Russia admits radioactive pollution in area near nuclear plants in the Urals

Russia’s meteorological service confirmed on Monday “extremely high” concentrations of the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106 in parts of the country in late September, following European reports about the contamination this month.

“Probes of radioactive aerosols from monitoring stations Argayash and Novogorny were found to contain radioisotope Ru-106” between September 25 and October 1, the Rosgidromet service said.

The highest concentration was registered at the station in Argayash, a village in the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals, which had “extremely high pollution” of Ru-106, exceeding natural background pollution by 986 times, the service said.

It did not point to any specific source of the pollution, but the Argayash station is about 30 kilometres from the Mayak nuclear facility, which in 1957 was the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

Today Mayak is a reprocessing site for spent nuclear fuel.

On November 9, France’s Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety issued a report saying Ruthenium-106 had been detected in France between September 27 and October 13.