Russian Nuclear (In)Security
Preempting a Russian Nuclear Meltdown; Loose Nukes Fears: Anecdotes of the Current Crisis
Global Beat Issue Brief No. 45, December 5, 1998
 
Preempting a Russian Nuclear Meltdown
 
By Kenneth N. Luongo and Matthew Bunn, December 5, 1998
 
As world attention focuses on Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction, another proliferation crisis is brewing. Six years of steady improvement in the security of Russia's nuclear stockpile threatens to unravel under the crushing blow of that county's current economic crisis. Not since the collapse of the old Soviet Union has the situation been so dire.
 
The realities are alarming. Weapon guards leave their posts to forage for food. Non-payment of bills results in the shut off of electricity for high-tech security systems needed to protect weapon uranium and plutonium. Young, under-trained security guards go on shooting sprees at nuclear plants and submarines. Under these conditions, security cannot be assumed or assured.
 
The United States has a significant stake in this problem because of the danger that nuclear weapons and materials could leak, causing a worldwide proliferation nightmare. Indeed, Iraq spent billions trying to produce the nuclear material for a bomb; nuclear theft could provide a shortcut to Saddam's dreamed-of bomb. So far, a combination of U.S.-financed security programs and remarkable patriotism and devotion to duty under deteriorating circumstances by Russia's nuclear workers and military professionals have prevented catastrophe. But, the situation in Russia is worsening and it requires a swift, targeted response.
 
In the short term, the United States should take four actions.
 
First, a portion of the money already provided by Congress to finance security upgrades must be directed to emergency assistance to help keep security systems operating and nuclear security personnel fed and on the job through the coming desperate winter. Second, aid from existing stockpiles of military rations, warm winter uniforms, and backup power supplies (with diesel to run them) should be shipped -- in days or weeks rather than months -- to help Russian nuclear facilities maintain security.
 
Third, the United States should insist that Russia spend a substantial fraction of the income that it will soon get from U.S. uranium purchases to pay nuclear guards and workers, and finance other steps to improve security. The Congress set aside $325 million to help shore up the future of the agreement under which the U.S. purchases diluted Russian weapon uranium, and these funds will be available as soon as the Russians complete a commercial agreement for the sale of a portion of the uranium. This money gives the United States enormous leverage and the Russians substantial new resources: the leverage should be used to target the resources where they will benefit U.S. security the most.
 
Fourth, the United States should underwrite a low-interest line of credit that Russia can draw on specifically to support and improve its nuclear security forces and measures. The use of the money should be verified up front so that profiteers do not divert the funds. It would allow impoverished facilities to pay their electric bills and guards through the coming winter, while discussions on future permanent remedies take place between governments.
 
As a first step in that larger dialogue, the assumptions and planning for projects already underway must be re-examined. While most of the myrdiad projects underway remain worthwhile, priorities need to be set, and the economic crisis means that many projects will need additional U.S. or outside funding and may take longer to complete.
 
More importantly, this discussion must focus on moving U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation to a new level, tackling tough issues such as shrinking the Russian nuclear complex, consolidating bomb material in fewer facilities, and professionalizing guard forces.
 
The Clinton administration and key members of Congress have traditionally been responsive to the need to work with Russia on new frontiers in nuclear security. Many of these collaborations were unimagined during the Cold War. Russia's economic meltdown has thrown into question past plans that assumed the country was on a democratic and capitalist trajectory, but the underlying objective of preventing nuclear proliferation is still an American security priority. Rapid action in support of this goal is now as urgently needed in Russia as it is in Iraq.
 
 
* Kenneth N. Luongo, a former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy for Non-Proliferation Policy, is the Executive Director of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (RANSAC) and a Senior Visiting Fellow at Princeton University. Matthew Bunn, a former advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is a member of RANSAC and Assistant Director of Harvard University's Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.
 
Loose Nukes Fears: Anecdotes of the Current Crisis
 
By Matthew Bunn, December 5, 1998
 
On Sept. 20, a Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) sergeant at the Mayak facility, where over 30 tons of separated weapons-usable civilian plutonium is stored, shot two of his MVD comrades and wounded another before escaping with an assault rifle and ammunition. The incident reportedly led President Yeltsin to order a review of nuclear security at the site.
 
In September, a U.S. team visiting the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow was shown a building containing 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium -- potentially enough for several nuclear bombs -- that was totally unguarded, because the Institute could not afford the $200-a-month salary for a guard.
 
