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As the European Union tightens sanctions on Moscow, Russia’s Arctic energy exports continue to find buyers—and increasingly rely on opaque and potentially dangerous shipping practices. New developments highlighted in Bellona’s April Arctic Digest show that Russian liquefied natural gas exports to Europe actually increased in early 2026, while vessels transporting Arctic oil have been linked to fraudulent insurance documents and increasingly evasive tactics aimed at avoiding oversight.

Together, the trends illustrate a growing contradiction. Europe is trying to wean itself from Russian fossil fuels, but the transition remains slow. In the meantime, the expanding “shadow fleet” used to move Arctic oil and gas is introducing new environmental and maritime safety risks into one of the world’s most fragile regions.

Russian LNG exports to Europe continue to rise

In April, the EU adopted its twentieth sanctions package against Russia, introducing new restrictions aimed at Arctic oil and LNG exports. Among the measures were bans on servicing Russian LNG carriers, sanctions on the port of Murmansk, and an expansion of the list of sanctioned vessels. Beginning in 2027, EU LNG terminals will no longer be allowed to provide services to Russian companies.

Yet despite mounting sanctions pressure, Russian LNG exports are still growing.

According to Reuters, Russia exported 11.4 million tons of LNG during the first four months of 2026, an increase of 8.6 percent compared with the same period in 2025. Exports to Europe rose even faster. Data compiled by the environmental group Urgewald showed that EU countries imported 91 cargoes of LNG from the Yamal LNG project between January and April, totaling 6.69 million tons—17.2 percent more than during the same period a year earlier. Belgium’s Zeebrugge terminal remained the leading destination.

Bellona analysts say the sanctions are beginning to bite, but much more slowly than many had hoped.

“The previously introduced ban on imports of Russian LNG into Europe did not have a substantial impact on LNG import volumes in April,” Bellona noted in its commentary. “The ban on purchasing LNG under short-term contracts entered into force on April 25 and is likely to produce any noticeable effect only closer to the end of the year.”

Longer-term prospects are more challenging for Moscow. Analysts at the Centre for High North Logistics concluded that once the European market closes entirely in 2027, redirecting exports to Asia will require a major overhaul of Russia’s Arctic logistics system. Existing shipping capacity would be able to support barely half the number of voyages currently needed.

For now, however, Europe’s effort to disentangle itself from Russian gas remains incomplete.

Phantom insurers and growing environmental risks

As sanctions tighten, Russia’s shadow fleet is becoming increasingly opaque.

Bloomberg reported in April, citing Ukrainian intelligence, that several tankers carrying Russian oil were sailing under insurance certificates issued by a company called Seaguard P&I. But investigators discovered that the company appeared to exist only on paper. Its supposed address in Pinneberg, Germany, turned out to be an ordinary residential building, and no corporate registration records could be found.

One of the vessels carrying such documentation was the tanker Paz, which loaded Arctic oil in Murmansk in March. Another vessel, Deyna, was detained by French authorities while transporting Russian oil from Murmansk. Ukrainian intelligence says at least five additional vessels obtained similarly questionable insurance certificates.

The implications extend beyond sanctions evasion.

“The observed increase in the number of shadow fleet tankers operating along the Northern Sea Route represents the primary risk factor for oil spills in the harsh Arctic environment,” Bellona warned.

Many of the vessels involved are aging tankers purchased secondhand and transferred to obscure ownership structures. Should an accident occur, uncertainty over insurance coverage could complicate cleanup efforts and compensation claims.

Dodging Norway while GPS signals disappear

Another pair of developments highlighted by Bellona point to the increasingly uneasy security environment surrounding Arctic shipping.

In April, the 23-year-old tanker Apple, operating under the flag of Equatorial Guinea and already sanctioned by the United States, European Union and United Kingdom, made an unusual approach to Murmansk. Instead of entering waters where Norwegian authorities might exercise oversight, the vessel made a wide detour roughly 200 nautical miles offshore, bypassing Norway’s exclusive economic zone and avoiding inspection. Attempts by Norway’s Vessel Traffic Service in Vardø to establish contact failed.

“They were unable to make contact,” Arve Dimmen of the Norwegian Coastal Administration told the Barents Observer. As a result, Norwegian authorities were unable to obtain information normally required under pollution reporting systems.

