Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL has signed a contract with the China Institute of Atomic Energy for the supply of fuel to the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor.

Novovoronezh 3 was shut down on 25 December, becoming the oldest VVER-440 reactor to enter decommissioning. Since starting operations in December 1971, the unit produced 118.67 terawatt hours of electricity - more than half of the combined annual production of all of Russia's nuclear power plants, said Rosenergoatom, the nuclear power plant operator subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Physicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences have described the mobility of line defects, or dislocations, in uranium dioxide. This, they announced this week, will enable future predictions of nuclear fuel behaviour under operating conditions.

Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has signed a memorandum of cooperation in peaceful uses of atomic energy with two Japanese ministries. One key area of cooperation under the agreement will be post-accident recovery at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Russia has put into operation its first near-surface final nuclear waste repository for solid low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, National Operator for Radioactive Waste Management (NO RAO) has announced.

UPDATED Swedish utility Vattenfall has signed long-term supply contracts with three nuclear fuel manufacturers, adding for the first time Russia's TVEL to its established relationships with French Areva and American Westinghouse. The agreements - worth SEK 1.2 billion in total - cover 19 consignments to Ringhals 3 and 4 between 2018 and 2025.

Four Russian cities have expressed an interest in using small reactors to supply heat and power, according to Yuriy Kuznetsov of NA Dollezhal Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET). A Rosatom feasibility study has concluded that up to 38 cogeneration reactors could potentially be deployed at 14 sites for this purpose.

United Innovation Corporation, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazilian consultancy CK3 for the development, construction and operation of an irradiation centre in Brazil. The document was signed by the director-generals of the two companies, respectively, Denis Cherednichenko and Renato Cherkezian.

Russia's Atomtechenergo has received a licence to provide services involving nuclear energy and sources of ionizing radiation in Belarus. The Moscow-based company is a subsidiary of Atomenergoprom, the part of state nuclear corporation Rosatom that unites Russia's civilian nuclear industry.

Russia has started testing its new type of nuclear fuel, REMIX, at the MIR research reactor at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, which is in the Ulyanovsk region. Development of REMIX (from Regenerated Mixture) fuel is part of state nuclear corporation Rosatom's strategy to enable better use of recycled uranium and plutonium on an industrial scale in pressurized water reactors.

Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister of Russia, and Li Keqiang, premier of China's State Council, today made a joint statement on the development of strategic cooperation between the two countries in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said the statement "is intended to facilitate implementation" of its major projects in China.

Unit 4 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in Russia has started commercial operation, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced today. The BN-800 fast neutron reactor started operating at 100% power for the first time on 17 August.