Russia Admits Losing Nuke Materials

["Hart, Tim P GS (RASO)" <harttp@RASO.NAVY.MIL>]

(AP) The head of Russia's nuclear regulatory agency says small amounts of

weapons- and reactor-grade nuclear materials have disappeared from the

country's atomic facilities. 



"Instances of the loss of nuclear materials have been recorded, but what the

quantity is is another question," Yuri Vishnyevsky, head of Gosatomnadzor,

said Thursday. "Of those situations that we can talk about in actuality,

they involve either grams of weapons-grade or kilograms of the usual uranium

used in atomic power plants." 



"Most often, these instances are connected with factories preparing fuel:

Elektrostal in the Moscow region and Novosibirsk" in Siberia, Vishnyevsky

said. 



He did not give further details on when the losses were discovered or how

the material might have gone missing. 



The International Atomic Energy Agency lists two known thefts of uranium

from Elektrostal, in 1994 and 1995. In both cases, the uranium was seized by

Russian police. 



The agency also lists the 1994 seizure in Germany of 400 grams of plutonium

brought in from Moscow. 



A few grams of Uranium-235, the most common weapons-grade nuclear material,

would not be sufficient to make a bomb. But reactor-grade uranium can be

enriched to weapons-grade through a complicated process believed to be

possessed by some countries trying to develop nuclear weapons, such as Iraq.





Russia's nuclear security has been a high concern in the decade since the

Soviet Union's collapse brought financial troubles that reduced funding for

state facilities and induced poverty that could motivate nuclear workers to

sell atomic materials. 



Worries have risen in the wake of increasing terrorism, including last

month's attack on a Moscow theater by Chechen gunmen who held hundreds of

hostages to press their demand that Russia withdraw troops from Chechnya. 



"After Sept. 11 of last year, the situation with regard to security at all

Russian nuclear facilities changed for the better, but it still has not

reached perfection," Vishnyevsky said. 



He estimated that bringing security to its ideal level at Russian nuclear

operations would require about 6 billion rubles, or $200 million. 



Vishnyevsky made his statements while criticizing a proposed law on

technological regulation now being considered by the Duma, the lower house

of parliament. 



He presented a letter to the Duma from a number of prominent scientists

criticizing the proposed law for calling for "the minimal necessary demands

for security at the same time that in the whole world and in our country the

demands for security in using atomic energy should be the maximum." 



It also was reported Friday that a Russian scientific expedition located a

Soviet nuclear submarine and 237 containers of radioactive waste in the

northern Kara Sea. 



The K-27 submarine was dumped in the Kara Sea in 1981, 13 years after one of

its reactors released radiation and it was taken out of service, according

to the Norway-based environmental group Bellona. 



Expedition members also examined what is believed to be the burial site of

the reactor section of another nuclear submarine - the K-254, Russian Deputy

Emergency Situations Minister Mikhail Faleyev told the Interfax-Military

news agency. 



Preliminary tests of water, sediment and sea life found that radiation

levels are "stable" at both sites, Faleyev said. 



Environmental groups say the Soviet Union routinely dumped radioactive waste

and nuclear reactors from decommissioned submarines into Arctic waters off

the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, a former nuclear testing site. 





By Jim Heintz

İMMII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be

published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



Tim Hart

Radiation Protection Manager

NAVSEADET RASO

NWS P.O. Drawer 260

Yorktown, VA 23691-0260



Commercial: (757) 887-4692

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"Dogma, dogma, dog manure"  Alf



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