At the same time, Norwegian authorities reported increasing interference with GPS and satellite navigation signals near the Russian border and over the Barents Sea. Measurements detected jamming and spoofing at unusually low altitudes, with preliminary analysis indicating Russia as the source.

“Everyone who uses GPS must be able to trust the information they receive,” warned Stein Kristian Hansen of the Finnmark Police District. “Manipulating these signals is unacceptable.”

Taken together, these developments suggest that sanctions alone are unlikely to bring about a rapid decline in Russia’s Arctic exports. Instead, they are producing a sprawling parallel maritime system—one characterized by aging ships, obscure insurers, evasive navigation and growing environmental risks.

For Europe, the challenge is becoming increasingly clear: reducing dependence on Russian energy may be proceeding more slowly than expected, but the risks associated with allowing those flows to continue are rising just as rapidly.

The post Europe’s Russian LNG Dilemma Deepens as Shadow Fleet Risks Mount in the Arctic appeared first on Bellona.org.

A fundraising campaign launched by the Bellona Foundation has succeeded in securing the organization’s future and averting bankruptcy.

“I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the support we have received, on behalf of everyone at Bellona,” said Bellona founder Frederic Hauge.

On June 1, Bellona announced that it faced the prospect of bankruptcy unless it could raise at least NOK 8 million within one week. The crisis was triggered by the loss and postponement of key sources of funding, leaving the organization in an acute liquidity crunch. After a week-long fundraising effort, the final total reached an impressive NOK 13 million.

“We received NOK 3 million from 4,370 individual donors. That provided a crucial foundation for businesses, entrepreneurs, and major supporters to contribute an additional NOK 10 million,” said Bellona CEO Sveinung Rotevatn. “Together, these contributions ensure that we can continue our operations.”

Bellona’s board met on Monday evening and concluded that the funds raised were sufficient to meet the foundation’s immediate obligations and allow it to continue operating. Nevertheless, Rotevatn emphasized that significant challenges remain.

“This was an emergency effort to ensure Bellona’s survival. We are enormously grateful for the response. At the same time, Bellona still faces a difficult second half of the year, during which we will substantially reduce costs and work to secure a more sustainable financial footing. We take that responsibility seriously. Bellona must never find itself in this situation again.”

On June 16, Bellona will celebrate its 40th anniversary. Until recently, it seemed uncertain whether the milestone would be marked at all. Now, Frederic Hauge is looking forward to celebrating four decades of the organization he founded in 1986.

“Bellona is my life’s work, and I am deeply relieved that this 40th-anniversary crisis has ended well. The fight for the environment continues, and Bellona will remain at the forefront of developing new solutions and advancing the green transition—as we always have.”

The post Bellona Raises NOK 13 Million, Avoids Bankruptcy appeared first on Bellona.org.

The shipping industry has a harmful secret—hiding just beneath the waterline. Barnacles, algae and microbial slime covering ship hulls may seem like a minor maintenance issue, but they drag on vessels, drive up fuel use and quietly add to global emissions while also spreading invasive species across oceans. Now, Bellona is contributing to a growing international campaign that is putting a spotlight on this overlooked frontier of climate and ocean policy: keeping hulls clean.

It sounds absurdly simple. Clean ships more often, burn less fuel, move fewer harmful species across ecosystems. But that straightforward fix is drawing serious interest from regulators, scientists and the maritime industry, who increasingly see regular hull cleaning as a unique environmental solution with multiple payoffs. In ports around the world, new standards, technologies and cooperative efforts are reframing what was once routine upkeep as something much larger—a practical tool for protecting biodiversity, cutting carbon and making global shipping cleaner from the bottom up.

A solution that went unnoticed

For years, though, the idea remained invisible—even to people working in maritime sustainability. “I had also never heard about in-water cleaning,” Irene Øvstebø Tvedten, a senior advisor at the Bellona Foundation and project leader of the Clean Hull Initiative, said recently. “So it’s the environmental solution that has come completely under the radar.”

That obscurity is part of what makes the current shift so striking. Biofouling—the accumulation of marine life on ship hulls—has long been treated primarily as a technical or economic concern. Shipowners worried about fuel efficiency; engineers experimented with coatings; ports occasionally imposed restrictions from an environmental standpoint. But the issue rarely commanded sustained attention as a broader environmental solution. “It’s not been something that’s been promoted from an environmental standpoint previously,” Tvedten noted. “Mostly from a fuel-saving standpoint.”

According to the International Maritime Organization’s Third Greenhouse Gas Study, shipping accounts for roughly 2.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet something as mundane as marine growth on a ship’s hull can have an outsized impact. The study estimated that biofouling imposes a roughly 9 percent resistance penalty on vessels, forcing them to burn more fuel and produce approximately 9 percent more emissions than they otherwise would. The Clean Hull Initiative says that finding underscores a simple point: cleaner hulls represent one of the most immediate opportunities to reduce emissions from one of the world’s most difficult industries to decarbonize.

Reframing the problem

Bellona has been chief among the organizations helping change that framing. Through years of research, policy work and advocacy—published in both English and Norwegian—the organization began connecting what had often been treated as separate problems: emissions, invasive species and marine pollution. The logic was simple. A fouled hull increases drag; increased drag requires more fuel; more fuel means more emissions. At the same time, those same layers of marine growth act as transport systems for organisms that would otherwise never cross oceans.

That shift has also become increasingly visible within the shipping industry itself. “The conversation has clearly broadened,” said Heine Stangeby, the global communications specialist for Jotun, a Norwegian firm that specializes in paints and coatings for ship hulls.  “When Jotun launched its Hull Performance Solutions 15 years ago, it was a small revolution as it moved the shift over to performance—meaning measurable speed loss avoidance. This soon became translated to avoided emissions.” More recently, he added, the industry’s understanding has expanded further, with “more awareness on the biodiversity issue” and growing recognition that maintaining clean hulls can both reduce emissions and limit the spread of invasive species.

The scale of the problem is easy to underestimate precisely because it is so diffuse. According to figures cited by the Clean Hull Initiative, biofouling contributes tens of millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide emissions annually—an impact spread thinly across the global fleet but immense when taken together. Meanwhile, it remains “the main vector for the transfer of invasive aquatic species,” as Tvedten put it, quietly reshaping ecosystems far from where ships first set sail.

Bellona’s Irene Østvebø Tvedten, who helped create the new ISO standard.

Yet if the problem is global, the obstacles to solving it are often local. Ports and regulators—those with the authority to allow or ban hull cleaning—have historically been wary of the practice, particularly when it takes place in the water. The concern is intuitive: cleaning a hull might release pollutants or organisms into the surrounding environment. The result, in some cases, has been outright prohibition.

“The main bottleneck here are the ports and other regulators that just ban in-water cleaning,” Tvedten explained. “Often because they don’t have enough knowledge about it and they think it’s just harmful to the environment.”

Cleaning as a solution, not a risk

Bellona’s intervention has been to challenge that assumption—not by dismissing the risks, but by reframing the balance of them. “What we try to communicate is that in-water cleaning is primarily a solution,” Tvedten said. “It’s a solution to the spread of invasive species, because if you don’t have biofouling, the organisms won’t spread.”

That argument, while straightforward, runs up against a more complicated reality. Not all cleaning is equal. Removing thick layers of barnacles and mussels—and what practitioners sometimes refer to, less delicately, as “sea vomit,” or more formally, carpet sea squirt—can release significant biological material into the water if not properly captured. By contrast, removing early-stage growth—thin films of slime or algae—poses far less risk.

This distinction has become central to Bellona’s approach. Rather than treating hull cleaning as a binary—allowed or banned—the organization has advocated for more nuanced, risk-based standards. Clean early, before fouling becomes severe; differentiate between levels of growth; require capture technologies where risks are highest, but not necessarily in all cases. The goal is not perfection, but practicality: a system that encourages frequent, preventive cleaning rather than infrequent, reactive intervention.

Biofouling on a ship hull that has been allowed to develop too far into macrofouling. Photo: Bellona

Industry participants increasingly frame the issue in much the same way. “Would you rather prevent a fire or put out a fire that has already started?” Jotun’s Stangeby said. “We are working on the preventive side of the industry.” Waiting until heavy macrofouling develops, he said, makes cleaning more difficult, more invasive and ultimately less effective than maintaining what he described as “an always clean hull.” Early cleaning, he added, not only lowers fuel consumption and emissions, but can also reduce the likelihood that larger organisms are carried between ecosystems.

“A lot of the cleanings that occur today are reactive,” Tvedten observed—performed only after fouling has already become a significant problem. Bellona’s Clean Hull Initiative, by contrast, promotes proactive cleaning: addressing buildup when it is still minimal, when both environmental and operational costs are lowest.

Writing the rules of the waterline

Turning that philosophy into policy, however, requires more than persuasion. It requires standards—shared frameworks that ports, shipowners and service providers can trust. That is where Bellona’s work with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has become especially significant.

The Clean Hull Initiative helped draft a proposal for an ISO standard on in-water cleaning, with Tvedten serving as project leader. The aim was not to dictate specific environmental thresholds, but to establish a common language and process: how cleaning operations should be documented, how their impacts should be measured, and how ports might evaluate them. “If you have an environmental solution that’s new, you need to also create the systems and routines around it,” she said.

The ISO working group in Stockholm. Photo: Bellona

According to Stangeby, collaboration between environmental groups and industry has been essential in bringing the issue into mainstream maritime policy discussions. “Biofouling represents a threat to the environment both in terms of emissions and biodiversity, and no single stakeholder can address it alone,” he said. Environmental organizations such as Bellona, he added, “have helped raise awareness and push the topic onto the policy agenda, while industry contributes operational insight and practical solutions.”

The Clean Hull Initiative, he said, has helped “create a more informed dialogue and build the trust needed to develop workable standards,” including the recently adopted ISO 6319 framework.

In practice, that means enabling regulators to make more informed decisions—moving beyond blanket bans toward conditional approvals based on evidence. Service providers, whether diver teams or remotely operated vehicle operators, are expected to document what they plan to do and what effects their methods have on water quality. Ports, in turn, can assess whether those practices meet their environmental criteria.

Industry participants say cleaning technologies themselves have also evolved rapidly in response to regulatory concerns. “There is a clear shift towards more controlled and proactive approaches, supported by monitoring and data,” Stangeby said.

From standards to global policy

The influence of that work is already beginning to ripple outward. The International Maritime Organization has finalized guidelines on biofouling and hull maintenance, and many of the same experts contribute to both IMO and ISO processes. What began as a technical standard is gradually helping shape broader international policy discussions around environmentally sound hull cleaning.

Meanwhile, the practical case for more frequent cleaning continues to strengthen. Many operators still wait two or three years before conducting in-water cleaning, allowing significant biofouling to accumulate in the meantime. From Tvedten’s perspective, that is often far too late. Cleaning should begin “much earlier,” as a preventive measure, Tvedten said—before buildup becomes a hazard rather than a minor inconvenience.

The implications extend beyond environmental protection. Cleaner hulls mean less drag, which means lower fuel consumption and reduced costs for shipowners. In an industry defined by tight margins and global competition, that economic incentive may prove as important as any regulation.

For now, the shift remains uneven. Some ports are experimenting with new rules and technologies; others remain cautious. But the direction of travel is becoming clearer.

What was once an obscure technical issue is moving onto the international agenda. And in that transition, Bellona’s work offers a reminder that not all environmental solutions require sweeping technological breakthroughs. Some, it turns out, involve paying closer attention to what has been there all along: a thin, stubborn layer of life clinging to the underside of the global economy.

The post Below the waterline, there’s an elegant climate solution appeared first on Bellona.org.

Last night, a Russian drone struck a spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Chernobyl. It is precisely this kind of event that Bellona has spent nearly forty years working to understand—and helping the world prepare for.

For nearly four decades, Bellona has been one of Europe’s leading independent organizations working on nuclear safety, environmental security, and developments in Russia and the Arctic. As war has returned to Europe and nuclear risks have once again become a central security concern, that expertise is more important than ever.

Former German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck recently summarized Bellona’s unique role:

“Bellona has played a key role in shaping the European agenda, not only on environment and decarbonization, but almost more importantly on the major issue of the Arctic and European security. This may come as a surprise to many who know Bellona purely as an environmental NGO. They have been deeply involved in developing Europe’s response to Russian nuclear activities, nuclear-powered vessels, and nuclear waste.”

Today, Bellona faces a severe financial crisis that threatens the continuation of this work.

Four Decades of Work

Bellona began its engagement in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, drawing international attention to environmental degradation, nuclear risks, and military pollution in the Arctic and northern Russia.

Over the decades that followed, Bellona became one of the most influential independent voices on nuclear safety and environmental security in the region.

Working alongside partners in Russia, Norway, Europe, and North America, Bellona helped expose some of the largest concentrations of nuclear waste and nuclear hazards inherited from the Soviet Union. The organization played an important role in mobilizing international attention and support for efforts that resulted in the dismantlement and secure storage of roughly 100 retired submarine reactors, the dismantling of the Lepse nuclear service vessel, work related to the wrecks of the Komsomolets and Kursk submarines, and the remediation of dangerous nuclear facilities located only a short distance from Norway’s border.

These efforts significantly reduced the risk of nuclear accidents and radioactive contamination in the Arctic and Barents region.

Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, (then Conservative Party leader) Kaci Kullmann Five and (then EU Commissioner for Environment) Ioannis Paleokrassas, in Murmansk in 1994. Photo: Bellona. Bellona and the FSB

Bellona’s work did not stop with documenting environmental and nuclear risks. It also became a test of whether independent organizations could expose those risks without intimidation from the state.

For decades, Bellona worked directly with Russian institutions, scientists, military officers, regulators, and government officials. In the process, the organization came into contact with many of the individuals who would later become central figures in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

One of them was Alexander Gutsan.

Today, Gutsan serves as Russia’s Prosecutor General and is one of the most senior officials in the Russian state. In the 1990s, however, he was involved in one of the most consequential legal battles Bellona ever faced: the prosecution of Bellona employee and former Soviet Navy submarine captain Alexander Nikitin.

Alexander Gutsan during the Nikitin case in 1999.

The case was intended to punish those who exposed environmental and nuclear-safety problems within Russia’s Northern Fleet. Instead, it became an internationally recognized victory for transparency, freedom of information, and civil society.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left Russia’s security services fragmented and competing for influence. The successor organizations that emerged from the ruins of the KGB spent much of the early 1990s struggling to define their roles and authority in the new Russian state. When those structures were eventually consolidated into what became the Federal Security Service—the FSB—the organization was eager to demonstrate its power.

On October 5, 1995, FSB officers carried out coordinated raids on Bellona’s offices in Murmansk, the homes of Bellona employees, and Alexander Nikitin’s apartment in St. Petersburg. Documents were seized, computers confiscated, employees interrogated, and an investigation was launched that would ultimately become one of the most significant political trials and one of the most important human rights and freedom-of-information battles in post-Soviet Russia.

Nikitin was arrested by the FSB in 1996. The absurd process against Nikitin lasted almost five years and was based on secret decrees with retroactive effect. Photo: Sergei Grachev/The St Petersburg Times

What began as an attempt to suppress a Bellona report on nuclear dangers within Russia’s Northern Fleet became a legal struggle that lasted nearly five years. Nikitin was charged with treason and espionage for helping document environmental and safety problems associated with Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet.

The prosecution failed.

In 2000, Russia’s Supreme Court fully acquitted Nikitin, making him the only person in Russian history to defeat espionage charges brought by the country’s security services.

The institutions and individuals behind the case, however, did not disappear.

Many continued their ascent through the Russian state. Vladimir Putin, then a former KGB officer entering the Kremlin’s inner circle, would soon become president. Alexander Gutsan would later occupy some of the most powerful positions within Russia’s legal and security systems. The institutions that targeted Bellona in the 1990s became central pillars of the political system that exists in Russia today.

Nearly three decades later, Bellona’s history with figures such as Gutsan provides a unique perspective on the evolution of the Russian state—from the uncertain post-Soviet years to the increasingly militarized and authoritarian regime now waging war against Ukraine.

In many ways, Bellona’s history and the history of the modern FSB have unfolded in parallel. The same security structures that raided Bellona’s offices in 1995, prosecuted Alexander Nikitin, and later forced Bellona Murmansk to close under Russia’s “foreign agent” legislation remain central to the Russian state today.

Bellona survived each of these confrontations and, in the process, accumulated a hard-earned understanding of Russia’s security institutions that few organizations anywhere in the world can match.

Igor Kudrik leaves the FSB offices in Murmansk after retrieving what the security service confiscated from Bellona. Photo: Thomas Nielsen Preserving Expertise as War Returned to Europe

The victory in the Nikitin case allowed Bellona to continue its work in Russia for more than two decades. It also established the organization as one of the Kremlin’s most persistent critics on issues of nuclear safety, environmental protection, government secrecy, and democratic accountability.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Bellona maintained offices in Murmansk and St. Petersburg and employed more than twenty staff members in the country.

The organization immediately closed its Russian operations and evacuated key personnel to safety abroad.

