nuclear-news

 This week’s arrests are the result of a coordinated four-month operation that involved police in the U.S., Germany, and Ukraine, Briceag says. The U.S. spends close to $2 billion a year on anti-proliferation, both monitoring and policing the underground trade in loose nukes……..

 At the same time, Russian nuclear specialists have been quick to pour cold water both on suggestions that the material was in fact HEU and on claims by Moldovan police that the material may ultimately be traceable to Russia.

……… Gudkov recounts how nuclear specialists came to see him as recently as 2009 to express concern about continued theft of low-grade uranium from supposedly secure facilities. The scientists told him that empty “containers of low enriched uranium can sometimes be found discarded at bus stops” near their facility. “We did take additional measures and improved the law on the security of radioactive materials in 2004,” says Gudkov, “but apparently it was not enough.”

Concerning the case in Moldova, the difference is significant between unenriched uranium, which contains between 1 and 7 percent of the weapons-grade uranium 235, and the highly enriched variant, known as HEU, which is up to 90 percent pure. Ordinary uranium is certainly radioactive, and could cause contamination if mixed with conventional explosives—a so-called dirty bomb. Enriched to 20 percent, it can be used as fuel in nuclear reactors. But find 20 kilos of 90 percent pure HEU and you can build a real nuclear warhead, according to Maxim Shingarkin, a former major in the Russian military’s secretive 12th Department, which is in charge of strategic nukes, and now an independent expert on nuclear and radioactive materials. That about a kilo is at issue in Moldova makes talk of a warhead far off, but it is hardly harmless.

As it stands, there’s a lot in the case that doesn’t add up……..

Georgian police reported another alleged group of Russian nuclear traffickers in 2010, and smugglers carrying over a kilo of low-enriched uranium were arrested in Moldova the same year. It’s not clear if these incidents are related to Wednesday’s arrests.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/30/uranium-smuggling-arrests-in-moldova-revive-security-debate.html