OREANDA-NEWS. March 21, 2011. Russia will review attitudes towards nuclear reactors operated in the country "down to decommissioning", a Rosatom official said. March 19 Alexander Lokshin, deputy director general of Rosatom, voiced the approach in his interview with Rossija TV channel's "Vesti v subbotu" (Saturday News) program. He reminded that in line with the task set by Russia's prime minister to review the state and prospects of the national nuclear power development, checks are to be conducted as regards fire and seismic stability and stability in situations involving blackouts of nuclear power plants. "We will take measures, no matter how expensive they are... will revise attitudes towards the existing reactors down to [their] decommissioning," Lokshin said.

"I am perfectly sure that all our [nuclear power] plants comply with the existing standards," Lokshin emphasized. "All Russian nuclear power plants are located in places where, for sure, there are no high seismic and tsunami impacts, let alone a combination of these factors," he said. Elaborating on the Fukushima I accident, he noted that designs of nuclear power plants Russia is offering for construction overseas "would withstand in such situation a blackout and tsunami and earthquake." However, Lokshin said "we are trying to avoid sites featuring high seismic activity" meaning Russia's offers of building nuclear power plants in Vietnam and Jordan.

On the day before, at a meeting with permanent members of the Security Council which was chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev, Rosatom's director general said that his agency was "reviewing all nuclear construction projects both in the Russian Federation and abroad." "We don't have nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation, and we don't plan for any, which would be in such a seismic activity region level," Kiriyenko said, adding that in accordance with the Russian legislation, construction of nuclear facilities in regions featuring seismic activity above magnitude 8 is prohibited. For sites of existing and planned nuclear power plants, the maximum permissible seismic activity is magnitude 6. "If a site features a maximum magnitude 6, that means we design protection commensurate to magnitude 8," the Rosatom's head said.