CND Press Digest: Thursday 19th October 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• Moscow Times: Russia’s nuclear weapons “saved” the country, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said Wednesday. “Were it not for the work of [Soviet atomic bomb creator Igor] Kurchatov and his colleagues, it is difficult to say if our country would still exist,” Patriarch Kirill said. His comments came as he presented a Church honor to physicist Radiy Ilkaev, who heads the Kurchatov-founded Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov.
• That’s as Russia military bloggers report that Ukrainian forces have advanced on to the opposite bank of the Dnipro river, crossing into Russian-occupied territory.
• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov is in Pyongyang where he thanked North Korea for its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adding that relations between both countries had reached a “new level”.
• Story on CND’s website about NATO’s ongoing Steadfast Noon nuclear weapons drills over southern Europe. 

Israel-Palestine 

• Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has said there needs to be an “honest broker” in the Middle East to help secure peace between Israel and Palestine.
• The FT reports on concerns expressed by some G7 officials about how the West’s rush support Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza has eroded efforts to get the global south to support Ukraine.

Nuclear Testing

• The lower house of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday gave its final approval to a bill revoking the ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty, a move Moscow described as putting it on par with the United States.

UK Nuclear Energy

• EDF, the company operating several nuclear power plants in Britain, has been placedunder “significantly enhanced regulatory attention” after an inspection into its cybersecurity practices.
• UK Defence Journal looks into the amount of drone sightings above British nuclear facilities.

Nuclear Energy

• A former official for the contractor hired to build two never-completed nuclear reactors in the US state of South Carolina who pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities was sentenced Tuesday to six months’ home detention.

Fukushima

• A team of international scientists collected fish samples from a port town near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday, seeking to assess the impact of the plant’s recent release of treated radioactive water into the sea.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• The United States took a series of steps on Wednesday to signal that Iran’s missile program will remain restricted after the expiration of UN Security Council sanctions and to curb Iran’s drone transfers to Russia. Russia said on Tuesday that transfers of missile technology to Iran no longer needed Security Council approval as of Wednesday, when the UN sanctions lapse, without saying whether it now planned to support Tehran’s missile development.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament