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Abstract: On 15 January 2007, media reports began to surface covering the February 2006 arrest of Oleg Khintsagov by Georgian law enforcement officials. Khintsagov is a Russian merchant from the North Ossetia region. Although some brief media reports in February 2006 made reference to a seizure of 80 grams of enriched uranium in Georgia involving a Russian national, these reports were dismissed by Russian officials.[1] No additional information was made public for the rest of the year. The information released in January 2007 indicates that Khintsagov was arrested along with three Georgian citizens for attempting to sell 100 grams of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The material seized had been enriched to almost 90 percent uranium-235 (U-235).[2,3] The arrests were the result of a sting operation by the Georgian Secret Service, after officials learned that a Russian national was looking to sell two to three kilograms of enriched uranium. A Turkish-speaking Georgian undercover agent, posing as a Muslim man from a “serious organization,” made contact with Khintsagov and set up a meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. Khintsagov and his accomplices were detained on 1 February 2006 and two bags containing about 100 grams of U-235 were seized.[2,3] Georgian officials said Khintsagov initially told investigators that the origin of the material was the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, but later claimed he had obtained the material from an unidentified supplier. In order to determine the origin of the HEU, Georgian authorities sent samples of the seized materials to the United States and Russia; however, results from these tests were inconclusive with regard to the exact origin of the uranium.[4] Russian experts established that the uranium was an oxide powder with an 89.38 percent U-235 content and “could have been produced by the Russian nuclear industry” over ten years ago.[5] The analysis of the material carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory determined that the U-235 content of the material was 89.451 percent.[2] The US analysis of the seized material also identified traces of two rare forms of uranium, U-234 and U-236, that reportedly provides “a strong case” that it indeed came from Russia.[2] This case has caused significant friction between Moscow and Tbilisi over the extent to which Russia responded to Georgian requests for assistance. Furthermore, some Russian officials argued that the arrests were politically motivated. While Georgian authorities claim that Russia provided little assistance in the Khintsagov case, Russian officials insist that Russia cooperated fully with the investigation. According to Russian officials, the small size and the poor quality of the sample sent by Georgian authorities made it impossible to determine the origin of the seized uranium. Russian authorities claim that they requested an additional sample, but received no answer from Georgia.[4,5] Khintsagov was secretly tried in Tbilisi and sentenced to eight years in prison in July 2006. Two of his accomplices were sentenced to five years, the third to four years.[5,6] On March 30, 2007, the Tbilisi Court of Appeals upheld the convictions.[10] The case remains under investigation by Georgian and U.S. officials.[7] There is no information about efforts to locate the additional two to three kilograms of HEU Khintsagov claimed to have had in his possession. This case comes just a few years after a 2003 incident on the Armenian-Georgian border involving HEU. Garik Dadayan, an Armenian national was arrested on June 26, 2003, for attempting to smuggle 170 grams of HEU across the border. It was reported that the material came from Novosibirsk, Siberia, the site of a major Russian nuclear fuel production facility.[8] The recent uranium smuggling episodes in Georgia reinforce concerns over nuclear trafficking in the South Caucasus. On February 2, 2007, the Foreign Minister of Georgia and the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Georgia signed a new bilateral agreement that will provide additional U.S. equipment and training to Georgian officials responsible for countering nuclear smuggling.[9] Sources: [1] "Russian Defense Minister Dismisses Georgian Uranium Seizure
Story," BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 6 February 2006; in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, [2] Lawrence Sheets and William J. Broad,
"Smuggler’s Plot Highlights Fear over Uranium," New York Times (online edition),
25 January 2007, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies has not verified the accuracy or veracity of this report or the facts presented therein. For more information on the material in this database please contact Dr. Scott Parrish at sparrish@miis.edu. 
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