The government of the Sverdlovsk region of Russia has approved the construction of the country's first BN-1200 fast reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant. The unit will be built to replace the existing smaller BN-600 reactor at the plant, which is scheduled to be shut down by 2020.

Rosatom has strengthened its supply chain by signing memoranda of cooperation with a further thirteen Czech companies. These companies could become subcontractors for a significant part of the work should the AtomStroyExport consortium win the tender to build two more units at Temelin.

Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom is interested in entering the UK nuclear market and is beginning preliminary work to do so, officials said at AtomExpo.

Russian-supplied fuel for Ukraine's nuclear power plants is to use uranium enriched at the International Uranium Enrichment Centre (IUEC) in Siberia, in which Ukraine holds a 10% stake. Armenia has also agreed to take a similar stake in the enrichment facility.

Russia will become the 31st member of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) following its formal accession to the agency today.

Construction of new nuclear power plants in Russia is advancing, with Kalinin 4 entering trial commercial operation and completion of the installation of the dome of the containment building at Novovoronezh Phase II unit 1.

The reactor building dome is being assembled and installed in stages at Novovoronezh Phase II unit 1, Russian nuclear company Rosatom has said.

Engineers bringing a new reactor into service at the Kalinin nuclear power plant have successfully completed most of their tests. The unit is slated for commercial operation in September.

The process to build a new reactor at Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant has started with an agreement in principle to go ahead with the project from the country's cabinet. The move comes two weeks after the government scrapped plans for a new plant at Belene.

Bulgaria will not go ahead with the completion of a new nuclear power plant at Belene and instead wants the Russian-supplied reactor that was to have been installed there to become the seventh unit at the existing Kozloduy site.

Apart from programs to develop large sodium-cooled fast reactors, Russia is also pushing ahead with a small modular fast reactor cooled by lead-bismuth eutectic, the SVBR-100.