Russia has already started the construction of a storage facility for decommissioned nuclear submarines of the Pacific fleet in the Razboinik Bay (Far East).
"The facility has been under construction for a while," the Rosatom official said. "Its estimated cost is about $80 million. However, the funds allocated from the federal budget will not allow us to finish the project quickly. That is why we offered the Japanese government to participate in the project."
"Japanese officials will decide whether to participate in the project by the fall of this year," Akhunov said.
He also said 195 nuclear submarines had been decommissioned. A hundred and twenty of them have been dismantled into blocs consisting of three compartments. In the future, the reactor compartments will be cut out of the blocs already without nuclear fuel and placed in a special storage facility on the shore.
Sources in Japan's foreign ministry told RIA Novosti that Japan would help Russia build the storage facility near Vladivostok, the administrative center of the maritime region on the west coast of the Sea of Japan.
Japanese diplomats said their government would make an official decision in the next few days, following Katsuyuki Kawai's, the Japanese Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, visit to the Far East on July 9-11.
