The previous camp in Angarsk near Lake Baikal was attacked Saturday by masked people carrying baseball bats and metal rods. One person was killed and seven injured. Police opened an inquiry but suggested young neo-Nazis could be behind the incident.
"Ecologists are protesting against importing nuclear waste into Russia and call for redirecting all investment in the nuclear power sector into nuclear safety projects," Alexei Milovanov, the camp spokesman, said.
Western nuclear power companies have been sending byproducts from the uranium enrichment process to Russia, including 'unusable' uranium hexafluoride and uranium tailings, since the 1990s. But Sergei Novikov, spokesman for the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, said on Saturday that "uranium hexafluoride cannot be qualified as nuclear waste under international classification."
He said Russia had no plans to import nuclear waste. "Despite the legislative opportunities... Russia has made a political decision not to take part in projects to process and store nuclear waste from other countries," Novikov said.
In June, Russia's nuclear chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Russia would no longer reprocess any foreign uranium tailings until safer methods were found.