At some nuclear facilities, MVD guards have left their posts to forage for food. Others have been reluctant to patrol facility perimeters because they did not have winter uniforms to keep them warm on patrol. At some facilities, recently installed security equipment is not being used because there is no money to maintain it; at others, guards who had not been paid in months were expected to man unheated posts in sub-freezing conditions. At some facilities, entire security systems -- alarms, surveillance cameras, portal monitors, etc. -- have been shut down because the facilities' electricity was cut off for non-payment of bills. At other facilities, guards have intentionally turned off alarm systems, or even cut their cables, because they were annoyed by frequent false alarms.
 
In early September, Minister of Atomic Energy Evgeniy Adamov told nuclear workers protesting months of unpaid wages that the government owed the ministry over $170 million and had not provided a single ruble in two months. Some 47,000 unpaid nuclear workers joined in protests at various locations around the country, over what the nuclear workers' trade union said was over $400 million in back wages to workers in the nuclear sector.
 
In August, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev issued an order to all military officers to "look for additional sources [of sustenance for the winter] and assume personal control." The Defense Ministry announced that trips would be organized for all soldiers and officers to take to the fields to harvest mushrooms, berries, and other sources of food for the winter. In the Far East region of Khabarovsk, the territorial administration has reportedly stopped providing bread to Far East military units, due to non-payment of debts.
 
On October 9, General Igor Volynkin, commander of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, in charge of security for nuclear weapons, told a press conference that Russia was fully capable of protecting its nuclear weapons, but acknowledged that the directorate's troops had not been given any higher priority in receiving pay than other troops, that they had received the paychecks due them only through July, and that the directorate was helping officers to get vegetables and potatoes for the winter in lieu of cash.
 
On Sept. 5, five soldiers from the 12th Main Directorate at Novaya Zemlya -- Russia's only nuclear weapons test site -- killed a guard at the facility, took another guard hostage and tried to hijack an aircraft. After seizing more hostages, they were disarmed by other Ministry of Defense forces and Federal Security Service commandos.
 
On Sept. 11, a 19-year-old sailor went on a rampage in Murmansk, killing seven people with a chisel and an AK-47 assault rifle aboard an Akula-class nuclear-attack submarine. He then barricaded himself for 20 hours in the torpedo bay and threatened to blow up the submarine, with its nuclear reactor. Finally, he reportedly committed suicide. Russian officials insisted there were no nuclear weapons on board at the time.
 
On October 12, Sergei Ushakov, a spokesman for Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, reported that some 20 servicemen serving in the Strategic Rocket Forces were discharged during 1997-1998 after being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, and that some of these were responsible for guarding nuclear arsenals. The office issued a report indicating the Strategic Rocket Forces, of all the services in Russia's military, had the most rapid increase in its crime rate, 25 percent higher in 1997 than in 1996.
 
In late October, a Strategic Rocket Forces officer at a base for the Topol-M ICBMs -- the most modern weapons in the Russian strategic force -- was quoted on Russian television as saying that he had received his pay only through July, despite promises that back wages would be paid in October.
 
In early October, Russian customs reportedly intercepted 5 "Hip C" assault transport helicopters with weapons pods, apparently stolen by military officers, bound for North Korea. The helicopters, valued at $300,000 each, were reportedly being sold for $20,000 apiece.
 
On September 3, Russian radio reported that the mayor of Krasnoyarsk-45, one of Russia's closed "nuclear cities," where enough HEU for hundreds or thousands of bombs is located, had written to Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed and Atomic Energy Minister Evgeniy Adamov warning that unless urgent action was taken, a social explosion in the city was unavoidable, as a cutoff in payments from the Atomic Ministry's bank meant that public sector workers had not been paid at all in August, and even basic medical supplies could not be purchased.
 
In September, at the closed Siberian nuclear city of Krasnoyarsk-26, home to enough plutonium for hundreds or thousands of nuclear bombs, the heat was shut off for weeks, because lack of money delayed shipments of fuel to the reactor that heats the city, and workers staged a protest over unpaid wages at the plutonium processing facility. Shortly before this incident, the facility director wrote to Ministry of Atomic Energy headquarters in Moscow, warning that "wage payments are three months behind scheduleThe social tension in the shops and factories has reached the critical level, and its consequences are unpredictable."
 
On November 19, 3,000 workers staged a one-day strike over unpaid wages at Chelyabinsk-70, one of Russia's premier nuclear weapons design laboratories, complaining of "constant undernourishment, insufficient medical service, inability to buy clothing and footwear for children or to pay for their education."

* Matthew Bunn, a former advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is a member of RANSAC and Assistant Director of Harvard University's Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.
 
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