Ukrainian parliament authorises purchases of Russian reactors from Bulgaria for Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant
Source: Yaroslav Zhelezniak, MP from the Voice party
Details: Energoatom has permission to buy reactors from Bulgaria for the construction of power units 3 and 4 at the Khmelnytskyi NPP.
Although the law itself does not specify the amount earmarked for the contract, experts say it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. After all, the Bulgarian parliament has given permission to negotiate the sale of equipment for at least €600 million.
It is noted that the bill was supported by 269 MPs.
In 2006, Rosatom, Russia's state-run nuclear power company, won an international tender for the construction of two VVER-1000 power units for the Belene NPP in Bulgaria, but the project was frozen three years later. In 2012, Bulgaria completely abandoned the construction of the plant and now plans to sell the reactors to Ukraine.
The document adopted by the Ukrainian parliament has yet to be signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who recently called on MPs to support the completion of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant.
Background:
The updated draft law, which will launch the completion of two power units at the Khmelnytskyi NPP, has removed all the comments and contradictions that MPs had about the first version.
On 16 January, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities supported amendments to draft law No. 11392 to allow Energoatom to purchase reactors from Bulgaria for the construction of power units 3 and 4 at the Khmelnytskyi NPP. The amount is approximately €600 million.
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Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Video Shows Direct Strike On Sanctioned Russian Military Factory
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The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
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Atlantic
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She also helped broker a natural-resources agreement with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to create a joint investment fund to rebuild Ukraine. Her appointment last week was part of a larger government reshuffle by Zelensky, who reassigned the previous prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, to the role of defense minister. In her new role, Svyrydenko will be tasked with rehabilitating the economy, boosting the domestic production of weapons, and strengthening Ukraine's armed forces, in part by securing financing from allies and the International Monetary Fund. One of her first actions as prime minister was to advance talks with the United States about a major potential investment in Ukraine's drone industry. Nevertheless, and despite her strong résumé, Svyrydenko will have to contend with broad reservations in Ukraine about female leadership. According to a 2020 study conducted by the research group Rating, Ukrainians are more likely to prefer male political executives. Sometimes bad actors take advantage of this trust gap. Katerina Sergatskova, the executive director of the 2402 Foundation, which supports and trains Ukrainian journalists, has seen many Ukrainian women in public life become the target of harassment. 'It is political sexism. The attacks are well-organized campaigns,' Sergatskova told me. She has experienced such a campaign herself, which included death threats that forced her to stay out of Ukraine for a time. Sergatskova noted that many in Ukraine are comparing Svyrydenko to the country's first female prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who took office in 2005 and faced several corruption charges. One case resulted in a criminal conviction against her and two and a half years in prison, which the U.S. condemned as politically motivated. After the 2014 revolution, which ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian regime, the supreme court overruled Tymoshenko's conviction and ordered her release. Nevertheless, a large majority of the Ukrainian public still don't trust her. Zelensky has fought against Ukraine's abiding suspicion of female politicians by promoting a new generation of them into leadership positions. In addition to picking Svyrydenko as prime minister, he also announced the appointment of Olha Stefanishyna as Ukraine's new special representative to the United States. The approach sets him apart from Vladimir Putin. Valentina Matviyenko, one of two women who serve on the Russian president's permanent security council, put on a Barbie-pink suit last year and derided feminism as 'an anti-male, anti-traditional-values movement.' Meanwhile, Russia bans and prosecutes feminist groups, and Putin tells Russian women to have 'minimum two children.' For those who fear that Svyrydenko will be no more than a Zelensky loyalist, she is already facing her first test. This week, Zelensky tightened the administration's control over two independent agencies tasked with fighting government corruption. Sevgil Musayeva, the editor in chief of the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, described the move as a step toward authoritarianism. 'Svyrydenko has a chance to act now and speak against this decision that is undermining democracy, which our soldiers are dying for,' Musayeva told me. 'But such action would require a lot of her courage.' Two days after Zelensky reined in the government watchdogs, Svyrydenko met with G7 ambassadors in Kyiv to discuss anti-corruption policy —a subtle acknowledgment, perhaps, that the president had gone too far. But not everyone is convinced that Svyrydenko will be able to stand up to Zelensky. 'Officially, we are a parliamentary-presidential republic,' Goncharenko, the legislator, told me last week. 'I wish that were true. But we live in wartime; the decisions are made by the president.' 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