Russia denies nuclear incident after international body finds isotopes

MOSCOW / STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it had detected no signs of a radiation emergency, after an international body reported last week that sensors in Stockholm had detected unusually high levels of radioactive isotopes produced by nuclear fission. .

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors the world for evidence of nuclear weapons, said last week that one of its stations scanning the air for radioactive particles had found unusual levels, though Harmless, Cesium-134, Cesium. 137 and ruthenium-103.

The isotopes were “certainly products of nuclear fission, most likely from a civilian source,” he said. He tweeted a map showing where the material is likely to have originated, which included parts of various Baltic and Scandinavian countries, as well as a strip of western Russia.

When asked Monday about reports that Russia may have been the source of a leak, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We have an absolutely advanced radiation level safety monitoring system and there are no alarms for emergency”.

“We do not know the source of this information.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency asked member states over the weekend if they had detected the isotopes and “if any events may have been associated with this.”

On Monday, the IAEA said in a statement that approximately 30 countries, including Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic States, Britain, France and Germany, informed him “that there were no events in their territories that could have caused the observed air” . concentrations “. Russia was not one of them.

Finnish nuclear safety authority STUK said on Monday it had also found small amounts of nuclear particles in samples collected on its southern coast. But the concentrations were small enough that they could have “stemmed from the normal operation or maintenance of nuclear reactors,” he said.

Radiation protection expert Jan Johansson of the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said the variations were extremely low and had no impact on radiation protection.

“What stands out here is the combination of these substances. That is not something we usually see, “he told Reuters.

The TASS news agency, citing Rosenergoatom, a unit of the Rosatom state nuclear company, said over the weekend that the two northwestern Russian nuclear power plants, in Leningrad and Kola, were operating normally and radiation levels were changed.