Belarus has confirmed plans to build a third reactor at its nuclear power plant near the Lithuanian border, a move that will renew regional debate over nuclear safety.
Deputy prime minister Viktor Karankevich said the decision to proceed with a third unit at the Ostrovets (Astravets) nuclear power plant was taken at a meeting with Alexander Lukashenko on 14 November, following a review of electricity demand and options for new nuclear capacity. The plant lies near the town of Ostrovets in the Grodno region, around 15 kilometres from Lithuania and roughly 40 kilometres from its capital, Vilnius.
According to comments reported by the state news agency BelTA, Karankevich said the authorities had agreed “to develop the Ostrovets nuclear power plant and implement the second stage – the construction of a third power unit”. In parallel, the government will begin surveying potential sites in Mogilev region for possible future nuclear development if electricity consumption continues to grow, in line with instructions given by Lukashenko at the same meeting.
The Ostrovets plant currently operates two Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors built by Rosatom and financed largely through state-backed loans from Moscow. The first unit entered commercial operation in 2020 and the second was connected to the Belarusian grid in 2023, making nuclear power a significant element in Minsk’s efforts to reduce gas imports and increase domestic electricity generation.
From its inception, however, the project has faced criticism from neighbouring states and international bodies. Lithuania in particular has objected to the choice of site so close to its border and to Vilnius. In 2017 the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, adopted a law declaring the Belarusian plant unsafe and a threat to national security, the environment and public health, and committing the country to boycott electricity imports from the facility. Latvia and Estonia later joined regional measures to restrict trade in electricity linked to Ostrovets, as the three Baltic states prepared to synchronise their grids with the continental European network.
Concerns have focused on technical incidents during construction and early operation, as well as on the implementation of EU and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safety recommendations. EU “stress tests” identified a series of issues, and in 2021 the European Parliament adopted a resolution expressing concern over safety standards at Ostrovets and calling for full implementation of all recommendations before commercial operation. Belarusian officials state that the plant meets international norms and that remaining recommendations are being implemented in stages.
The debate over a third unit comes only months after further scrutiny of the station’s reliability. In July this year the second reactor was temporarily disconnected from the grid after an alarm indicated a deviation in the cooling system in the non-nuclear part of the installation. The energy ministry said at the time that the incident posed no threat to safety, and the unit was later returned to service.
For Minsk, additional nuclear capacity is presented as a response to rising electricity demand, including from electrified transport and new industrial projects, and as a way to strengthen long-term energy security. Officials have previously spoken of Belarus becoming one of the leading countries in terms of the share of electricity generated from nuclear power, with projections of rising output towards 2030 and beyond.
For Lithuania and other EU neighbours, the announcement reinforces concerns about transparency around the plant and about emergency preparedness in the event of an accident. Vilnius has invested in iodine stockpiles, evacuation planning and public information campaigns for residents of the capital and surrounding regions, and continues to press the European Commission and IAEA for close monitoring of the site and of incident reporting by the Belarusian authorities.
The decision also has a geopolitical dimension. The plant was built by Rosatom under an intergovernmental agreement with Russia, and further expansion would deepen Belarus’s technological and financial ties with Moscow at a time when the country remains under Western sanctions over its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Financing arrangements for a third unit have not yet been publicly detailed, but earlier stages of the project relied on substantial Russian credit lines.
Belarusian officials say next steps on the project, including a construction timetable and final financing terms, will depend on upcoming technical and economic studies. At the same time, the planned survey of potential new sites in Mogilev region keeps open the option of a second nuclear power plant in the longer term, should projected demand justify further capacity.
Lithuania, which shut its Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear plant in 2009 as part of its EU accession commitments, argues that Ostrovets was developed without adequate consultation and in breach of international environmental conventions, a position backed in 2019 by a finding under the Espoo Convention that Belarus had violated cross-border impact assessment rules. Belarus rejects these claims. With a third unit now planned at Ostrovets, the plant’s safety and regional impact are set to remain a point of friction in relations between Minsk and Vilnius.
Image: Astravets Nuclear Power Plant, Belarus. Photo: Tess Mattew / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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