The Local: Russian nuclear waste dumped off Sweden

The Local: Russian nuclear waste dumped off Sweden

Published: 4 Feb 10 07:44 CET

The Russian military is suspected of having dumped chemical weapons and radioactive waste off the Swedish island of Gotland in the beginning of the 1990s, according to Sveriges Television (SVT).

The Swedish government was informed of the incident around ten years ago - but no action was taken.

SVT's Uppdrag granskning programme reports that there exist three top secret files detailing the incidents held within the military security services MUST.

The reports - from November and December 1999 and June 2000 - state that the Russian military is suspected of dumping sensitive material overboard on repeated occasions between 1991 and 1994.

The chemical weapons and radioactive material is reported to have come from the vast Karosta naval base in the Latvian city of Liepaja.

The Swedish defence forces informed the government about the suspected dumping at a security meeting with representatives for the Swedish security services (Säpo), the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt – FRA), Swedish Customs Agency (Tullverket), the Swedish Agency for Non-Proliferation and Export Controls (ISP) and MUST.

The information did not lead to any follow up action.

Neither the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Prime Minister's Office retains reports of the dumping.

According an SVT source, Bertil Lundin, one of Sweden's most prominent spies, passed the information on to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informally.

Sven Olof Pettersson was the then foreign minister Anna Lindh's political advisor. The programme asked Pettersson what Lindh was told.

"That the Russians had dropped ammunition and chemical weapons into the Baltic sea in modern times," he replied.

According to Sven Olof Pettersson she became "very angry" and wanted the matter investigated. But she was told by the Ministry of Defence that without knowing the exact position it would be too expensive to search a large expanse of the Baltic Sea.

"That this was done in the 1990s is something quite distinct from if it had occurred in the 1940s or in the beginning of the 1950s. Then there were no international regulations, international environmental issues did not have at all the same focus as as they did in the 1960s and 70s," according to Jonas Ebbesson, professor in environment law at Stockholm University, to the programme.

"The most important thing now is not to find someone to blame. The most important thing is locate the dumped barrels and identify their contents," Rolf K. Nilsson, Moderate MP for Gotland, said in a press release.

Nilsson argues that it is not just a Swedish matter, even if the barrels were dumped in the Swedish economic zone of the Baltic Sea.

"If the details of the dumping are correct then it is something that affects all of the Baltic Sea states," Rolf K.Nilsson says, adding that it is now a very good opportunity for Russia to demonstrate its good will.

Anatolyji Kargapolov, the press officer at the Russian embassy in Stockholm was unwilling to comment on the reports until the matter had been thoroughly investigated in Moscow.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

"We've been unable to get through to our partners in this issue in order to at least start talking," Lavrov told a press conference after meeting with his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store.

"Our position is well known. I repeat: we're open for direct dialogue over any issue, not through the mass media," Lavrov said.

He was responding to the call from Poland and Sweden for Moscow and Washington to slash their tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

"As part of efforts to further reduce nuclear weapons in general, as well as to build confidence in a better order of security in Europe, we today call on the leaders of the United States and Russia to commit themselves to early measures to greatly reduce so-called tactical nuclear weapons in Europe," said the Polish and Swedish Foreign Ministers in a joint article published Tuesday in U.S. papers.

They also called on Moscow to remove the nuclear weapons it deployed near the border with the EU, such as in the Kaliningrad region and on the Kola Peninsula.

Lavrov said, "Russia has been calling for many years to make the first move, including removal of all the tactical weapons in the territory of the state to which it belongs."

The Moscow Times: Time for TART

By Vladimir Kozin

The first suggestion made by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski for both Moscow and Washington to reduce and subsequently eliminate tactical nuclear weapons based in Europe was well-grounded.

Their second suggestion was exclusively addressed to Moscow. The authors called on Russia to withdraw its nuclear warheads from areas adjacent to European Union member states — particularly in the Kaliningrad region and on the Kola Peninsula. But there are no nuclear warheads in Kaliningrad; they were all destroyed under the provisions of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987.

The INF and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and its follow-up are all very important contributions toward nuclear arms reduction and, hopefully, a nuclear-free world, as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty envisions. But there is one large gap that remains in the nuclear disarmament structure: There is no treaty that limits tactical weapons.

After the follow-up agreement to the START is signed, Moscow and Washington should make a firm commitment to begin “TART” negotiations on reducing tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

Any tactical arms reduction treaty needs to address geographical equilibrium in tactical weapons. While Russia has transferred all tactical weapons to its territory from former Soviet republics, the United States is still holding them in five European nations and Turkey, which is in violation of Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that prohibits storing nuclear weapons in non-nuclear states. Thus, the United States has to remove all tactical weapons from Europe before any negotiations begin on reducing tactical nuclear arms.

The authors’ second suggestion — to make unilateral “nuclear-free zones” by Russia along the EU borders — is flawed. Russia has the right to deploy on its own territory all kinds of forces needed to protect its population and infrastructure. Russia cannot close its nuclear naval bases built on the Kola Peninsula, just like the United States cannot close its nuclear naval base in San Diego.

Russia insists that there is a direct link between missile defense and strategic offensive weapons, and this link must be included in the START follow-up agreement. This is particularly important considering that Poland will soon deploy U.S. Patriot missiles on its soil. The United States would also like to place sea- and land-based SM-3 interceptors in the Black Sea and surrounding areas.

Russia, which does not have any missile defense installations in foreign countries, has solid grounds to protest U.S. missile defense facilities that are placed near Russia’s borders. Washington claims that these installations are needed to contain Iranian or North Korean missile threats, but even if there were a threat from these countries, that would not justify placing interceptors and radar facilities within 100 kilometers of Russia’s border.

No U.S. missile defense systems should be placed in Europe. If they are, Russia will have to return to President Dmitry Medvedev’s response, which he articulated on Nov. 5, 2008, in his first state-of-the-nation address: to deploy Iskander conventional and nuclear-tipped missiles in Kaliningrad. Other measures will be needed as well because the “revised” U.S. missile defense program in Europe will be even more formidable and dangerous to Russia than the system that he cancelled for Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has always insisted on a direct link between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, and this link should be clearly reflected in the follow-up agreement to START.