The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its concern over the desire of the American company Westinghouse to make wider use of nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
"We have taken note of a recent statement made by Westinghouse President and CEO Daniel Roderick in Kiev on the company’s decision to do as much business in Ukraine as possible," a statement on Thursday the foreign ministry reads.
We are alarmed by the US company’s desire to greatly increase the use of US-made nuclear fuel at existing power units in Ukraine, because the reliability of this fuel has not been confirmed.
"Not a single power unit in Ukraine has ever worked entirely on US fuel, and no earnest expert would undertake to predict their behavior based on the results of four-year tests," it added.
"However, it appears that nuclear safety is not among Westinghouse’s priorities, as evidenced by Mr Roderick’s statement on his company’s readiness to increase the efficiency of nuclear generators in Ukraine by 10 percent".
"We must say that implementing these plans without coordination with the general designer of the nuclear reactor, Russian design bureau Gidropress, would be tantamount to undertaking a perilous experiment," according to the statement.