Despite agreements and investments the Russian government continues to deny U.S. officials access to many nuclear warhead stockpiles, weapons-grade nuclear material storage sites and biological facilities, preventing the U.S. from devising security upgrades, a NATO report said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. and Russia have been working together to safeguard Russia’s stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Nevertheless, more than 6,500 Russian strategic nuclear warheads have been secured from visiting foreign experts, the country’s first chemical-weapons disposal site is working, and three others are under construction. Of the estimated 185 tons of plutonium and 1,100 tons of weapons-grade uranium stored in Russia, only half have received security upgrades, the report estimates.
Aware of how lax security is at many former biological weapons sites, Russian authorities worry that U.S. inspections of those sites could produce information leaks that ultimately could help terrorists target those locations, Vladimir Orlov, a nuclear security expert with the PIR Center, a Moscow think tank was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying.
“The Russian government feels uncertain and vulnerable about its biological complex facilities,” Orlov said. “But the (NATO) report is right in saying that Russian authorities haven’t put a high enough priority on securing biological sites.”
The U.S., Russia and other members of the Group of 8 leading industrialized countries have fared better when it comes to destruction of Russia’s stockpile of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons — the world’s largest. Work has started at a disposal plant in the south-central city of Gorny to destroy mustard gas and lewisite, both blistering agents.
Construction at three other disposal plants has begun, including a facility at Shchuchye that will destroy Russia’s vast nerve-gas stockpile. Russia has 32,500 metric tons of sarin, VX and soman nerve gas stored in shells, rockets and bombs at five sites across the country. This disposal plant is expected to go into operation in 2008.
However, Russia the U.S. and other Western governments have not tackled the question of tactical nuclear weapons, which are worrisome because of their small size and portability, according to the report.
“Tactical nuclear weapons could cause destruction far more severe than the Sept. 11, 2001, assault,” the report warns.
Russian authorities said they had destroyed more than half their tactical nuclear weapons but they have not provided any concrete data on the reductions or on numbers of existing tactical nuclear arms. Likewise, the U.S. has not formally declared the number and location of its tactical nuclear weapons.
