If you want to hide something, there are few places more suitable than a fjord deep in the Arctic. Even more so if that something is the highly radioactive fuel that used to power the Soviet Union’s nuclear submarines.
For nearly as long as a frigid bay in Russia’s high north has been known as the dumping ground of this waste, people have been trying to clean it up.
That process was going relatively well until four years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Virtually overnight, international funding was cut for cleanup at Andreyeva Bay, a former naval base on the Kola Peninsula.
The Soviet Union left so much spent nuclear fuel there that Norway, only 60 kilometers away, once feared it could cause a miniature nuclear explosion if handled improperly.
Russia alone is now managing a project that took years of lobbying to even get on the government’s agenda. But there are serious concerns about its commitment to the job. As a case in point, advocates point to the ever extending timeline.
