MOSCOW, May 25: As global concerns grow over the increase in smuggling of highly dangerous nuclear material in former Soviet Union, smugglers have once again disappeared with six stolen containers of radioactive material in the Russian city of Volgograd.The Russian police have been on the hunt for over two weeks without results.The six containers with the highly radioactive isotope Cesium-137, were stolen from a LU Koil oil refinery in Volgograd, forcing regional authorities to mobilise hundreds of police and security agents to look for the containers.
Police officials fear that the thieves might try to smuggle the radioactive material out of Russia for sale.
In a similar case in 1994, a group of six men stole containers from Volgograd's Khimvolokono chemical plant, in order to sell the Cesium abroad. But the police arrested them and seized the containers before it left Russia.
Commenting on the report, Georgy Kaurov, spokesman for the Russian Atomic Power Ministry, dismissed the suggestion thatthere was a demand for Cesium-137 on the international black market, because, according to him, it could not be used for making nuclear weapons.
Recently, Western countries, specially the US and Germany, have repeatedly voiced concern about safety and proper inventory of nuclear material at Russia's nuclear storage facilities.
Russian officials have admitted that these facilities have no full-proof devices to detect thefts. ``The lack of an inventory makes it extremely difficult to draw up reliable statistics on the amount of nuclear material that disappears,'' Kaurov said.
According to Russia's General Prosecutor's Office, there were at least 10 thefts of radioactive material from 1991 to 1994, including a much-publicised case when about 358.4 grams of Plutonium-239 was seized by German security services on a Moscow-Munich flight.
A recent report by the US General Accounting Office said, an estimated 1,400 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium produced by the former Soviet Union, are ``highlyattractive to thieves'' because of the outdated security measures and poor records.
Even Russia's former security czar, Gen Alexander Lebed, who was recently elected Governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, has in the past months spoken of ``100 suit-cases'' of missing nuclear material.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
