KYIV

Ukraine, which secures about half its electricity from nuclear power, is moving resolutely towards diversified sources – and energy security – by boosting its cooperation with Westinghouse to operate its 15-reactor network.

The latest deal clinched with the U.S. giant will eventually ensure that eight of those reactors are run with U.S. fuel instead of the Russian variant the ex-Soviet state once relied on.

The strategy, of course, involves much more than an examination of efficiency and cost.

This is a choice of moving away from a supplier whose actions have directly and indirectly caused turmoil, conflict and a very large death toll since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and fomented unrest through proxies that have taken over large swathes of the eastern Donbass region.

All the nuclear power plants in Ukraine were Soviet-designed, and all but three date from Soviet times, some from the 1980s. And of course, there was Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, now closed down and made secure in a Western-funded “new safe confinement” structure.

STRENGTH IN DIVERSIFICATION

Energoatom, the country’s plants operator, signed its first contract with Westinghouse in 2008 – when there was tension, if not open conflict with Russia – to put that diversification in place.

The latest deal will provide fuel for older reactors – the pressurised water VV-440 reactors in Rivne in western Ukraine – a departure from the VV-1000 reactors Westinghouse had worked with previously. Fuel is to be loaded into one reactor this year and a second one in 2024 – subject to licencing regulations. The contract provides for the supply of at least 1,056 fuel assemblies.

“Cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in the field of nuclear energy is strategically important for us,” recently-appointed Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko told the signing ceremony.

Energoatom’s Acting President, Petro Kotin, was even blunter: “By concluding this contract, Energoatom continued diversification and took another step in enhancing the energy security and independence of Ukraine’s energy sector.”

Energoatom officials told G7 ambassadors in Kyiv this month that it had “made significant progress” with its strategy to diversify its sources of nuclear fuel, pledged to upgrade work at its reactors and laid out difficulties it was having on wholesale electricity markets. The company said the diplomats welcomed its efforts to increase its efficiency and voiced their support for its development plans.

Mariana Budjeryn, a research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the significance of the deal with Westinghouse and the adaptation of Russian-designed reactors extends far beyond Ukraine.

“With climate change, many countries are looking to nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Russia and China have emerged as main purveyors of nuclear power reactors, with the U.S. lagging far behind,” she told the Tribune. “But a ‘nuclear relationship’ — as we have seen with the Soviet/Russian-made reactors — is a decades-long commitment, a marriage of 100 years, that involves a very costly construction of a power station, maintenance and servicing, reliable supply of fuel, and disposal of spent fuel.

“All countries use economic and commercial ties for political gain, but the question is how will Russia and China use these long-term commitments in the nuclear field? Westinghouse offers some competition and some relief from the total dependence on Russia as a nuclear reactor supplier to those who choose to go for a Russian VVER-type reactor.”

Using Russia as a supplier of fuel to Soviet-designed reactors may have been logical for Ukraine at the outset – but it was the United States as well as Britain and other countries that institutionalised it.

As part of a diplomatic drive to persuade Ukraine to give up its remaining share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, despite reluctance or downright opposition from some Ukrainian politicians, Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv signed a “trilateral statement” January 1994.

That was followed 11 months later by the Budapest Memorandum which under which Ukraine ceded the weapons on its territory – as did Belarus and Kazakhstan – and in exchange received security “assurances” that its existing borders were inviolable — as well as compensation in the form of Russian fuel to run its reactors.

That was hailed at the time as a diplomatic triumph against proliferation.

Now Ukrainian public figures – almost to a man – decry the Memorandum as a sham in the light of the annexation of Crimea and the entrenchment of separatist “people’s republics” in Donbass.

Seven years after the outbreak of war, frustration has boiled over in some quarters.

In April, as Russia massed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border for what Moscow declared were “exercises” – those security assurances notwithstanding – President Volodymyr Zelensky, once a believer in talks with Moscow to achieve peace, said NATO membership was the only way to resolve difficulties with his neighbour.

Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, took the logic further, saying that unless NATO membership was forthcoming, Ukraine had little option but to arm itself and maybe “think about nuclear status again”.

Few public figures shared such a view, and the country’s prospects of achieving a full nuclear cycle and acquiring the enrichment and other capacities to produce weaponry appear remote, to say the least.

RECOVERING FROM THE BUDAPEST MEMORANDUM

“Ukrainians understandably feel betrayed after the breach of the Budapest Memorandum. It might even seem logical to some that nuclear weapons could provide the answer to Ukraine’s security predicament. It is doubtful, however, that the incumbent Ukrainian leadership is naïve or irresponsible enough to turn popular support for nuclear rearmament into actionable policy…,” Budjeryn wrote last month on the lawfare national security blog website.

“Instead of disparaging the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine should use it as a framework to build a strong strategic partnership with the United States and its allies.”

And that is perhaps where energy diversity comes in. And Westinghouse is happy to oblige in a relationship disrupted only by a short-term hiccup in 2012 when problems with U.S.-supplied fuel prompted the government of the time under Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovich to suspend its use.

Yanukovich’s flight from Ukraine in 2014 during the “revolution of dignity” mass protests – and the advent of pro-Western governments — has consolidated Ukraine’s commitment to nuclear cooperation with the United States. As a result, the contract with Westinghouse was extended in 2018 until 2025.

By the end of this year, Westinghouse fuel will be in use in four of the six reactors in Zaporizhia – Europe’s largest nuclear power station — two at the South Ukraine station and one in Rivne.

“We are pleased to continue supporting our customer in their fuel diversification strategy,” said Aziz Dag, Westinghouse Vice President and Managing Director Northern and Eastern Europe. “This process is a key safety pre-condition for nuclear fuel delivery and operation.”