Remediation of Former Tsybuleve Burial Site Underway

The Radon Ukrainian State Corporation representative visited the Tsybuleve site, where military radioactive waste was previously disposed, within the technical visit.

The former burial site is located on the territory of the military unit A0981 of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in the Tsybuleve village, Kirovohrad region. The territory is remediated by the Ukrainian NT-Engineering company under financial assistance of the NATO Trust Fund.

At the end of April 2020, all hazardous materials were removed from the radwaste disposal facility and transported to the Chornobyl exclusion zone for temporary storage at the Buriakivka radioactive waste disposal site in accordance with the acceptance criteria.

Thus, the Ecocenter conducted a radiation dosimetric inspection of the site and access road to it. The results showed that the values of gamma radiation dose rate, flux density of alpha-, beta-particles and neutrons on surface of working areas comply with the remediation criteria. All of them are within the background values.

Now remediation is under completion at the site: the pit is filled, trees are planted.

Reference: In different regions of Ukraine there are sites where in 1960-1990, the USSR Armed Forces disposed radioactive waste resulting from military programs of the former USSR in specialized disposal facilities.

The Implementation Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the NATO Support and Procurement Organization (NSPO) on retrieval of radioactive waste generated within military programs of the former Soviet Union was signed on 18 September 2013 in Brussels, as well as the NATO Trust Fund was established.

The Law of Ukraine No. 526-VIII of 17 June 2015 ratified the agreement. The beneficiaries from Ukraine are the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, recipient of the project is the Radon Corporation.

In 2016, the first burial site of radioactive waste disposed at the Vakulenchuk facility of the State Border Service of Ukraine (Zhytomyr region) was cleaned up within the project.

Radon Ukrainian State Corporation