January 15, 2025: In late 2024, facilities at Murmansk in northwest Russia were being upgraded to deal with possible Ukrainian drone attacks. Now that Russia was attacking Ukrainian power supplies and heat supplies, officials in Murmansk feared the Ukrainians would do the same to them. So the Murmansk government ordered all facilities related to keeping Murmansk warm be fortified and protected in other ways. In a place like Murmansk, loss of heat during the coldest part of the year can be fatal.

In mid-2024 Russia announced that it was reinforcing air defenses at their Olenya air base in Murmansk province. This came after Ukrainian long-range drones attacked and damaged two of the Tu-22M3s used to attack Ukrainian targets 1,800 kilometers to the south. With the Ukrainians reciprocating, Russia is trying to upgrade air defenses before the Ukrainians strike again.

Ukrainian UAV developers and manufacturers have an advantage in that entrepreneurial developers and manufacturers are encouraged. In Russia such intellectual and manufacturing freedom is discouraged. The Russian state must control everything because that is how Russia became mighty and remains so. That’s the official explanation. Russians consider the Ukrainians seduced by, and addicted to, heretical Western ideas and concepts like innovating without official permission. Ukrainians see those Russian attitudes as an asset for the Ukrainian war effort. This gives Ukraine an edge in the development and use of new UAV technology. Ukraine encourages individuals and small groups of entrepreneurs to develop, manufacture and share new UAV designs and technologies. The government or wealthy individuals will often finance effective new concepts so that production can be rapidly expanded before the new tech becomes obsolete or be simply replaced by a more effective version.

Russia adapted to their disadvantage in UAV development by concentrating on electronic jammers. By rapidly upgrading their jammer technology, Russians can disrupt a lot of new Ukrainian UAV tech for a while. This disruption is becoming more important for the Russians because Ukraine has developed several generations of long range drones that can reach targets over 1,000 kilometers distant. In 2023 this meant attacks near Moscow and St Petersburg as well as nearby factories and industrial operations. Ukrainian drones are increasingly reaching their targets deep inside Russia. That means Russian economic and military facilities far from Ukraine are suddenly under attack. These targets include refineries and fuel storage sites as well as weapons development, manufacturing, and storage facilities. In 2023 these attacks destroyed about fifteen percent of Russian refining capacity, reducing the amount of vehicle fuel available for commercial and military users.

Ukrainian air strikes are not the only danger in the far north. Winters are much worse in Murmansk, which is the only city in the world north of the Arctic Circle. Winters aren’t as bad as you might think because Murmansk weather is moderated by the warm Gulf Stream current which also warms up Britain and much of northwest Europe. The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico between the southern United States and east coast Mexico.

Murmansk has other problems to deal with. For example, a significant Russian nuclear accident took place at the Andreyeva Bay Soviet naval base 569 in February 1982. Andreyeva Bay is a radioactive waste repository 55 km northwest of Murmansk and 60 km from the Norwegian border, on the western shore of the Kola Peninsula. The repository entered service in 1961. In February 1982 a nuclear accident occurred in which about 700,000 tons of highly radioactive water was released into the Barents Sea from a pool in building 5 of the repository over the next few years. Cleanup of the accident took place from 1983 to 1989. About 1,000 people took part in the cleanup effort.

The nuclear power plant fuel repository, constructed in the early 1960s, was a naval base on the shore of the Zapadnaya Litsa bay. It consisted of two piers, a stationary mooring bay, a sanitation facility, spent fuel pools in building 5 that was unused since the cleanup ended in 1989, three 1,000 cubic meter dry storage containers, a 40,000-ton crane, an open-air field for storing spent nuclear fuel containers, a security checkpoint, and other technical facilities. In 1982 the area contained spent nuclear fuel in storage facility Building 5 consisting of about 22,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies, solid radioactive waste in storage facility Building 7, and liquid radioactive waste in storage facility Building 6.

Building 5 contained two pools for storing spent fuel assemblies, encased in steel drums. Each drum contained 5-7 spent fuel assemblies, weighing 350 kg fully loaded. Each of the pools was 60 meters long, 3 meters wide, 6 meters deep, and had a volume of 1,000 cubic meters. Each was designed for about 2,000 drums. The drums were suspended underwater from massive chains, which were attached to anchor points a certain distance from each other to hopefully avoid an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction from starting. The water served as a radiation shield for people on the deck around the pools. The drums were placed underwater using the chains and a crane cart, but due to the construction's unreliability, drums often fell to the bottom of the pool. As a result, spent nuclear fuel drums dangerously piled up at the bottom which defeated the water protection from uncontrolled nuclear reactions by the chains and anchor points.

Someone who worked there remarked that the first time they saw all this they were shocked. The facility seemed like a nightmare. The facility was an enormous black windowless building atop a cliff. The entrance to building 5 was decorated with deformed trucks previously used for carrying nuclear fuel and half-torn-down heavy gates. Inside, the building was dilapidated, and deteriorating electrical equipment was another hazard. Building 5 was completely radioactive.

The right-hand pool in building 5 started leaking in February 1982. Finding cracks in the drums’ metal coatings required diving into the pool, which was out of the question due to the gamma radiation levels in the vicinity of the nuclear waste drums. An attempt to eliminate the leak was made by pouring in 20 sacks of flour, thus filling the cracks with dough. That did not last and the leak continued. Later it was found there was ice on the right side of the building. This indicated that earlier containment efforts were ineffective.

In April 1982, the basement part of the building was filled with 600 cubic meters of concrete but this was ineffective. There was a risk of contamination of nearby Zapadnaya Litsa bay. In order to safeguard against radioactive leaks, iron-lead-concrete covers, weighing thousands of tons, were built over the pool. In fact it was later discovered that it was only good fortune that prevented the collapse of the whole structure.

In early 1983 government officials confirmed the closing of the repository, except for work related to the cleanup of the accident. No more spent nuclear fuel was loaded in building 5. March 1983 through September 1987 saw spent fuel unloaded from the left-hand pool. All of the fuel was unloaded and sent to the Mayak nuclear facility. As of December 1989, all 1,500 drums of nuclear waste from building 5 were declared dealt with.

This was not the case. Poor welding seam quality in the pools' coating led to more leaks. The left pool sprouted a leak due to the building sagging under the weight of the iron-lead-concrete covers over the right pool. Specialists believed that temperature changes in the pool's water stressed welding seams, tearing them. When building 5's repository was designed, it was assumed that the water would be kept at a constant temperature by heat from the nuclear assemblies suspended under the surface. A separate water heating system was thus deemed unnecessary. That did not work because the extreme Arctic climate created a thick layer of ice in winter. In order to solve this problem, the ice was melted using steam from the boiler. This was a violation of radiation safety guidelines. Radioactive air spread through the building and leaked into the outside atmosphere.

Several workers were killed during the cleanup efforts due to accidents, inadequate protective equipment and the generally dangerous state of the facility.