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"Russia and Sweden have found themselves amid an international scandal stemming from allegations that Russia dumped radioactive waste and chemical weapons into the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s - and that Sweden disregarded later reports of the discharges. Bellona, 15/02-2010 The Russian military are responsible for chemical and radioactive pollution off the coast of the Swedish island of Gotland, the Swedish channel Sveriges Television (SVT) charged in early February. But Russia's prominent environmentalist, academician Alexei Yablokov, who served as an advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and who further would be unflinching in casting stones at the Kremlin for shady radioactive waste dumping practices, told SVT that the allegations are dubious. In a documentary that aired on SVT, journalists quoted the former Swedish secret service officer Donald Forsberg, who said radioactive waste and chemical weapons were being unloaded into the area between 1989 and 1992. The materials buried there at sea had allegedly come from a Soviet military base in Liepaja, Latvia, following the Russians' hurried retreat from that Soviet republic after the break-up of the USSR."

"Sweden's prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has asked for explanations from a previous government on Russia's alleged release of toxic waste into Swedish waters in the Baltic sea over 15 years ago, a secret unearthed by Swedish public service televsion SVT. SVT reported on Wednesday that Russia dumped chemical weapons and radioactive waste off the shores of Gotland between 1991 and 1994. Reinfeldt's spokeswoman told the press that he "didn't know about the issue.""

Russia is well underway to improve the situation in the Andreeva Bay, an official from Rosatom confirmed in a seminar yesterday. Sweden, Norway and the UK pledge continued support to the clean-up of the site, one of the world's biggest and worst protected storages for spent nuclear fuel. However, the most important question still remains to be solved: how to remove thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel assemblies, the Bellona Foundation underlines. This week, the environmental organisation organised a seminar on the issue in Murmansk. Spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste storage facilities at Andreyeva Bay were hastily built during the Soviet era. They were meant to be used on a temporary basis to house nuclear materials, which are still being stored there at enormous risk to the environment and local community. The facilities store more than 20,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies, Bellona.org reports.

"The Russian military allegedly dumped nuclear waste into the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s, according to a report on Swedish television. Radioactive material from a military base in Latvia is thought to have been thrown into Swedish waters. For many the biggest shock is that the Swedish government may have known at the time and done nothing about it. The partly enclosed Baltic Sea is known as one of the most polluted seas in the world. But now it seems it was also used as a dumping ground for Russian nuclear waste and chemical weapons. "

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt denies that he had any knowledge of the radioactive waste and chemical weapons, that Swedish Television reports say could have been dumped in the Baltic Sea by the Russian military as late as the 1990s. According to Swedish Television's programme Uppdrag Granskning, the Swedish government at the time was aware of the dumping, but the Ministry of Defence decided it would be too difficult to investigate the matter. Swedish secret service agent Donald Forsberg holds that the Russians unloaded the chemicals near the island of Gotland between the years 1989 and 1992. "They just sailed out at night and dumped in two areas," he told the television programme."