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Abstract:

Federal troops have placed the Grozny branch of Radon under special guard, Interfax reported on 18 January 2000.  The facility, located on the outskirts of Grozny (Groznyy), operated until 1990 as a disposal site for used radioactive isotope sources from all over the North Caucasus region of Russia. A spokesman for the federal troops, who have been engaged in fierce fighting with Chechen rebels in Grozny for several weeks, explained that the facility was placed under special guard 'in order to avoid any complications during the antiterrorist operation.' In November 1999, as federal troops approached Grozny, Russian media reported that Khattab, a Chechen rebel field commander, had threatened to build a camp on the waste storage site at the facility, presumably in order to protect rebel troops from air attack and artillery bombardment (see abstract 19990890.) Interfax reported that a 1995 survey of the Grozny branch of Radon, carried out by an interagency commission appointed by the Russian government, had concluded that security and inventory procedures and equipment at the facility did not meet required safety standards. [Since Russian troops left Chechnya in 1996 and did not return until September 1999, it is probable that Russian experts have not had access to the site since 1996. Since Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for burying a container of cesium-137 in Ismailovskiy Park in Moscow in 1995, Russian officials and analysts have repeatedly expressed concern that Chechen fighters might use radioactive materials from the Radon facility for terrorist purposes.]