Today, Bellona’s experts continue to monitor developments in the Arctic, analyze the activities of Rosatom, document environmental and nuclear-security risks associated with Russia’s war against Ukraine, and support international efforts to understand and address those risks.

Their expertise is regularly sought by governments, international organizations, researchers, journalists, and civil society organizations throughout Europe and North America.

Alexander Gutsan (to Putin’s right) is currently Russia’s Prosecutor General.

Few organizations possess comparable knowledge, networks, or access to information accumulated through more than three decades of work.

Bellona’s Role in Ukraine

Bellona’s history offers something increasingly rare: institutional memory.

Few organizations can draw a direct line from the environmental and nuclear struggles of the 1990s to today’s Russia. If this work disappears, Europe will lose one of its most experienced independent sources of information on Russian nuclear activities, Arctic security, environmental risks, and the long-term consequences of war.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellona has devoted a significant share of its resources and expertise to understanding and documenting the environmental, nuclear, and security consequences of the conflict. Drawing on decades of experience with Russian nuclear issues, our experts have helped governments, international organizations, journalists, and researchers better understand developments that often remain hidden behind the front lines.

Pavel Tishakov from Nordic Security, Roman Yuriev and Maksym Ilchenko from the Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, Charlotte Birke from DSA and State Secretary Eivind Vad Petersson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: Bellona.

From the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Rosatom’s role in the war and the long-term environmental consequences of military operations, Bellona has sought not only to document events as they unfold, but also to identify the risks and challenges that Ukraine and Europe will face in the years ahead.

By increasing transparency, informing public debate, and helping the international community understand the realities Ukraine faces, Bellona’s work contributes to protecting Ukraine’s people, environment, and critical infrastructure during the war. Looking beyond the conflict, Bellona’s decades of experience with nuclear safety, radioactive waste management, environmental remediation, and Soviet-era industrial pollution can also help support Ukraine’s future reconstruction.

Just as Bellona played a role in addressing some of the most dangerous environmental and nuclear legacies inherited from the Soviet Union, we hope to contribute our expertise to helping Ukraine confront and overcome the environmental consequences of war, rebuild safely, and secure a healthier future for generations to come.

A selection of our reports on Ukraine, the war, and Russia’s nuclear industry: Rosatom 2025

What happens when one of the world’s largest nuclear corporations becomes an instrument of wartime state policy? This report examines how Rosatom has evolved beyond civilian nuclear energy into a central component of Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Bellona analyzes the corporation’s role in occupied Ukraine, international energy markets, and strategic infrastructure projects, and explores what these developments mean for nuclear safety, European security, and international governance.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-2025/

The IAEA’s Role in Times of War

What happens when a nuclear power plant becomes a battlefield? This report examines the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the unprecedented challenges it poses for international nuclear safety and security. Bellona argues that existing international institutions were never designed to address the military seizure of civilian nuclear facilities and proposes reforms to prevent nuclear infrastructure from becoming a tool of war.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-iaeas-role-in-times-of-war/

The Potential Restart of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Could Russia restart a nuclear reactor in the middle of an active war zone? Bellona analyzes evidence that Russian authorities may seek to restart reactors at the occupied Zaporizhzhia plant and examines the technical, safety, and political risks such a decision would create.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-potential-restart-of-the-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-analysis-of-technical-and-political-aspects/

The Radiation Risks of Seizing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Published shortly after the plant’s seizure, this report was among the first detailed analyses of the nuclear risks posed by active warfare around a major civilian nuclear facility. Many of the dangers identified by Bellona—including threats to the plant’s external power supply—have since become central concerns for international nuclear safety authorities.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/znnp-seising-radiation-risks/

Rosatom During the War: How Militarization of the Russian Nuclear Giant Took Place

This report examines how Rosatom has increasingly become an instrument of Russian state power and wartime policy. Bellona traces the corporation’s growing role in occupied Ukraine, Russia’s wartime economy, and the country’s broader geopolitical strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-during-the-war/

Rosatom’s Role in the War in Ukraine

Published during the first months of the invasion, this Bellona working paper was among the earliest analyses to argue that Rosatom could no longer be viewed solely as a civilian nuclear corporation. Many of the concerns raised in this early study have since become central to international discussions about sanctions, nuclear security, and Rosatom’s role in Russia’s wartime strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-s-role-in-the-war-in-ukraine/

