To return to the main Pacific Fleet entry, see the Pacific Fleet file

LOCATION:
Rakushka, northern end of Vladimir Bay, approximately 300km northeast of Vladivostok
SUBORDINATION: Ministry of Defense
ACTIVITIES:
Although nuclear-powered submarines no longer operate out of Rakushka, it is still home to a number of diesel submarines. 
 
In 1990, due to strong opposition by local residents, the Pacific Fleet gave up plans to offload spent nuclear submarine fuel at Rakushka.  A 1994 Komsomolskaya pravda news report described two 1994 visits to the area by a commission from the Primorskiy Kray Administration. Inspectors found seven virtually unguarded nuclear submarines "brimful with nuclear fuel." Systems for monitoring the submarines were deficient. Ordinary domestic heaters were used to regulate the temperature inside the submarines.  Rakushka had not been entered on the list of facilities immune to power cutoffs, and power outages lasting up to several hours were common. The report placed the blame for the dangerous conditions at the facility on a Navy Main Staff directive, which disbanded the subunit responsible for material and technical support and cut funds for its radiation control service.[1]
 
An April 1996 news report noted that decommissioned submarines at Rakushka in Vladimir Bay were losing buoyancy, and that the bow of one first-generation submarine was beached to avoid sinking.[2] According to a May 1996 news report citing Chief of the Pacific Fleet’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Service Captain Valeriy Danilyan, there are seven submarines at Rakushka awaiting dismantlement.[3] However, as of October 1999 some of the reactors on these decommissioned nuclear submarines reportedly held damaged spent fuel, and Russia is ill-equipped to deal with this fuel.[4]  According to one US source, all vessels were removed from Rakushka to Pavlovsk Bay in the late 1990s.[5]  However, Russian sources are silent on the matter.
Sources:
[1] Natalya Barabash, "Will ‘Trestles’ Save the Nuclear Fleet?", Komsomlskaya pravda, 15 December 1994, p. 3; in "Undrained Submarine Reactors Pose ‘Mortal’ Risk," FBIS-SOV-94-242, 16 December 1994.
[2] Interfax, 15 April 1996; in "Official on Funds Needed To Dispose of Nuclear Submarines," FBIS-TEN-96-005, 15 April 1996.
[3] Samail Temirbiyev, "Ships Attacking...the Sea. Far East Waters Are Being Turned Into Nuclear Waste Burial Ground," Trud (Moscow), 7 May 1996, p. 2; in "Maritime Kray Could Be ‘Atomic Graveyard,’" FBIS-TEN-96-006, 7 May 1996.
[4] James Clay Moltz, "Trip Report: Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, Russia," 15-22 October 1999, RUS991015. {Updated 11/18/99 TR}
[5] NISNP discussions with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientist, May 2000, RUS000501.{Updated 8/16/2001 CC}

Page last updated 16 August 2001
 

Comments or questions? Contact Cristina Chuen at MIIS CNS: Cristina.Chuen@miis.edu

This material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2002 by MIIS.

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