Mikhail Solonin has been appointed first deputy minister for atomic energy, replacing Valentin Ivanov. Solonin was previously director of the All-Russia Research Institute of Inorganic Materials.
The Russian atomic energy ministry (Minatom) has appointed Oleg Saraev as the new president of Rosenergoatom.
Saraev replaces the utility's founding president Erik Pozdyshev, who has now been appointed head of the General Inspectorate, a branch of Rosenergoatom.
Saraev has been director of the Beloyarsk plant since 1986, and was president of the Nuclear Society of Russia from 2000 to 2001.
Saraev has announced that Russia's 10 Russian nuclear power stations will be merged into a state-run Unified Generating Company AES of Russia. The plants, currently joint stock companies, will be transferred on 1 March.
The unified state-run organisation, with AES at the hub and the nuclear power stations as its branches, aims to increase efficiency. A major task will be introduction of a single tariff for consumers of electric energy generated at different nuclear power stations.
