U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Российско-Американская инициатива по предотвращению ядерного терроризма November 2018 – November 2019 newsletter Информационный бюллетень за ноябрь 2018 – ноябрь 2019 NEWS: 12th GUMO Guard Kills 8 Fellow Servicemen Russian conscript solider Ramil Shamsutdinov and the eight military servicemen whom he shot on Oct. 25, 2019 all served in Military Unit No. 54160, which is located in the closed town of Gorny and which handles nuclear warheads, according to Novaya Gazeta. The unit is part of the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense (12th GUMO), which is in charge of storing and servicing Russia’s nuclear arsenal, according to this Russian weekly. According to Kommersant, however, Shamsutdinov and his victims all served in military unit No. 14258. The mission of unit No. 14258 is to provide security and logistical support to other units located in Gorny, including a 12th GUMO base, which stores and issues nuclear warheads, according to the daily. Kommersant cited sources in Shamsutdinov’s unit that say he may have fallen victim to hazing by other servicemen. While only 12th GUMO officers reportedly have access to the warheads, the aforementioned directorate has continued to rely on conscripts for some of its rank-and-file. Russian Nuclear Lab Workers Sentenced for Mining Bitcoin at Work A Russian court sentenced engineer Andrei Rybkin to three years and three months in prison for using one of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers at a secret nuclear laboratory in the Nizhny Novgorod region city of Sarov to mine Bitcoin. The Sarov city court published Rybkin’s conviction of illegally accessing computer information, violating computer operation rules and spreading a harmful computer virus. The verdict was reported by The Moscow Times on Oct. 25, 2019. Rybkin’s accomplice, an employee of the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov named Denis Baykov, was fined the equivalent of $7,000 for the same offense, but avoided jail time, according to Newsweek. Prosecutors: Flawed Security at 3 Nuclear Waste Sites in Northern Russia The Murmansk branch of the Prosecutor General’s Office has won a suit in a local court to require Northwest Radioactive Waste Management Center SevRAO to boost physical security of radioactive waste, including spent fuel from submarines, Kommersant reported on Sept. 10, 2019. The local prosecutor’s office had earlier inspected SevRAO’s facilities at Andreyeva Guba, Sayda-Guba and Gremikha, establishing that anti-terrorism measures and the physical protection of radiation sources stored at these facilities was insufficient, according to the daily. 1 Goal of the Initiative: Contribute to improved joint U.S.-Russian assessment of the threat of nuclear terrorism and concepts, strategy, and actions to prevent a successful nuclear attack by terrorists. U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Российско-Американская инициатива по предотвращению ядерного терроризма November 2018 – November 2019 newsletter Информационный бюллетень за ноябрь 2018 – ноябрь 2019 Russia’s Floating NPP to Supply Electricity by 2020 Russia’s floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, arrived in September 2019 at the port of Pevek in Chukotka after sailing 4,700 kilometers from Murmansk. The NPP is reportedly to begin supplying electricity by 2020. Akademik Lomonosov Counter-Terrorism Training at Russian Nuclear Facilities Russia’s power agencies have conducted a number of counter-terrorism exercises at nuclear facilities or closed towns hosting such facilities in 2018-2019, according to the September 2019 issue of Russian Nuclear Security Update put out by Dmitry Kovchegin. These included an exercise at the Angarsk Integrated Electrolysis Chemical Plant in January 2018, an exercise at a nuclear icebreaker operated by Atomflot in April 2018, an exercise in the closed town of Snezhinsk in August 2018, an exercise at the Afrikantov OKBM Mechanical Engineering enterprise in February 2019 and an exercise at the AEM-technology company in June 2019. Rosatom Academy Designated as Collaborating Center by IAEA The IAEA and Rosatom signed an agreement in September 2019, officially designating Rosatom Technical Academy as a Collaborating Center in the field of Nuclear Security Knowledge Management and Human Resource Development, according to the September 2019 issue of Russian Nuclear Security Update put out by Dmitry Kovchegin. More than 1,100 specialists from 67 IAEA Member States have participated in training courses taught by the academy’s Global Institute of Nuclear Safety and Security since 2004, according to Rosatom’s site. Spent Fuel to Be Removed from Research Reactors in Moscow and St. Petersburg The Kurchatov Institute National Research Center in Moscow and the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute will have the spent fuel produced by their research reactors over the course of 70 years removed, according to an Interfax report cited in the August 2019 issue of Russian Nuclear Security Update. The fuel will be transferred to the Mayak nuclear processing facility in the Chelyabinsk region and the removal will take three years, according to the report. 