Wagner Group mercenaries entered a Russian nuclear base where they hoped to steal backpack-sized nuclear weapons to use as bargaining chips during their short-lived mutiny last month, Ukraine’s chief spymaster Kyrylo Budanov told Reuters in a recent interview.
U.S. and other Western officials insist that Wagner mercenaries were never within reach of Russian nuclear weapons during the brief uprising. The Kremlin also denies Budanov’s version of events, Politico reports.
But Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate, told Reuters that the only barrier between Wagner fighters and nuclear weapons were the doors to the nuclear storage facility. “The doors of the storage were closed and they didn’t get into the technical section,” he said. Budanov said the mercenaries’ target was Voronezh-45 — a well-guarded facility that purportedly stores small, Soviet-era nuclear bombs that can be carried by a single person in a backpack.
Former Honeywell executive James (J.C.) Epting will remain at the Savannah River Site, jumping to Huntington Ingalls Industries to remain with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions now that Honeywell has sold its stake in the site prime contractor.
Epting said via LinkedIn on Sunday that he joined Huntington Ingalls as a senior vice president for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the Fluor-led joint venture from which Honeywell recently divested itself.
The Aiken-based Epting was Honeywell’s senior vice president for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) operations and programs at Savannah River from July 2022 through June 2023. He has taken a senior vice president job for Huntington Ingalls at SRNS.
Stuart MacVean, the president and CEO of Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, plans to retire in a few weeks, he said in a Monday memo to employees.
“Although I’ll be around for a few more weeks, I bid a fond farewell and I leave with the confidence of knowing that SRNS’s [Savannah River Nuclear Solution’s] future will be in the capable hands of this executive team and my successor, who will be named shortly,” MacVean said in the email to employees, which was viewed by Exchange Monitor.
A 40-year veteran of the nuclear industry, MacVean joined SRNS in 2016 after having previously been vice president of operations for the Fluor government group’s environmental and nuclear business line, according to the contractor’s online biography.
The top diplomats of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the U.S. — collectively the G7 — and the High Representative of the European Union, formally condemn North Korea’s “brazen launch” of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 12, as well as another the launch using ballistic missile technology on May 31 and the launches of two ballistic missiles on June 15, 2023.
“North Korea continues to expand its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities and to escalate its destabilizing activities,” the G7 said in a July 13 statement. “These launches pose a grave threat to regional and international peace and stability, and undermine the global non-proliferation regime. They are a flagrant violation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs), which prohibit North Korea from conducting any further launches that use ballistic missile technology. We once again call on North Korea to refrain from any other provocative actions.”
The G7 diplomats demanded that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs, and any other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs in a “complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner.” They reiterated that North Korea “cannot and will never have the status of a nuclear-weapon state” under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
MD Corp (VMD) won a $29 million contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Associate Administrator for Information Management and Chief Information Officer to provide information technology and cybersecurity assessments.
VMD will provide cybersecurity expertise and strategic advisory services to deliver Governance & Oversight across the Nuclear Security Enterprise to enable the goal of effective information and data management for the Office of Mission Integration, the agency said.
Under the five-year contract, VMD will work to strengthen NNSA’s security posture by providing Information Technology and Operational Technology cyber assessments, enterprise project management office expertise, governance, enterprise policy advisory, and implementation support, the agency said.
President Joe Biden marked National Atomic Veterans Day on Friday with an official White House proclamation.
“The dawn of the nuclear age is familiar to many — the development of new science, but also new risks and destruction, as witnessed by the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the lesser-known story is that of the members of our Armed Forces who participated in nuclear tests from 1945 to 1962 or were exposed to radioactive material at home and abroad — our courageous Atomic Veterans,” Biden wrote in the proclamation. “Today, we remember their service and sacrifice and recommit to ensuring they receive the benefits and care they deserve.”
Hosted by the Atomic Museum, Dorothy Oppenheimer Vanderford and Charles Oppenheimer are scheduled to discuss their grandfather, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy at the Beverly Theater in Las Vegas on July 27.
The pair also will discuss their grandfather’s portrayal, and that of his quest for the atomic bomb, in the new Christopher Nolan-helmed biopic scheduled for release on July 21.
Tickets were $35 per person and, alas, are sold out. But the museum recommends checking its website periodically to see if more have become available. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were scheduled for 6 p.m. The conversation begins at 7 p.m. The Beverly Theater is at 515 South 6th Street in downtown Las Vegas.
