Leo Tolstoy’s quote in response to Lithuanian criticism of Belarusian nuclear power plant

The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has quoted Leo Tolstoy in response to statements made by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the Belarusian nuclear power plant, BelTA learned from a post on the official Facebook page of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the Facebook post, after reading yet another statement released by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with regard to the Belarusian nuclear power plant one cannot but recall Leo Tolstoy’s words: “People, who feel sorry before their own conscience, are more likely to willingly and unwittingly blame others, particularly those they have wronged.” “From our point of view it explains a lot,” the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The source recalled several facts highlighting the safety of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that neither stress tests of the Belarusian nuclear power plant nor the peer review conducted by European regulatory agencies had found any safety deficiencies. Recommendations of Belarusian and European regulatory agencies are intended to further increase the nuclear power plant’s resilience later on.

“The design of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is the only one so far to have passed the stress tests in compliance with the latest, tougher standards. If stress tests of European nuclear power plants were conducted today instead of seven or eight years ago, the relevant recommendations would be different, too. It’s been more than seven years since the European nuclear power plants were stress tested. Not all the countries have managed to finish fulfilling all the recommendations. Nevertheless, their nuclear power plants keep working,” the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also touched upon Lithuania’s concerns about nuclear safety and the country’s approach to responsibility in nuclear industry affairs. For instance, as a result of stress tests European regulatory agencies recommended Lithuania should perform a probability analysis of the safety of the spent fuel pool of the Ignalina nuclear power plant and look into the possibility of an earthquake beyond the design basis. Lithuania has not done that. Only conservative estimates were used. It took Lithuania about six years to fulfill the other recommendations.

“From a recent message released by the Lithuanian regulatory agency we’ve learned that since the beginning of the year the Ignalina nuclear power plant has suffered ten violations concerning the operation of systems of vital importance for safety, violations concerning the dismantling and decontamination of equipment, and the handling of radioactive waste. While we are neighbors, we’ve received no information from Lithuania concerning what kind of violations were committed, how they’ve affected nuclear and radiation safety, and when they will be fixed,” the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated.

“The well-known difficulties with decommissioning the Ignalina nuclear power plant and the construction of nuclear burial sites in direct proximity to our border, the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel at a site without containment naturally cause us serious concerns particularly taking into account the fact that Lithuania has not hosted the IAEA’s ARTEMIS mission [Integrated Review Service for Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Management, Decommissioning and Remediation] and has not acceded to the protocol of the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage,” the statement by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reads.