Russia is suffering from Air Pollution

Michael Schwellen, World Press Review 2/95.

	Right now, 110 million of Russia's 147 million people have to breathe air polluted beyond legal limits. The worst areas, says Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, minister of the environment, are the cities of Moscow, Chelyabinsk, Norilsk in northern Siberia, and Kemerovo in southern Siberia.

Russia is suffering from Oil Spills

Michael Schwellen, World Press Review 2/95.

	Komi is not the only place with oil spills. Things are even worse in the western Siberian oil fields, says Aleksei Yablokov, former environmental adviser to President Boris Yeltsin and today the president of the National Ecological Security Council. In 1989, 500,000 tons of oil contaminated the southern Tyumen region. In mid-1993, 420,000 tons were spilled into Oka River. At low temperatures, it can take up to 50 years for oil to decompose. And it is not just the major disasters that are destroying the environment. More than half of the country's network of pipelines was built more than 20 years ago. No one bothers about leaks, and according to Greenpeace in Moscow, 10 percent of Russian oil is lost in transit.

Russia Planning to Build More Nuclear Plants

Michael Schwellen, World Press Review 2/95.

	In spite of these conditions, Russia's atomic-energy industry has decided to expand. The Ministry of Atomic Energy plans to raise nuclear capacity from 21,000 megawatts to 36,000 megawatts by 2010. A dozen older plants are to be decommissioned, while more than 24 new reactors are to be constructed
