CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- One hundred and thirty kilometers north of Kiev, on the deceptively serene banks of the broad Pripyat River, two Soviet-built nuclear reactors are operating at full capacity.


Together, the two giant RBMK-type reactors churn out up to 5 percent of all Ukraine's daily energy needs.


The problem for Ukrainian officials is the station is Chernobyl.


Eight years after the world's worst nuclear disaster, Ukrainian scientists and government officials say the Chernobyl plant is being singled out unfairly by Western governments and environmentalists who want to close it.


Scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency have certainly made no secret of their desire to see the plant shut down. They argue that the RBNK reactors are fundamentally unsafe, and warn of a possible repeat of the 1986 explosion which killed 32 and left thousands more suffering effects of radiation.


In the aftermath of the explosion at the No. 4 reactor, the Ukrainian authorities promised to decommission the remaining three Chernobyl reactors. Now, however, they appear to have changed their minds.


"What about the RBNKs in Russia -- why not close them down?" asked Nikolai Steinberg, the chairman of Ukraine's State Committee for Nuclear and Radiation Safety in Kiev.


"These reactors are not very good, because they are old," said Professor Vladimir Tokarevsky, the head of the team monitoring the reactor. "But they are not as bad as people" say.


Ukraine's increasingly defiant defense of Chernobyl is not based on any sudden or reckless enthusiasm. At the heart of the issue is the country's heavy dependence on Russia for its energy.


Russia provides about 90 percent of Ukraine's oil and nearly half its natural gas. Confronted with a rising fuel bill, Ukraine has taken a second look at nuclear power, and in particular the three reactors at Chernobyl.


Last October, the parliament voted to lift a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants. Officials now admit they are considering plans to reopen Chernobyl's second reactor, closed after a fire in 1991.


Western officials in Kiev say they appreciate the Ukrainian dilemma.


"It's very much a Catch-22 situation," said Bogdan Lisovitch, the deputy head of the United Nations mission in Ukraine.


There is, however, one possible solution being considered. It calls for the West to help Ukraine complete at least three other nuclear reactors now being built, to compensate for the expense of closing Chernobyl.


These newer VVER-1000 type reactors are considered a distinct improvement on the RBMKs currently in use at Chernobyl.


But this plan has not advanced beyond the planning stage yet, and in Kiev, officials are skeptical about the West's commitment.


"We need to get rid of all the 'ifs' hanging over this," Steinberg said.