Published bi-monthly by the Ex-USSR Antinuclear campaign.
Editor: Vladimir Sliviak
- Reactor construction in Russia
TOMSK GOVERNOR CONTENT WITH LAST YEAR'S RESULTS. THE 4 NEW REACTORS FOR PLUTONIUM
DISPOSITION' PROJECT IN TOMSK UNDER REVIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT
- Reactor construction with Russia
PREPARATIONS FOR BORIS ELTSIN'S VISIT TO INDIA UNDER WAY CZECH GOVERNMENT TO CONTINUE WITH
TEMELIN CONSTRUCTION RUSSIA, CHINA SIGN NUCLEAR DEAL
- Condemns
DUMA CONDEMNS ELTSIN'S STATEMENT IN STOCKHOLM
- Crisis
DUMA WANTS HELP FOR NUCLEAR CENTERS
- Foreign Policy
PRIMAKOV ON NATO, IRAN, HIS OWN FUTURE
- Special
ARE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS SAFE? by Paul Goble
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TOMSK GOVERNOR CONTENT WITH LAST YEAR'S RESULTS. THE 4 NEW REACTORS FOR PLUTONIUM
DISPOSITION' PROJECT IN TOMSK UNDER REVIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT
TOMSK, Jan 6 - Tomsk governor Viktor Kress has expressed satisfaction with the results
of the past year. In a interview, he said that his region, unlike many others, paid
out pensions in time during 1997 and settled all the regional budgetary arrears as far
as wages and children's benefits are concerned before January 1, 1998. Tomsk is home town
for one of russian plutonium producing facility. According to the Russian Ministry of
Atomic Power (Minatom)' documents, leaked to the public in december of 1997, proposal for
construction of 4 new nuclear reactors in Tomsk has been submitted to the government.
Reactor design was developed by General Atomics (USA), Fuji Electric (Japan), Framatom
(France) and Minatom - this is module high-temperature helium reactor with gas turbine.
Minatom promote this reactor design as "extremely effective in plutonium disposition,
cheapest Russia ever had and absolutely safe". But according to information of the
World Information Service on Energy (WISE), an international network of safe-energy
activists, number of industrialized countries rejected proposals for construction of such
reactors in 1990s with two main reasons: high-temperature reactors are expensive and has
serious technical errors in its design.
Governor did not mention new reactor project but reported that the Tomsk region was the
first in 1997 to embark on the implementation of regional energy-saving after concluding
an agreement with the Ministry for Fuels and Power Industry. "We shall now act as a
coordinator of the federal programme for power saving in the Siberian region," he
noted.
PREPARATIONS FOR BORIS YELTSIN'S VISIT TO INDIA UNDER WAY, ALTHOUGH "NO OFFICIAL
DATE OF HIS TRIP SET", SPOKESMAN OF FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS
MOSCOW, Jan 5 - The preparations for Boris Yeltsin's visit to India are underway,
although "official dates of the trip are yet to be set". It was stated in
december 1997 that Russian president will sign agreement on nuclear cooperation between
Russia and India during his visit. Agreement is important for russian nuclear industry
facing deep economical problems which stopped almost all the developments in reactor
construction across Russia last years.
Under Russian-Indian agreement includes building of two VVER reactors in India. To
provide this agreement with funds Russian government promise to offer India US$ 2,6
billion credit.
It was already mentioned that Moscow and Delhi had agreed that the Russian president
would come to India in January 1998. At the same time some mass media bodies stressed that
it would be inexpedient for the Russian president to come to India before the
parliamentary election.
The Russian scientific circles, however, exclude a possibility of any serious changes
in both the political and economic course of the official Delhi after a new cabinet was
elected there. "Of course, there can be some minor corrections to the course, but I
do not expect any radical changes", Professor Gennady Chufrin and current
corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Russia told RIA Novosti. He believes
that it will be unwise to postpone the visit "since there exist a number of
Russo-Indian issues which need to be discussed without delay and require an official
consideration in high places".
Still nuclear agreement depends on real ability of Russia to offer financial help to
India and so provide own industry with new contract. Such ability is not confirmed yet by
facts - 1998 budget of Russia includes very small amount of expenses for nuclear subsidies
and Ministry of Atomic Power is currently restructuring the civil nuclear industry. In
mid-december of 1997 the ministry officials made public statement about the process of
industrial restructurization. In this statement it's proposed that nuclear plants will
manage own finances (payment for electricity bills) more independently from the national
budget. As exchange to this offer of the government nuclear plants will be responsible for
providing of 93% of own expenses needed for the current "on-site" activity. 7%
supposed to come from the very poor national budget. Activity of russian nuclear industry
on the international level would also put India rather to apathy than to hope. For
example, contract of Iran and Russia started only after Iranians provided russian Minatom
with funds for it.
CZECH GOVERNMENT TO CONTINUE WITH CONSTRUCTION OF TEMELIN.
Industry and Trade Minister Karel Kuhnl on 6 January said the government is still set
on completing the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant, despite delays and rising
costs. Neighboring Austria strongly objects to the plant, which it claims poses a risk to
the environment. The facility was originally scheduled to be completed by 1995. The
earliest completion date is now late 1999, and it is estimated costs could exceed $2
billion.
