It was attended by representatives of the State Duma, the Council of Federations, federal departments, research centers and institutes, the government of the Murmansk region, the Murmansk Regional Duma, the Kola Scientific Center, and public organizations.
The event was held both face-to-face and via videoconferencing. The regional parliament was represented by the chairman of the committee on security issues, the military-industrial complex, the affairs of military personnel and close territories Mikhail Ilinykh, and public organizations of the region were represented by Valery Panteleev, the chairman of the Murmansk Regional Council of Veterans.
The focus was on the analysis of threats from nuclear facilities flooded and sunken in the Arctic seas and options for actions to minimize them. The participants also discussed the risks from flooded facilities with nuclear materials for marine ecosystems.
- For the Murmansk region, it is extremely important to assess the state of all potentially nuclear and radiation hazardous objects flooded in the seas of the Arctic zone, - Mikhail Ilyinykh noted. – The scientific community is actively engaged in such research, and, judging by the results obtained, at present all such objects are in a safe condition. But it is not entirely clear how long they will continue to be safe?
According to the parliamentarian, the recovery and disposal of nuclear and radiation hazardous objects flooded in the Arctic seas will sooner or later have to be dealt with, and the sooner preparations for this work will be the best variant.
The participants of the seminar got acquainted with the results of the survey in 2021 of the K-27 nuclear submarine, the results of the survey in 2022 of the B-159 nuclear submarine, monitoring of the state of underwater potentially dangerous objects in the Kara Sea and the bays of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in 2020-2022, as well as assessing the sufficiency of the survey of nuclear submarines to develop a plan for the ship's rise.
A number of other issues related to the handling of nuclear and radiation hazardous objects were also considered.