MURMANSK. May 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Nikolai Kalistratov, Director General of the Zvyozdochka enterprise, based in Severodvinsk outside Arkhangelsk, believes that it is necessary to involve sponsoring states in solving the problem of scrapping the Admiral Ushakov heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser.
Addressing the meeting of the IAEA experts group, being held in Murmansk, he said that Italy's Sogin Company had agreed to finance initial stages of scrapping the cruiser under the Russian-Italian agreement on cooperating in the sphere of scrapping SSBNs, which leave the inventory of the Navy, and security in handling radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, signed in Rome in November 2003.
For instance, according to Kalistratov, the Italian side is ready to allocate assets to develop the feasibility study of removing spent nuclear fuel and scrapping the ship, and environmental documentation, as well as to remove spent nuclear fuel proper.
"However, it is advisable to establish cooperation of several donor states in order to realize the large-scale pioneering project," he said.
Kalistratov also proposed that a meeting of international experts, headed by the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, be conducted in Severodvinsk in July 2005 in order to work out specific decisions on cooperation of donor states and defining their roles in scrapping the Ushakov cruiser.
He admitted that Russia had not scrapped a nuclear-powered surface ship of this type before, while the U.S. had scrapped three nuclear-powered cruisers.
Kalistratov noted that the cruiser had been waiting to be scrapped at Zvyozdochka since 1999. "Corrosion results in leaks of stop valves and breaking down welded parts of the hull, which may cause emergencies," he said.
He emphasized that scrapping the nuclear-powered cruiser might allow Russia to solve one of the most difficult problems of ensuring security in the northwest of the country, and considerably reducing the risk of nuclear, radioactive, and environmental disasters, caused by nuclear fuel on board the ship, which had left the inventory of the Navy and was deployed in a town with a population of over 200,000 people.
Kalistratov noted that the amount of solid-state toxic waste, received when scrapping a Victor-2-type SSBN amounted to 500 tonnes, a Typhoon-type SSBN 1,500 tonnes, and the Ushakov-type cruiser 4,500 tonnes.
The Admiral Ushakov nuclear-powered missile cruiser is the flagship of the Project 1144 series (Orlan under NATO classification), with the Pyotr Veliky missile cruiser, the flagship of the Russian Northern Fleet, being the last ship of the series.