Experts from Ukraine, US inspect new confinement over Chernobyl

KIEV - Members of the Ukrainian-American non-proliferation working group visited the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to inspect the new safe confinement "Arch" shielding the destroyed reactor 4, commissioned in July of this year, the US embassy to Ukraine reported Monday on its website.

Inspection of the confinement became part of the meeting of the working group, which took place on Nov. 21-22 in Kiev and Chernobyl. Experts from Ukraine and the United States met to discuss a number of issues related to nonproliferation, counterproliferation and strategic export controls and border security.

The embassy of the United States to Ukraine praised the new confinement, calling it "an unprecedented engineering work in nuclear power engineering."

The construction of the confinement "Arch" began in 2012, which cost 1.5 billion euros in total.

"Arch", with a length of 162 meters, a height of 108 meters and a total weight of 36,000 tons, covers an old defensive structure "Shelter", which was built in haste in the year of the accident and is already outdated. The design life of "Arch" is 100 years.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located 110 km north of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. On April 26, 1986, a powerful explosion occurred at the 4th reactor of the plant. As a result of the accident, significant territories that now belong to Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Belarus were exposed to radioactive contamination.