SSTC NRS for Population Safety Improvement

“In view of the armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine where a large number of nuclear and radiation hazardous facilities are operated, improvement of population protection against possible terroristic attacks is very urgent”, said Hennadii Vagin, Researcher of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (SSTC NRS), during XIII Ukrainian Conference on Physical Protection, Control and Accounting of Nuclear Materials.

The event was held on 3-7 October 2016 in Netishyn, Khmelnytsk Oblast, under the auspices of the George Kuzmycz Training Center for Physical Protection, Control and Accounting of Nuclear Material. The Swedish Radiation Safety Agency, Norwegian Agency for Radiation Protection and Energoatom Company were the sponsors.

Growing threat to nuclear infrastructure facilities necessitates a significant increase of their physical protection. This can be reached by interaction or synergy of nuclear security and nuclear safety. For Ukraine, this concept is relatively new. In practice, such an interaction causes a lot of difficulties, including unavailability of the national regulatory and legal framework in this area.

“With the support of the U.S. Brookhaven National Laboratory, we have developed the first revision of methodological recommendations on the synergy of nuclear safety and security for enterprises and organizations which perform activities in the sphere of nuclear energy use. I propose participants who are present here today to have an overview of these recommendations”, said Hennadii Vagin.

Afterwards, he shared the details of the draft document. It describes how to consider mutual impact of nuclear safety and security measures during the design and construction of nuclear facilities, physical protection facilities and systems; ensuring cybersecurity; arrangement of emergency response procedures.

“I recall that these recommendations are still presented as a draft document, its first revision. It is very important for use to receive comments within the Conference to improve the scope and contents. Proposals for further development of technical guidelines on practical implementation of requirements of national legislation in nuclear energy sphere will be equally important”, concluded SSTC NRS expert.

Uatom.org Editorial Board