10nfl1-Nukes-Cover
RUSSIA IS VULNERABLE TO THEFT OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL
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| RUSSIA IS VULNERABLE TO THEFT OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL. Peter D. Zimmerman and Anna M. Pluta 2006 (Peter Zimmerman is a nuclear physicist, is Chair of Science and Security in the Department of War Studies and Director of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at Kings College London. Anna Pluta is is a researcher in the Centre for Science and Security Studies atKingʼs College London and a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics. Survival Summer 2006, Vol 48 No 2, pg. 58 Lax safeguards and dire economic conditions, together with the growth of terrorism, have created incentives for the theft of nuclear material. The fact that this has so far not resulted in a nuclear terrorist attack does not, unfortunately, mean that it will not do so in the future. High levels of criminalisation and corruption, combined with economic instability and the presence of a large, inadequately secured nuclear complex, may make it relatively easy for terrorist groups to obtain nuclear materials. Russia's nuclear cities are particularly vulnerable. The ten cities housing 750,000 people remain closed. Their facilities, 'crumbling under alack of government support, continue to house large quantities of bomb-grade materials. Louise Shelley and Robert Orttung of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at the American University have researched the influence of corrupt officials and the work of criminal and terrorist networks on technical security in the Russian weapons complex. Following a study of the closed city of Ozersk in the Chelyabinsk Oblast they found that a wide array of criminal networks exists in the city and could be used by terrorists groups to obtain nuclear material. As Shelley and Orttung point out, Chelyabinsk is on a major drug trafficking route, and drug dealers inside the closed city have connections to Tajik drug groups, which in turn maybe connected to terrorist organisations. Released convicts living in Ozersk, as well as corrupt employees of the nuclear plant, may have both incentive and ability to sell nuclear materials to criminal groups. The material could be easily transported out of the city by a number of routes, ranging from conscript soldiers who guard the city to criminalised taxi drivers or construction groups. In 1998, the mayor of Krasnoyarsk warned that asocial explosion in his city was unavoidable unless urgent action was taken. Nuclear scientists and other workers had been underpaid for several months and basic medical supplies were lacking. In 2000 the Federal Security Bureau arrested four sailors at the nuclear submarine base in Vilyuchinsk-3 on the Kamchatka Peninsula with a stash of radioactive materials stolen from their nuclear submarine. Additional radioactive material was also later found in their homes. In December 1998 Russian authorities thwarted an attempt to steal kg of HEU, nearly enough fora nuclear bomb, from an unspecified nuclear facility in the Chelyabinsk Oblast. The theft involved an organised group of facility employees. Frost dismisses the incident on the grounds that the Russian Special Forces intercepted the thieves before they left the facility. One such success does not guarantee that all attempts to steal fissile material will be foiled. 10NFL1-Nuclear Weapons Page 84 of 199 www.victorybriefs.com Download 1.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
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