Blog Post
On September 20, 1998 a Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) sergeant at the
Mayak facility, where over 30 tons of separated weapons-usable civilian
plutonium is stored, shot two of his MVD comrades and wounded another
before escaping with an assault rifle and ammunition. The incident
reportedly led President Yeltsin to order a review of nuclear security at
the site.
In September, a U.S. team visiting the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow was
shown a building containing 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium -
potentially enough for several nuclear bombs - that was totally unguarded,
because the Institute could not afford the $200-a-month salary for a guard.
At some nuclear facilities, MVD guards have left their posts to forage for
food. Others have been reluctant to patrol facility perimeters because they
did not have winter uniforms to keep them warm on patrol. At some
facilities, recently installed security equipment is not being used because
there is no money to maintain it; at others, guards who had not been paid
in months were expected to man unheated posts in sub-freezing conditions.
At some facilities, entire security systems - alarms, surveillance cameras,
portal monitors, etc. - have been shut down because the facilities''
electricity was cut off for non-payment of bills.
At other facilities, guards have intentionally turned off alarm systems, or even cut their cables, because they were annoyed by frequent false alarms.
In early September, Minister of Atomic Energy Evgeniy Adamov told nuclear
workers protesting months of unpaid wages that the government owed the
ministry over $170 million and had not provided a single ruble in two months
Some 47,000 unpaid nuclear workers joined in protests at various locations
around the country, over what the nuclear workers'' trade union said was
over $400 million in back wages to workers in the nuclear sector.
In August, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev issued an order to all military
officers to "look for additional sources [of sustenance for the winter] and
assume personal control." The Defense Ministry announced that trips would
be organized for all soldiers and officers to take to the fields to harvest
mushrooms, berries, and other sources of food for the winter. In the Far
East region of Khabarovsk, the territorial administration has reportedly
stopped providing bread to Far East military units, due to non-payment of
debts.
On October 9, General Igor Volynkin, commander of the 12th Main Directorate
of the Ministry of Defense, in charge of security for nuclear weapons, told
a press conference that Russia was fully capable of protecting its nuclear
weapons, but acknowledged that the directorate''s troops had not been given
any higher priority in receiving pay than other troops, that they had
received the paychecks due them only through July, and that the directorate
was helping officers to get vegetables and potatoes for the winter in lieu
of cash.
On September 5, five soldiers from the 12th Main Directorate at Novaya
Zemlya - Russia''s only nuclear weapons test site - killed a guard at the
facility, took another guard hostage and tried to hijack an aircraft. After
seizing more hostages, they were disarmed by other Ministry of Defense
forces and Federal Security Service commandos.
On September 11, a 19-year-old sailor went on a rampage in Murmansk,
killing seven people with a chisel and an AK-47 assault rifle aboard an
Akula-class nuclear-attack submarine. He then barricaded himself for 20
hours in the torpedo bay and threatened to blow up the submarine, with its
nuclear reactor. Finally, he reportedly committed suicide. Russian
officials insisted there were no nuclear weapons on board at the time.
On October 12, Sergei Ushakov, a spokesman for Russia''s Chief Military
Prosecutor''s Office, reported that some 20 servicemen serving in the
Strategic Rocket Forces were discharged during 1997-1998 after being
diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, and that some of these were
responsible for guarding nuclear arsenals. The office issued a report
indicating the Strategic Rocket Forces, of all the services in Russia''s
military, had the most rapid increase in its crime rate, 25 percent higher
in 1997 than in 1996.
In late October, a Strategic Rocket Forces officer at a base for the
Topol-M ICBMs - the most modern weapons in the Russian strategic force -
was quoted on Russian television as saying that he had received his pay
only through July, despite promises that back wages would be paid in
October.
In early October, Russian customs reportedly intercepted 5 "Hip C" assault
transport helicopters with weapons pods, apparently stolen by military
officers, bound for North Korea. The helicopters, valued at $300,000 each,
were reportedly being sold for $20,000 apiece.
On September 3, Russian radio reported that the mayor of Krasnoyarsk-45,
one of Russia''s closed "nuclear cities," where enough HEU for hundreds or
thousands of bombs is located, had written to Krasnoyarsk Governor
Alexander Lebed and Atomic Energy Minister Evgeniy Adamov warning that
unless urgent action was taken, a social explosion in the city was
unavoidable, as a cutoff in payments from the Atomic Ministry''s bank meant
that public sector workers had not been paid at all in August, and even
basic medical supplies could not be purchased.
In September, at the closed Siberian nuclear city of Krasnoyarsk-26, home
to enough plutonium for hundreds or thousands of nuclear bombs, the heat
was shut off for weeks, because lack of money delayed shipments of fuel to
the reactor that heats the city, and workers staged a protest over unpaid
wages at the plutonium processing facility. Shortly before this incident,
the facility director wrote to Ministry of Atomic Energy headquarters in
Moscow, warning that "wage payments are three months behind schedule...The
social tension in the shops and factories has reached the critical level,
and its consequences are unpredictable."
On November 19, 3,000 workers staged a one-day strike over unpaid wages at
Chelyabinsk-70, one of Russia''s premier nuclear weapons design
laboratories, complaining of "constant undernourishment, insufficient
medical service, inability to buy clothing and footwear for children or to
pay for their education."
This memo by Matthew Bunn, Assistant Director of the Science, Technology,
and Public Policy Program, was published in abbreviated form as "Some
Horror Stories Since July," in The Boston Globe (December 29, 1998). Please
visit the publications area of http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/bcsia to see a
footnoted version - and for updates to this list.