Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/23/2015
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project will not be impacted by the recent Russian decision to suspend cooperation with the United States on nuclear security work, National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Derrick Robinson said this week. Russia informed the United States in December that it was cancelling all nuclear security cooperation programs with the U.S., according to a Boston Globe article published Jan. 19. The decision, sparked by increased tensions between the two countries over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, ends a two-decade relationship that has seen the United States spend billions of dollars to strengthen security at Russian nuclear sites, dismantle Russian weapons, and train Russian officials.
But like the New START Treaty, the parallel MOX programs in the United States and Russia will continue uninterrupted, Robinson said. The U.S. MOX program, which aims to turn 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel, is governed by the U.S.-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement. “The United States continues to cooperate with Russia on the disposition of surplus weapon-grade plutonium,” Robinson said.
A Deteriorating Relationship
Pentagon nuclear security work in Russia under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program had already been cut off prior to the recent news, but Russia’s latest move affects NNSA work in the country, and will mean that security upgrades at seven closed nuclear cities will be cancelled, the Globe reported. Work on 18 civilian facilities that hold nuclear material also was halted Jan. 1, as was a project to downblend highly enriched uranium at two separate facilities.
Robinson confirmed that Russia was ending cooperative activities under the protocol to the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation, an agreement that governed cooperative work at Russian weapons facilities and most Rosatom civilian sites. Also impacted, Robinson said, are DOE efforts to help strengthen security at border crossings and ports, as well as cooperation to downblend highly enriched uranium.
Russia Says Work Will Continue Without U.S. Cooperation
Robinson said Russia has “assured U.S. counterparts that any remaining work will be completed with Russian budgetary funds.” In a statement, Rosatom confirmed that it would proceed with planned security work. “The Russian Federation strictly follows all international standards and regulations for nuclear and radiation safety, as well as for nuclear materials security on its territory,” Rosatom said in a statement. “All the necessary actions are performed with administrative and financial support from the Government of the Russian Federation. We are firmly convinced that the use of nuclear energy is a strategic area with very long life cycles. It cannot and should not depend on situational changes of political environment. We will be ready to return to the cooperation when the American side is ready for that, and, certainly, strictly on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and respect.”
Robinson said aside from work on MOX, some nuclear security efforts will continue, including technical exchanges. He said Rosatom will allow technical cooperation through 2018 with organizations focused on radiological source security efforts, and work to repatriate Russian-origin highly enriched uranium will continue. “Furthermore, bilateral exchanges on important topics such as nuclear security culture, transportation security, training, and regulatory development will continue,” Robinson said.
While Russia has said it intends to complete the nuclear security work on its own, experts this week expressed worry about Moscow’s ability to follow through. “The Russians say they are going to put a lot more of their resources into this,” former Sen. Sam Nunn, the co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, told the Globe. “That would be good news if they do, but with their economic challenges now and with the huge distrust built because of Ukraine and the deterioration of the ruble, the proof will be in the pudding.”
‘The Work Remains Incomplete’
Will Tobey, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said U.S. and Russian nonproliferation and nuclear security cooperation over the last two decades made the world safer, but much more needs to be done. “While nuclear security is vastly better than it was in the early 1990s, the work remains incomplete, and much of it is at risk of deterioration,” Tobey said. “Moscow’s decision late last year effectively to end this cooperation, and Washington’s failure to anticipate it and to forestall it, leave the world more vulnerable to the danger that terrorists might steal fissile material or nuclear weapons, even as we are seeing new and more vicious groups emerge.”
Matt Bunn, a professor of practice at Harvard’s Kennedy School, called on the United States to work to keep the lines of communication open and build a new model for cooperation. “Keeping up a dialogue and spirit of cooperation among technical experts is key—from the Cold War to today, such personal relationships among scientists and experts have often paved the way for solving problems,” he said. “It’s time to build a new kind of cooperation—a partnership among equals, not a donor-recipient relationship.”
