ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union lays claim to the development of the first civilian nuclear power station at Obninsk, a nuclear research station near Moscow, in 1954. The authorities resolved therefore to meet the growing energy costs and the annual rise in the need for electricity with the development of a civilian nuclear power program. The key period in the growth of the Soviet nuclear industry was that of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which made projections to the year 2000, at which time the industry was to have accounted for 30" of the electric power produced in the Soviet Union, and over 60" of that in border republics such as Ukraine and Lithuania. The recovery of the nuclear industry in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has been notable. Facing economic crises, the newly independent states of Ukraine and Belarus began to address the question of nuclear power development in 1992-93.
