The Council supported the purchase of equipment for the completion of KhNPP
11 February 14:30
Members of Parliament have supported the purchase of Russian-made equipment from Bulgaria to complete two power units at the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant.
This was announced by MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak on Telegram, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
The amendment was made to the draft law No. 11392 on simplifying access to power grids for business.
“There were 261 votes in favor. The decisive votes were given by the Batkivshchyna faction,” Zheleznyak said.
He also noted that this means permission only to purchase equipment, not to start construction.
A number of MPs criticized the decision and want to block it.
MP Volodymyr Viatrovych noted that the document was originally titled “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Simplifying the Conditions for Conducting Business Activities”. And by the second reading, it was now called “On the purchase of equipment necessary for the construction of power units No. 3 and No. 4 of the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant.”
“The committee stupidly threw out the entire text of the draft law 11392 adopted as a basis, and instead inserted a completely new text on a completely different topic, which essentially repeats the scandalous draft law on Russian power units for KhNPP,” Vyatrovych wrote.
MP Oleksiy Honcharenko called the bill “simply fraudulent.”
“269 traitors supported the trade in blood. The purchase of Russian outdated equipment in Bulgaria for the completion of the Khmelnytsky NPP. This corruption scam was supported by 269 MPs. 197 servants, the OPFL, and, unfortunately, other factions except for the EU and Voice.
“The EU demanded that the chairman be removed for gross violation of the rules of procedure and the actual destruction of the parliament. When a different name for the bill and different content is introduced for the second reading.
The cost of the deal is 600 million euros. Our partners do not give a penny for this, so the money will be taken from the pockets of the population and loans. Which Ukrainians will be paying back for decades,” MP Iryna Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram.
A number of MPs criticize that they want to buy Russian-made nuclear reactors in Bulgaria to install them at KhNPP.
According to Nashi Hroshi, Bulgaria bought these reactors from Russia for the Belene NPP for about $600 million (in equivalent). But financial consultants from Mazars reassessed the price, and the price for the sale of the reactors to Ukraine was raised to $1.1 billion.
Ukraine completely refused to cooperate with Rosatom after the outbreak of a full-scale war, terminating all agreements with the Russian side in the nuclear sector, spravdi writes.
Instead, direct commercial negotiations are underway with the Bulgarian government to purchase equipment and reactors from the Belene NPP, which is owned by the Bulgarian state energy company Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania EAD.
MPs also criticized that the draft law on the construction of the units contained outdated documentation and calculations. In February, it became known that Energoatom had ordered a recalculation of the estimate for the construction of new units.
At the same time, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly supported the project to complete the Khmelnytskyi NPP and asked the Verkhovna Rada to vote for the necessary draft laws.
He also noted that the IAEA Director had supported Ukraine’s strategy to complete the nuclear units at Khmelnytskyi NPP and thanked him for his support.
Environmental activists opposed the completion of the units, while other critics pointed to the timing of these projects during the war.
In April 2024, the government nevertheless approved a bill to complete the third and fourth power units at KhNPP. The document was submitted to the parliament, but it was voted down several times.
EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova also said that the EU would not finance the completion of KhNPP units, as the bill was drafted without consulting the EU.
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that it is possible to complete the third power unit of the KhNPP in three years. He explained that the completion of the nuclear power plant would require loans.
Inna Sovsun, MP and member of the Energy Committee, stated that the proposal to complete the power units at KhNPP was inadequate.
Director of the Center for Energy Research Oleksandr Kharchenko said that the money allocated for the completion of power units at KhNPP would be “buried for nothing, without any prospects”.
