Now, a new law will help reduce the number of sites, Yevstratov said, according to the Barents Observer and the Regnum Russian news agency. But independent confirmation of reports on the new laws and the new sights was not immediately available. .

“We expect a new law on the handling of radioactive wastes to be adopted by the end of the, year Yevstratov said, according to the agencies. “The law will help significantly limit the number of waste storage sites.”

Neither the Barents Observer nor Regnum noted when Rosatom intends to have a draft of this law available, nor when it would be submitted to the Duma for debate. Further calls for comment on these deadlines by Bellona Web were not returned by press time.

“The number of storage sites for radioactive wastes number thousands, and they are difficult to monitor,” Yevstratov said, adding that many of them have existed for a "quite long time" and that security fences around the sites are "degrading," the Barents Observer and Regnum said.

A part of Rosatom’s plan is the construction of a new major underground storage in the Nizhnekamskiye Mountains in western Siberia, to which many of the smaller sites will be removed, said the news agencies.

Rosatom also plans to establish a new specialized organisation on the handling of the wastes, Yevstratov told Regnum.