Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop's announcement this week to sell Australian uranium to Ukraine is an ill-advised and dangerous retreat from responsibility.

With timing and placement that a satirist could only dream of emulating – April Fool's Day, the month of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown and while attending a nuclear security summit - Bishop is set to sign a uranium supply agreement this week with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop announced this week that Australia would sell uranium to Ukraine. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Australia, the country that directly fuelled Fukushima now plans to sell uranium to Ukraine, the country that gave the world Chernobyl – hardly a match made in heaven.

Thirty years ago the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread fallout over large swathes of eastern and western Europe and five million people still live in contaminated areas in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.