Security of Russian nuclear facilities enhanced

Friday, 31 August 2007

The security of Russia's nuclear facilities has been greatly improved since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, celebrating its 15th birthday, has played a major role.

 

The program, established in 1992 under the leadership of US President George H W Bush and Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, celebrated its 15th anniversary on 29 August. A White House statement said that "under the CTR program, thousands of nuclear warheads have been deactivated and thousands of delivery systems - including missiles, strategic bombers, and strategic ballistic nuclear submarines - have been eliminated. Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine are now free of nuclear weapons and strategic delivery systems."

 

The statement continued that "to date, over 75% of the Russian warhead sites and 160 buildings containing hundreds of metric tonnes of weapons-usable nuclear material have been secured. Work is underway at the balance of the warhead and material sites, to be completed on an accelerated basis by the end of 2008." It added that the program has also achieved nearly 75% of its goal of shutting down two of the last three remaining Russian plutonium-production reactors by the end of 2008 and nearly one-third complete towards shutting the remaining reactor by the end of 2010.

The CTR program was launched after several incidents in the former Soviet Union involving the theft of nuclear materials from nuclear facilities. One such incident in 1992 involved a worker at the nuclear research centre in Podolsk, Russia, who between May and September stole 1.4 kg of high-enriched uranium (HEU) to sell on the black market.

 

On 29 August, Lugar and Nunn visited the Podolsk facility to see for themselves improvements in the site's security measures. The Podolsk site now houses the Luch Scientific and Industrial Association, which downblends Russian HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU), which can be used to fuel civil nuclear power plants. Some $25 million has been spent on installing a new perimeter fence, metal and radiation detectors, a network of surveillance cameras, special locks, doors and other systems at the facility. Lugar said, "People around the world would be reassured if they could see what we viewed today."

On 28 August, the Luch facility received a shipment of 9.5 kg of HEU from a research reactor in Otwock, Poland. The operation to transfer the uranium from Poland cost some $490,000 and was funded by the USA through a Department of Energy (DoE) program. Overall, the program, coordinated by the DoE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), has converted more than 9.2 tonnes of HEU to LEU at Luch and another site.

 

William Tobey, deputy administrator of NNSA, said, "The United States has invested a tremendous amount of time, effort and money in working with Russia to ensure that, since the end of the Cold War, the Russian nuclear arsenal and infrastructure are secure from terrorists and rogue actors." He added, "We are seeing the fruits of those efforts today with the enhanced security of materials, scientific expertise, facilities, ports and land borders. As our cooperation continues, we are working with our Russian counterparts to ensure that US investments and the US-Russian partnership will be sustained for the long term."

 

Russia's Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service has approved regulations on physical protection of nuclear installations, nuclear materials and storage facilities. The regulations establish procedures for the physical protection of nuclear material and radioactive substances, including during shipment and transportation. There are requirements for deployment of physical protection equipment at nuclear facilities and procedures for the facility management in the event of nuclear material theft detection.

 

Further information

 

National Nuclear Security Administration

 

WNA's Safeguards to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation information paper
WNA's Nuclear Power in Russia information paper

 

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