Ukraine to stop sending used nuclear fuel for disposal in Russia by 2017

Ukraine has built its own storage facility for processing used nuclear fuel and will cease sending the product to Russia for disposal starting in 2017, announced the country's Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Igor Nasalik during a session of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament.

Nasalik also said that Ukraine intends to transition to using America's Westinghouse nuclear fuel for at least 40 percent of its supply of the product in the near future.

At the moment, Ukraine receives 95 percent of its nuclear fuel from Russia.

In May 2016, Rosatom declared that it had to postpone accepting its first import of Ukrainian used nuclear fuel for the year as it had not received payment from Ukraine. In early July, Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom resumed its payments for the disposal of used nuclear fuel.

In Ukraine, there are four operating nuclear power plants and a total of 15 nuclear reactors. Nuclear power plants provide more than half of all of the electricity generated in Ukraine.

Earlier, the Ukrainian side stated that it would build a nuclear waste storage facility in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.