Eliminating Russia’s Nuclear Legacy

For decades, Bellona has been at the forefront of efforts to address the dangerous nuclear legacy left behind by the Soviet Union. This report examines what has been achieved, what remains undone, and how the war in Ukraine and the collapse of international cooperation have complicated the task of reducing long-term nuclear risks.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/eliminating-russia-s-nuclear-legacy/

Rosatom in the War Years of 2023 and 2024

This report explores Rosatom’s growing role in Russia’s wartime economy, its expanding military activities, and its continuing international reach despite sanctions and political isolation. It demonstrates how Rosatom has become one of the Kremlin’s most important strategic assets.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-the-war-years/

The post Why Bellona Matters appeared first on Bellona.org.

“This is serious. Bellona has no financial reserves. Every kroner we raise goes directly into environmental work. When major disbursements from donors and government agencies are delayed, we have nothing to fall back on. We have cut costs and reduced staff. It is not enough. We now need help from everyone who believes Norway still needs an independent environmental organization,” said Bellona Managing Director Sveinung Rotevatn.

Help save Bellona by contributing here (see below for help)

Nearly forty years of results for Norway and the world — but there is more work to do

Since 1986, the Bellona Foundation in Oslo has worked to advance practical environmental solutions, technological innovation, and accountability in both government and industry. The organization has been a key driving force behind Norway’s adoption of electric vehicles and the development of carbon capture and storage, and today maintains offices in Norway, Brussels, Berlin, and Vilnius.

“Bellona is my life’s work. I have spent forty years building an organization that has challenged those in power, exposed environmental crime, and helped drive forward solutions. Two weeks before our 40th anniversary, I am not willing to see that work disappear without a fight,” said Bellona founder Frederic Hauge.

Hauge argues that the Bellona Foundation in Oslo will continue to play an important watchdog role in the years ahead, particularly in holding the oil and gas industry accountable during difficult economic times and in promoting ambitious new initiatives, such as large-scale restoration of Norway’s kelp forests.

“Someone also has to demonstrate that it is possible to cut emissions and make money at the same time. Otherwise, we risk losing the business community along the way. And if that happens, we will never get back to 1.5 degrees,” Hauge said.

Employees in Vilnius could face persecution by Russian authorities

One particularly serious aspect of the crisis concerns Bellona’s office in Vilnius. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellona evacuated key staff members from Russia for their own safety. If the organization is unable to secure continued operations, those employees could lose their residence permits and find themselves in a highly vulnerable situation.

Bellona is currently in dialogue with donors and government authorities while pursuing both short-term financing and longer-term solutions.

“We are not asking for sympathy. We are asking for support for work that is still urgently needed. The climate crisis has not been solved. Bellona must not disappear,” said Hauge.

How to donate from outside Norway

Go to the donation page: https://www.spleis.no/project/500141

1. Click “Støtt” (for Support / Donate).
2. Enter the amount you want to donate.
   (Approximate exchange rate: 100 NOK ≈ €8–9 (rates may vary).
3. You can optionally leave a message: “Vil du legge igjen en hilsen?” (Would you like to leave a message?)
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The fundraiser is hosted on the Norwegian crowdfunding platform Spleis.

The post Bellona Oslo Faces Bankruptcy, Needs NOK 8 Million to Survive appeared first on Bellona.org.

Russia’s nuclear ambitions abroad are increasingly colliding with geopolitical reality. In Armenia, Moscow’s once-dominant position in the nuclear sector is beginning to erode as Yerevan turns toward Europe. Across the EU, governments are still struggling in fits and starts to reduce their dependence on Russian nuclear fuel. And in Russia itself, Rosatom appears strangely reluctant to publicize the arrival from China of a major component for one of its flagship Arctic energy projects.

These are among the trends highlighted in Bellona’s April 2026 Nuclear Digest.

Armenia’s nuclear drift away from Moscow

Nowhere is the political dimension of nuclear energy clearer than in Armenia. Rosatom remains deeply involved in extending the life of the Metsamor nuclear power plant, whose second VVER-440 reactor was shut down in April for an unusually long five-month maintenance and modernization campaign. The work—carried out with the participation of multiple Rosatom subsidiaries—is intended to extend the plant’s operational life to 2036.

But while Russia still services Armenia’s aging Soviet-built reactor fleet, its chances of building Armenia’s future reactors appear increasingly slim.

