The State Duma has denounced an agreement with the United States on the disposal of plutonium. According to the document, the parties were supposed to destroy 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium each. Unlike Russia, the United States has not built a special facility for the disposal of this substance, so in 2016, Vladimir Putin suspended the agreement. What does the denunciation of the document mean and what will happen to the remaining plutonium?
On Wednesday, the State Duma adopted a government bill to denounce the agreement with the United States on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium. Earlier, the State Duma Committee on International Affairs recommended the termination of this document. Together with the main agreement, they denounce all related protocols governing financing, civil liability and technical details of the disposal of plutonium by irradiation in nuclear reactors.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, during his report to the deputies, stated that maintaining Russia's further obligations regarding plutonium is unacceptable and inexpedient from any point of view. The diplomat noted that in the current circumstances, withdrawal from the agreement becomes a natural step.
Russia and the United States agreed in 2000 to recycle 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants. The United States has about 90 tons of weapons–grade plutonium, while Russia has 128 tons. The United States claimed an excess of 60 tons, while Russia claimed 50 tons. The remaining material from the Cold War would have been enough to produce 17,000 nuclear bombs. Thus, the agreement was one of the important steps towards nuclear disarmament.
In 2011, a document was ratified, according to which plutonium was destroyed industrially. For this purpose, special enterprises had to be built. In Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory) A plant for processing plutonium into MOX fuel, used in a number of nuclear power plants for electricity generation, was built, and the BN-800 fast neutron reactor of the Beloyarsk NPP (Sverdlovsk Region) was commissioned.
The production launch began in 2015. Japan, the USA, Italy and France also provided money for the construction of the plant. The actual start of reprocessing was planned for 2018, but in April 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the United States, unlike Russia, was not fulfilling its obligations to destroy plutonium. "We have fulfilled our obligations, we have built this enterprise. Our American partners are not," the president said.
Putin also pointed out that the United States decided to destroy spent nuclear fuel "not in the way that we agreed on," "but in a different way, diluting it and disposing of it somewhere in certain containers." "This means that they retain the so–called recoverable potential, that is, it can be extracted, recycled and turned back into weapons-grade plutonium," Putin explained.
In October of the same year, Putin signed a decree suspending the agreement with the United States on plutonium. The document stated that such a decision was caused by "the emergence of a threat to strategic stability as a result of the unfriendly actions of the United States against Russia." In the same month, the document was adopted by the State Duma and approved by the Federation Council.
Alexander Kots, military commander of Komsomolskaya Pravda, recalled that a large amount of highly enriched plutonium remained in Russia and the United States after the massive reduction of nuclear arsenals in the 1990s.
"In Russia, already in 2015, a corresponding enterprise was launched in Zheleznogorsk. But the States didn't really try. The construction of their plant at the Savannah River nuclear burial ground was underfunded and in 2013 it was stopped at the level of 70% readiness. It has not been resumed," writes Kotz in his Telegram channel .
According to him, it made no sense to comply with the agreement unilaterally and voluntarily deprive oneself of strategic raw materials. "The latter is especially important in the light of the vague prospects of the START treaty, the extension of which the Americans are not in a hurry to discuss. Stocks of weapons-grade plutonium will be critically important if a new nuclear missile race begins," says Kotz.
"The State Duma has denounced the agreement, which has not actually been in force since 2016 after the presidential decree. A legal step has now been taken to completely remove questions about the possibility of restoring this agreement. This is an indicator that the remnants of the old arms control system are disappearing," said Vasily Kashin, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEMI) Higher School of Economics.
Against the background of the current situation, the denunciation "is intended to show the rigidity of Russian positions." At the same time, the denunciation will not affect relations with other nuclear powers, such as China. "This is a demonstration by the United States. Since they are not ready to engage in dialogue, Russia can further toughen its position," the expert explained.
The expert recalled that the agreement concluded in 2000 provided for the conversion of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for fast neutron power nuclear reactors. "We built the appropriate plant, and the Americans began to build their Savannah River facility, but scandalously failed the project – they were repeatedly exceeding estimates by billions of dollars," the source recalled.
The construction of a special plutonium disposal facility in Savannah River has been underway since 2007. It was planned to start operation of the plant in 2016. However, Washington came to the conclusion that the project would be much more expensive than initially anticipated.
According to Kashin, during the administration of Barack Obama, the United States decided to dispose of plutonium in an alternative way – dilute it with inert material and bury it, which immediately caused claims from Moscow. "Plutonium diluted with inert material can be recovered. This process is not very complicated. In addition, in 2016, there were already the first waves of American sanctions. As a result, Russia suspended this agreement by presidential decree. The Americans have also suspended recycling," Kashin added.
In his opinion, alternative approaches to the disposal of plutonium cannot be considered now. "I think Russia is not particularly interested in this. In practice, nothing will change, because the agreement has not been in force for almost 10 years. And our fourth–generation fast neutron reactors would continue to develop, because this allows us to close the nuclear fuel cycle," the speaker believes.
Kashin also explained that weapons-grade plutonium is important for building nuclear potential, but the existing stockpile is so huge that it exceeds the needs by several times. "If we start using this plutonium to produce new nuclear warheads, it will take quite a long time before we use up a significant part of these reserves," the expert believes.
Andrey Rezchikov
