US’ assist for the plant, and acknowledged on its web site in June 2021 that “america helped implement new upkeep procedures and operations on the reactor that ought to in the end strengthen power safety” in Ukraine.
CORRECTION: A earlier model of this story misattributed the information outlet that first reported the letters. It was RBC Ukraine.
