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LOCATION:   Postavaya Bay between the cities of Sovetskaya Gavan and Vanino
SUBORDINATION: Ministry of Defense
ACTIVITIES:
This facility began as a conventional submarine base, but docks and necessary equipment were installed in the early 1980s for handling nuclear submarines. In 1982, four first-generation nuclear submarines (two November and two Echo I SSNs, built in 1959, 1960, 1962, and 1963, respectively) were transferred to Zavety Ilyicha and began operating out of the base during the ice-free months. These four submarines were retired in 1990, and the facility has since then served primarily as a holding area for decommissioned nuclear and diesel submarines.[1,2]  However, some of the reactors on the decommissioned nuclear submarines hold damaged spent fuel, and Russia is ill-equipped to deal with this fuel.[5]
 
In the summer of 1990, local residents conducted demonstrations to protest government plans to offload nuclear fuel from the decommissioned submarines in the bay and to store the hulls at the base.  These plans were canceled, and the Pacific Fleet committed itself to removing one nuclear submarine from Zavety Ilyicha per year beginning in 1991.  The first was removed in October 1993.[1]  As of 1995, however, three still remained at the facility.[2]  
 
In mid-1997, Rensselaer Lee reported in an article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that 7kg of HEU was stolen from Zavety Ilyicha in January 1996 and that 2.5kg of the same material later appeared at a metals trading firm in Kaliningrad.[3]  Lee subsequently noted in another publication that the material allegedly taken from Zavety Ilyicha was spent fuel, not fresh.[4]  Given the history of activities at the base, especially the fact that defueling activities were at one point scheduled to take place here, any material at the base or diverted from it would likely be spent fuel.  There are no other reports available in the open literature that confirm the type of material or that a diversion of material ever occurred here.  (For more information on nuclear smuggling cases, please see the NIS Trafficking Database.)
Sources:
[1] Joshua Handler, "Russia's Pacific Fleet: Submarine Bases and Facilities," Jane's Intelligence Review, April 1994, p. 170.
[2] Report by V.A. Danilian and V.L. Vysotsky, cited in Joshua Handler, "The Russian Naval Nuclear Complex," in Busmann, Meier, and Nassauer, eds., The Nuclear Legacy of the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Security and Ecology, BITS Research Report 97.1, November 1997, p. 33.
[3] Rensselaer W. Lee III, "Smuggling Update," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May-June 1997, pp. 52-56. {Updated 7/27/99 JET}
[4] Rensselaer W. Lee III, Smuggling Armagedon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), p. 119. {Revised 10/27/99 TR}
[5] James Clay Moltz, "Trip Report: Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, Russia," 15-22 October 1999, RUS991015. {Updated 11/18/99 TR}
 
ZAVETY ILYICHA DEVELOPMENTS: 
 
4/11/2001: SSNS AT ZAVETY ILYICHA HEAD FOR DISMANTLEMENT
For more information see the 4/11/2001 entry in the Pacific Fleet General Developments section.

  Page last updated 23 July 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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