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Russian backs out of nuclear security agreement

Nuclear Physicist Nils Bøhmer with the Bellona Foundation.

The most comprehensive and long-standing cooperation the U.S. has in the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions might end as Russia says no new projects are envisioned for 2015. “A big setback,” says nuclear physicist Nils Bøhmer with the Bellona Foundation.

Location

It was the New York Times that first reported that Russia has informed the United States about the plans to reduce its participation in joint efforts to secure nuclear materials at different locations in Russia.

Over the last 23 years, U.S has assisted Russia safeguarding materials that can be used to produce nuclear weapons. Also radioactive substances that could be used by terrorist groups to make “dirty-bombs” are secured under the program. 

“It would be a big setback for nuclear security in Russia if the efforts end,” says Nils Bøhmer to BarentsObserver. 

Bøhmer argues that there are still large amounts of nuclear material that need better physical protections and better control so that all such materials are fully accounted for. 

In the first years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the U.S. gave economical support and technical equipment to Zvezdochka in Severodvinsk, making the yard capable of decommissioning more than 30 of the older strategic nuclear powered submarines. Under the deal, the uranium fuel was taken out of the reactors and transported to Mayak in the South Ural where the United States and Russia cooperated on physical protection.

Other nations, like Norway and Sweden, have a long list of physical protection projects in the Murmansk region, including objects at the civilian base Atomflot, homeport for the fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers and support vessels. The run-down storage site for spent nuclear fuel in Andreeva bay, some 60 kilometers from Russia’s northern border to Norway, are today fenced in with heavy barbed wire fences and alarm systems. 

Read also: Norway cashes out for securing old nuclear hulk

Two weeks ago, Russia notified the U.S. that it will boycott an international nuclear security summit to be hosted by President Barack Obama in 2016. 

Nils Bøhmer with Bellona is one of the European experts that have followed the Russian nuclear weapon complex and civilian nuclear industries’ pursuit to improve security for longest time. Since the early 90ies, he has traveled across Russia visiting places like weapon production facilities like Mayak, Seversk and Zheleznogorsk.

“Under the current geopolitical climate, it is even more important to have cooperation projects like the U.S.-Russian nuclear security efforts, which provides an important venue for dialogue and information sharing,” Nils Bøhmer says.

“It is more important than ever to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS, or other crazy gangs,” he argues.