U.S. assistance in securing fissile materials in Russia

According to its FY2011 budget request NNSA will continue to provide sustainability support at Russian Navy, Strategic Rocket Forces, and 12th Main Directorate storage sites, as well as at Rosatom sites. In Rosatom, most of the work will be done at Arzamas-16 (Sarov), Mayak (Ozersk), and Krasnoyarsk-26 (Zheleznogorsk) (p. 375-376). MPC&A work will also be done in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan. Funding will also be used to continue engagement with India about nuclear security best practices (p. 376). All these activities are listed in the Rosatom Weapons Complex category.

In addition to the Rosatom Weapons Complex program, NNSA is planning to support security activity of the Civilian Nuclear Sites program, which improves security at 32 civilian nuclear sites (19 Russian sites and 13 sites outside of Russia). In FY2011 the program will provide sustainability support at 15 civilian nuclear sites (p. 377).

According to the budget request, sustainability support is not being provided to four Russian civilian sites because three sites have withdrawn from cooperation and all of the highly attractive nuclear material has been transferred from the fourth site (p. 377).

The budget request does not specify which three sites have withdrawn from the program. The one site from which the material has been removed is also not listed. It is probably the Krylov Central Scientific Research Institute in St.-Petersburg. (For information on facilities in Russia, see the IPFM research report Consolidating Fissile Materials in Russia's Nuclear Complex.)

The Material Conversion and Consolidation program is expected to convert an additional 0.9 tonnes of Russian HEU in FY2011 for the cumulative total of 13.5 tonnes. The program plans to convert the total of 17 tonnes of HEU by the end of FY2015.

Finally, Russia is expected to shut down its last weapon-grade plutonium production reactor, ADE-2 in Zheleznogorsk. The firm date for the reactor shutdown is December 2010, although there is high-level Russian Federation commitment to shut down the reactor in July 2010 (pp. 386, 389). The U.S. Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production program provided funds for the replacement power station. The reactor was shut down in May 2009, but then resumed operations in September 2009.