U.S./Russian Cooperative Efforts to Enhance Nuclear Material Protection, Control, and Accounting at the All Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF), Chelyabinsk-70

The All Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF) is one of the major sites in the nuclear weapons complex in Russia. The site contains a number of research facilities which use nuclear material as well as assembly, disassembly, and testing of prototypes (pilot samples) of nuclear weapons. VNIITF also has ties to the major nuclear materials production facilities in the Urals region of Russia. Under the U.S./Russian Materials Protection Control and Accounting (MPC&A) cooperative program between the US Department of Energy and Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy, enhanced safeguards systems have been implemented at a reactor test area called the Pulse Research Reactor Facility (PRR). The area contains three pulse reactors with associated storage areas. The integrated MPC&A system at the PRR was demonstrated to US and Russian audiences in May, 1998. Expansion of work into several new facilities is underway. C-70 has developed an extensive computerized system that integrates the physical security alarm station with elements of the nuclear material control system. Under the MPC&A program, the existing systems have been augmented with Russian and US technologies. This paper will describe the work completed at the PRR, and the on-going activities and cooperative effort between the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Brookhaven US Department of Energy National Laboratories in support of VNIITF.