The Russian parliament on Thursday passed a bill to accept foreign nuclear waste for storage and reprocessing, bringing angry condemnation from environmentalists. International conservation group Greenpeace said the bill meant Russia would become the world's nuclear dumping ground and that the potential danger was too high a price to pay. This vote means the bill only needs the President's signature.
Many nations intend to send nuclear fuel to Russia.
Some openly state it, for others it is too politically sensitive. It said many European and Asian countries wanted to export waste to Russia, including Switzerland, Germany, China and Japan. Alexander Kotenkov, the Kremlin's representative in the Duma, said profits on imports would allow Russia to invest in its own crumbling waste-storage infrastructure.