Russia to use Arctic islands for nuclear tests and dump

The ITAR-TASS news agency reports Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov, who recently visited the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site in Russia’s Arctic, wants to maintain the site in working condition.

“Russia has no intention of holding nuclear tests, but it will be staging non-nuclear experiments,” Ivanov said.

He said these experiments would comply with the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

Ivanov pointed to the “exceptional importance” of the Novaya Zemlya test site to national security.

“This is Russia’s sole nuclear test site and we shall never have another one,” he said.

At the same time, Russia is planning to use part of the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya — two large islands separated by a strait — as a nuclear waste dump. The US$70 million project, now in the design stage, would receive its first batch of radioactive waste sometime after 2005.