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Overview: Material Protection, Control, and Accounting in Ukraine

 

Physical protection of Ukrainian nuclear facilities is provided at 8 locations: the five nuclear power plants (Chornobyl, Khmelnytsky, Rivne, Pivdenna, and Zaporizhzhya), the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research, the Sevastopol Naval Academy, and the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology. The State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy oversees physical protection at the commercial reactors, while the research reactors fall under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry for Machine Building manages physical protection of stored fissile material.[1,2] In accordance with a provision of the 1995 law On the Use of Atomic Energy in Ukraine, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety is responsible for the physical protection of nuclear material.[3] The Ministry also oversees the physical protection of nuclear material that is shipped through Ukraine, such as nuclear fuel being shipped from Russia to Eastern European reactors.[1,2]

 

Armed protection is provided at many of the nuclear facilities. Transport vehicles provided by the Internal and Escort Security Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs guard the nuclear power plants and the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology. The State Protection Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs keeps watch over the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research, and the Sevastopol Naval Academy comes under the protection of a military unit of the Ministry of Defense.[1]  The material at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology is vulnerable as it is in bulk form, rather than fuel rods or assemblies.[2]

INFRASTRUCTURE LACKING

The Ukrainian MPC&A system lacks the legislative groundwork to establish effectively procedures to detect potential threats of malicious acts; physical protection regulatory procedures; personnel security assurance procedures; rules and regulations to develop and maintain physical protection effectiveness; and procedures for security of transit shipments. In addition, on-site physical protection systems lack controlled areas within specific sites; on-line situation assessment systems in case of an alarm; protection for personnel in case of an armed attack; access restriction and registration in certain vulnerable areas; protection against transport vehicle "ram attack;" and metal and explosive detection equipment.[1]

COOPERATION WITH THE US

The United States began providing assistance to Ukraine in 1992, and Ukraine and the United States signed an MPC&A implementing agreement in December 1993.[4]  Before the Ukrainian State Committee for Nuclear and Radiation Safety was dissolved in 12/94, it served as the main point of contact for the US government on MPC&A programs in Ukraine. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy (DOE) are counterparts with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Radiation Safety in MPC&A cooperation. The DOE has already performed site surveys at the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research and the South Ukraine nuclear power plant. These two sites were chosen as models in order to address the types of problems that occur at both a research facility, with HEU enriched up to 95 percent, and at a commercial nuclear power plant with LEU. There is less than one "significant quantity" of HEU at the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research that is very poorly protected. However, there are few detection devices in place and little attention is paid to the "insider threat." In 1994, it was agreed that the United States would provide Ukraine with portable and stationary metal detectors, explosives detectors, and communications devices for the special guard forces. The US Embassy in Kiev has promised that the equipment would be delivered "in the nearest future." All this equipment is being provided under the auspices of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction MC&A and Physical Protection implementing agreement.  
Sources:
[1] Nikolai Steinberg, "Information Note of Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and Facilities," a study prepared for CISNP, 6/95.
[2] CISNP discussion with Ukrainian nuclear official, 5/18/95.
[3] Valeriy Nosko, CNS Physical Protection Seminar Report, 1996, p. 8. {Entered and revised 12/11/96 GN}
[4] Working Document to the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment Panel of the European Parliament, "Nuclear Safeguards and Nuclear Safety in the East," November 1996, p. 25. {Entered 10/3/97 JP}

 

Last Updated October 1997

Comments or questions? Contact Michael Jasinski at MIIS CNS: Michael.Jasinski@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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