Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Russia Still To Unload Nuclear Fuel From 50 Submarines

23 November 2005 -- A senior official at the Russian nuclear atomic energy agency, Rosatom, says Russia still has to unload nuclear fuel from 50 decommissioned submarines.

Sergei Antipov, Rosatom deputy director, said Russia has so far decommissioned 195 nuclear submarines of its Northern and Pacific Fleets and that nuclear fuel has been unloaded from 145 of them.

Antipov, speaking on a visit to Tokyo, said Russia and Japan agreed that Japan will help Russia dismantle five nuclear submarines decommissioned from the Pacific Fleet at the cost of 5 to 15 million dollars per submarine. He said Japan was ready to allocate 100 million dollars for dismantling submarines and another 100 million for dismantling the Russian weapon-grade plutonium.

Antipov said Russia has invited Japan to join the construction of a long-term storage facility for nuclear reactors from dismantled Russian submarines in the sea port of Vladivostok.

(ITAR-TASS/BBC monitoring)

Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org