2 Goal of the Initiative: Contribute to improved joint U.S.-Russian assessment of the threat of nuclear terrorism and concepts, strategy, and actions to prevent a successful nuclear attack by terrorists. U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Российско-Американская инициатива по предотвращению ядерного терроризма November 2018 – November 2019 newsletter Информационный бюллетень за ноябрь 2018 – ноябрь 2019 Ambassador Timerbaev Commemorated Ambassador Roland Timerbaev—who passed away in mid-August 2019—was “a true giant— both as an arms controller and as a human being,” Harvard Kennedy School Professor Matthew Bunn wrote in Arms Control in September 2019. From the 1950s, Timerbaev directly supported Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on nuclear weapons issues and became best known for his key role in negotiating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, according to Professor Bunn. Ambassador Timerbaev was “deeply committed to promoting a world in which people could live without the specter of nuclear war and nuclear weapons,” according to William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Test of a Russian Nuclear-Powered Missile Kills Five, Causes Radiation to Spike An August 2019 explosion at Russia’s State Central Navy Testing Range near the Arkhangelsk region’s settlement of Nyonoksa killed five Russian scientists and caused radiation levels to spike. Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently told the families of the victims that the scientists were testing an "unparalleled" weapon, according to Newsweek. Russia’s state meteorological agency Rosgridromet said in a statement on Aug. 26 that it found strontium, barium and lanthanum in air and precipitation test samples in nearby Severodvinsk, but added that there was no danger to the public at large. The Arkhangelsk regional administration said on that 110 medical workers who helped treat victims of the blast have undergone checks and one man was found with a low amount of radioactive cesium-137 in his muscle tissue, according to AP. International experts believe the explosion involved the Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile, which NATO calls the SSC-X-9 Skyfall. “The United States has determined that the explosion … was the result of a nuclear reaction that occurred during the recovery of a Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno told a United Nations committee on Oct. 10, 2019 according to prepared remarks. Russians View Terrorists as Third Most Probable Source of Nuclear Attack When it comes to a nuclear attack on Russia, Russians view terrorist organizations as one of the most likely sources of such an attack. This follows from a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center in August 2019. The nation-wide poll revealed that some 60 percent of respondents said the U.S. poses the “greatest threat to Russia related to the use of nuclear weapons,” while 13 percent named China, according to the results released on Aug. 6, 2019. Some 11 percent named ISIS or another terrorist organization, while 6 percent chose the U.K. and 5 percent believe it could be NATO countries, according to the poll, which allowed multiple answers to this question. Some 72 percent of those questioned believe “almost no one” will survive a nuclear war, according to the poll. Explosion at Russian Nuclear Vessel Kills 14 Fourteen Russian navy servicemen were killed in a fire on board a Russian Defense Ministry nuclear-powered research vessel off Russia's Arctic coast on July 1, 2019. Of the 14 casualties, 3 Goal of the Initiative: Contribute to improved joint U.S.-Russian assessment of the threat of nuclear terrorism and concepts, strategy, and actions to prevent a successful nuclear attack by terrorists. U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Российско-Американская инициатива по предотвращению ядерного терроризма November 2018 – November 2019 newsletter Информационный бюллетень за ноябрь 2018 – ноябрь 2019 seven held the rank of captain 1st rank and two had received the Hero of Russia award. An unnamed source in the security forces told the RBC news website the incident took place on the AS-31 Losharik, a secretive deep-sea nuclear submarine. The submarine is powered by a single five-megawatt nuclear reactor. CNS Reports on Incidents Involving Nuclear and Radioactive Materials The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) counted 156 incidents of nuclear or other radioactive materials outside of regulatory control occurring in 23 countries in 2018. Since CNS began tracking incidents in 2013, researchers have identified a total of 1,040 incidents in 58 countries, according to a July 2019 report, which CNS produced for the Nuclear Threat Initiative and which the latter released on July 24, 2019. IPNT Survey Participants on Need for Countering Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and Preventing Nuclear Terrorism The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism and Russia Matters project conducted a joint survey of U.S.