“Russia and Rosatom traditionally play an important role in servicing the Metsamor nuclear power plant,” Bellona nuclear analyst Dmitry Gorchakov writes in the digest, noting Moscow’s continued role in supplying fuel, components, and modernization work. Yet he adds that “the prospects for Rosatom’s participation in Armenia’s new nuclear program remain extremely uncertain.”

That uncertainty is largely political. Armenia has accelerated discussions over building a new nuclear plant focused on small modular reactors, considering proposals from the United States, France, South Korea, and China alongside Russia’s. At the same time, relations between Moscow and Yerevan have deteriorated sharply as Armenia pivots toward the European Union.

“The current political dynamic and the likelihood of pro-European forces winning upcoming elections make the prospects for Rosatom building a new Armenian nuclear plant extremely low,” Gorchakov writes.

Europe’s sluggish nuclear divorce

Europe, meanwhile, continues its own uneasy disentanglement from Russia’s nuclear industry—though progress remains uneven.

Bellona’s digest shows that EU countries operating Soviet-designed VVER reactors are slowly introducing alternative fuel suppliers, primarily Westinghouse and Framatome. Westinghouse now has fuel supply contracts with every European VVER operator, while countries including Finland and the Czech Republic have already begun receiving non-Russian fuel deliveries.

But despite the political rhetoric surrounding energy independence after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian nuclear fuel continues flowing into Europe in substantial quantities.

“After peaking in 2023, purchases of Russian nuclear fuel have begun declining, and that trend continued in 2025,” Gorchakov writes. “But overall procurement levels still remain above prewar levels.”

Indeed, Bellona’s analysis notes that between 2022 and 2025, EU countries paid Rosatom roughly 70 percent more for nuclear fuel than during the previous four-year period.

The result, Gorchakov argues, is two distinct European strategies. The first includes countries such as Finland and the Czech Republic, which are shifting toward Westinghouse fuel and actively reducing Russian purchases. The second includes countries such as Hungary and Slovakia, which remain reluctant to break with Rosatom and instead are gravitating toward France’s Framatome as an alternative supplier.

Yet even that alternative comes with caveats. Framatome still lacks a fully independent fuel-production chain for VVER reactors and is preparing to assemble Russian-designed fuel under license at facilities in France and Germany. “This effectively preserves dependence on Russian technology in a more indirect form,” Gorchakov writes.

In other words, Europe’s nuclear decoupling from Russia remains partial, politically fragmented, and technologically incomplete.

Rosatom’s Quiet Dependence on China

If Armenia and Europe illustrate Rosatom’s geopolitical vulnerabilities abroad, developments in Russia’s Arctic suggest another problem: growing dependence on China.

In late March, according to industry publication SeaNews, the hull for a new floating nuclear power unit arrived from China at St. Petersburg’s Baltic Shipyard. The floating reactor platform is part of Rosatom’s ambitious plan to power the remote Baimskaya mining region in Chukotka using a fleet of floating nuclear reactors equipped with RITM-200S reactors.

But Rosatom itself said almost nothing publicly about the delivery.

“The arrival of the first hull for the floating nuclear power unit from China took place in an atmosphere of complete informational silence from Rosatom and its subsidiaries,” Gorchakov writes.

The silence is striking because the project is both strategically important and deeply symbolic. Rosatom has long promoted floating nuclear plants as a showcase of Russian technological prowess. But the first hulls are being built not in Russia, but at the Chinese shipyard Wison Heavy Industry because Russian shipyards lacked the capacity to complete the order on schedule.

The delays have been substantial. Under the original contract, the first hull was supposed to arrive in Russia by October 2023. Instead, it arrived roughly two and a half years late.

Why Rosatom has chosen not to highlight the delivery remains unclear. Gorchakov suggests several possibilities: security concerns, reluctance to expose Chinese partners to sanctions risks, or discomfort with publicly acknowledging that a major “prestige project” for Russia was substantially built in China.

Taken together, the stories in Bellona’s latest digest point toward a broader reality facing Rosatom in 2026. Russia’s nuclear industry remains globally active and technically capable. But geopolitical fragmentation, sanctions pressure, and shifting political alliances continue to complicate Moscow’s ability to dominate the nuclear landscape as confidently as it once did.

The post Rosatom’s Uneasy Spring: Armenia Turns Away, Europe Hesitates, China Steps In—that and more in our new nuclear digest appeared first on Bellona.org.