RUSSIA, CHINA SIGN NUCLEAR DEAL. Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov
departed China on 30 December, one day after attending the signing ceremony of a nuclear
power facility deal worth an estimated $3 billion. Russia will provide two VVER-1000
reactors for the Lianyungang nuclear facility in eastern China. Russian Atomic Energy
Minister Viktor Mikhailov, also at the signing ceremony, had called the deal "the
contract of the century," according to a 28 December report from ITAR-TASS. Mikhailov
noted after the signing that Russia's victory in the tender for the project proved the
country's ability to compete on the world market. ITAR-TASS also reported that the
Lianyungang plant will require another four reactors, possibly offering Russia further
opportunities to sell reactors and other equipment to China.
DUMA CONDEMNS YELTSIN'S STATEMENTS IN STOCKHOLM - on 18 December, the Duma passed a
resolution condemning statements made by Yeltsin in Stockholm as "irresponsible"
and "inconsistent with Russian laws." While in Sweden, Yeltsin said Russia would
unilaterally reduce its nuclear stockpile and cut its troops in northwestern Russia by 40
percent. Other officials confirmed Yeltsin's statement on the troop reductions but
clarified his remarks on the nuclear arsenal, saying the president was only talking about
making reductions "in parity" with U.S. disarmament. Presidential spokesman
Yastrzhembskii on 18 December accused some Duma deputies of distorting the meaning of
Yeltsin's statements.
DUMA WANTS HELP FOR NUCLEAR CENTERS... The Duma on 19 December passed a resolution
asking Yeltsin to intervene to help solve the problems of nuclear weapons producers,
ITAR-TASS reported. The resolution cited wage arrears to nuclear arms designers and a
federal debt of 175 billion rubles ($29 million) to the Federal Nuclear Center in
Arzamas-16 (also known as Sarov, Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast). Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin visited Sarov in July, shortly before a gubernatorial election in Nizhnii
Novgorod, and promised that the government would support the nuclear research center.
PRIMAKOV ON NATO, IRAN, HIS OWN FUTURE. In an extensive interview published in
"Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 30 December, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov
complained of "a tendency to turn the Russia-NATO Council into a debating club"
rather than a forum for resolving disagreement and achieving the maximum degree of
rapprochement. He again expressed his opposition to NATO membership for the Baltic states,
stressing that Russia's objections are not so much strategic as
"moral-political", given that the Russian population would find it difficult to
accept the use by another military bloc of the infrastructure created by the USSR.
Primakov again insisted that the Russian government is not supplying Iran with nuclear
technology, but conceded that he could not "totally exclude" the possibility of
individual scientists supplying such technology clandestinely. Lastly, Primakov again
rejected persistent rumors of his imminent resignation, affirming that Yeltsin trusts him.
ARE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS SAFE?
By Paul Goble (OMRI)
The American intelligence community has concluded that the Russian government currently
has reasonably effective control over its stockpile of nuclear warheads and missiles.
But at the same time, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said, Washington
is "very concerned" about the status of Russian safeguards against the illegal
sale of the components needed to manufacture such weapons.
In a report released in early December by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, George Tenet said that he did not believe that Moscow had lost control over
any warheads or nuclear missiles, although the reason he gave for that is not entirely
encouraging.
"We do not believe that Russian ICBMs are as vulnerable to theft or sales as
missile components," Tenet said. "A conspiracy of many government officials
would be necessary to purloin an entire ICBM."
Instead, Tenet said his institution feared that Russia might be losing control over the
components needed to make a bomb, including large and widely dispersed stores of plutonium
and highly enriched uranium.
Tenet argued in the report that Russia's "continuing social and economic
difficulties, corruption in the military and the potential activities of organized crime
groups" put government control of these materials at risk.
And he pointed out that "Russia's ability to enforce export controls remains
problematic because of resource shortages, weak customs enforcement and corruption."
Tenet's report is likely to trigger a new debate on how to prevent the proliferation of
nuclear weapons after the Cold War. At the very least, it seems certain to introduce a new
clarity into just what the problem is.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union six years ago, Western analysts and governments
have debated whether Moscow has been able to control the nuclear weapons and materials on
its territory.
In general, that discussion has focused on the question of whether the Russian
government has control of nuclear weapons rather than on whether it has control of the
nuclear materials needed to make weapons.
That debate flared anew most recently when Aleksandr Lebed, a former Russian general
and aide to Boris Yeltsin, made a dramatic suggestion that Moscow might have lost track of
dozens of "suitcase- sized" nuclear weapons.
Tenet's report suggests that Lebed's claims are almost certainly untrue. But if that
conclusion is reassuring, Tenet's discussion of Moscow's gradual loss of certain control
over the components of nuclear weapons is frightening in the extreme.
The CIA report notes that there are some 1,200 tons of highly enriched uranium and 200
tons of plutonium stored in a large number of sites spread across the Russian Federation.
Because producing such materials is the hardest part of building a bomb and because
only a few pounds of either substance are needed to make one, any loss of control over
even a small part of such stockpiles could quickly lead to disaster.
Obviously, both Russia and the entire world have a vested interest in making sure that
the Russian authorities maintain effective control over such materials. But how that is to
be done remains very much an open question.
In contrast to nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles, the movement of such
materials is far more difficult to monitor and thus extraordinarily difficult to prevent
-- especially in a country as troubled as Russia now is.
Tenet's report may now prompt both Moscow and the West to explore some new means of
making sure that the safeguards over nuclear materials are just as effective as those over
nuclear weapons.
If that does not happen, his report strongly implies, the dangers of future
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will only increase.
Sources: OMRI, RIA Novosti
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Sidst opdateret 9. september 1997
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