One of the problems Ukraine faced upon gaining independence is providing physical protection to its nuclear and radioactive materials. This included preventing its illegal use, for example, by terrorists. Unfortunately, terrorism has increased and become a determinative feature of our time.

    For evident reasons, the prevention of it has become more and more important. A series of explosions in Russia, undoubtedly organized by terrorists, resulted in the loss of human lives. After these events, Ukraine strengthened the protection of its nuclear power plants and increased physical protection over nuclear materials. Simple explosives in the hands of terrorists bring great unrest to the world—imagine the fall-out from terrorists’ use of a nuclear explosive.

    Nowadays, the majority of potentially dangerous nuclear materials, mainly low enriched uranium (LEU), is concentrated at five Ukrainian nuclear power plants and other enterprises connected with nuclear energy, science and industry. Regardless of the negative influences, these plants continue to operate. Due to financial difficulties, however, they have not achieved any noticeable success. In the first few years of independence, Ukraine possessed nuclear weapons but soon transferred the weapons to Russia in order to follow obligations of international agreements. At that time, the problem also included weapons grade nuclear material.

    The fact that Ukraine possessed the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world shows us the significance of this problem in recent years. Today we can state that, despite the fact the majority of nuclear materials were not just kept at stationary installations, but dismantled and transported over long distances, Ukraine did not become a source of proliferation of nuclear materials. There were no cases of theft of nuclear materials.

    This shows the effectiveness of the measures taken to provide physical protection of nuclear materials. However, this does not mean that the problem was completely solved. Physical protection will require the attention of government as long as Ukraine has nuclear and radioactive materials and as long as there are terrorists and people motivated by extreme poverty to commit crimes. Unfortunately, the reasons for the existence of crime are as old as the world, and its elimination goes far beyond physical protection of nuclear materials.

    After examining the Ukrainian experience in preventing unauthorized usage of nuclear and radioactive materials, it is possible to draw some conclusions. Since 1991, not only criminals have engaged in the illegal trafficking of nuclear materials, but also nuclear power plants and enterprises’ workers and soldiers. Violators of the legislation were not exclusively Ukrainians, but foreigners as well. Moreover, all confiscated material was smuggled into Ukraine from abroad with intentions to sell them to Western countries. All of the material was useless for making nuclear explosives due to the fact that they were LEU. Theoretically, it is possible to transform LEU into material needed for weapons, but only after special processing that requires sophisticated technologies and equipment which are under extremely strict control. Thus, the potential buyers of this material remain a mystery. No accusations or notifications for the arrest of any buyers have been mentioned.

    There is an opinion among Ukrainian observers that even if such buyers existed, they would be outperformed by representatives from the special services, who by playing the part of the “roving” buyer willing to buy anything in order to trap and reveal sellers, create artificial demand for nuclear materials. Seemingly, this tactic could encourage theft of dangerous materials. The possibility arises that this was the case in 1993 when several kilos of nuclear fuel were stolen from the third block of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

    There are several indications that lead one to suspect the 1993 theft was an outcome of the aforementioned reason. One can say that the criminal is more likely to be a victim because he was tempted by stronger elements. On the other hand, these artificial circumstances in the end reveal an unsafe social being whose activities, sooner or later, could be harmful and dangerous to others. Considering the different sides of this approach requires philosophical or moral questions that need to be answered. For example, does the end justify the means? Is it immoral to ruin one person’s life in order to protect the well being of others? Certainly, philosophically one can argue endlessly. These questions however are only asked to show how complicated the problem really is. This problem of physical protection also involves the bureaucracy and the secret “kitchens” of the state agencies.

    The given example of theft at the Chernobyl power plant is one of the most prominent in Ukraine. It involved nearly seven kilograms of fresh nuclear fuel enriched to 1.8% uranium-235. Three more examples can be given of other incidents where nuclear materials were stolen. Two Russian military men were arrested in Kiev in 1995. They had close to six kilograms of nuclear fuel for atomic submarines. In another incident, more than nine kilograms of nuclear material enriched with uranium-235 at 4.4% was seized in 1997 from three Ukrainian citizens. In 1999, three Russians were trying to smuggle approximately twenty kilograms of processed natural uranium to the West. In all mentioned cases, nuclear materials were brought into our country from abroad, and were meant for sale to unknown Western buyers.

    Although the largest illegal nuclear transit through Ukraine took place 3 – 6 years ago, even today we can not say for sure that the activity of nuclear smugglers has come to an end. Judging from the insignificant number of notifications concerning new arrests of nuclear vendors, the amount of cases of dangerous transit and illegal circulation of nuclear materials in Ukraine has not increased in recent years. Such unauthorized transit in the direction of “East to West” turns Ukraine into a transit territory. The authorities of Ukraine, even without having their own nuclear materials, have to take care to reveal and put a stop to intentions of those who possess nuclear bomb paraphernalia or are capable of ensuing radioactive blackmail.

    On its part, Ukraine continues to realize trans-bordering scales of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons while is trying to comply with the international regime of weapons’ calculation and control. According to the requirements of the IAEA-Ukrainian agreement concluded in the framework of NPT, Ukraine must provide the state system of safeguards for all nuclear materials. The state system of calculation of nuclear material has been fully completed. Information about the nuclear materials that exist in Ukrainian enterprises has been sent to IAEA. Each year the IAEA inspectors conduct dozens of check-ups on Ukrainian nuclear objects.

    Ukraine has also joined “The Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials” (1980), yet another way it is engaged to create its own effective system of physical protection. For creating such a system a special unit has been formed at the State Inspection for nuclear safety which is compelled to control the requirements of physical protection of nuclear objects. The program for improvement of the system of prevention against illegal circulation of nuclear materials has been worked out in Ukraine. Its realization will require about 2 million dollars up to 2001, but the installation of the program has been stopped because of a lack of financial funds. Due to this situation, the problems of physical protection in the country are being solved, to a large extent, thanks to international aid.

    The system of physical protection of the research reactor at the Kiev Research Nuclear Institute has been modernized with approval by the US Department of Defense. The Kiev Research Institute has been recognized as the main expert organization for conducting analysis on those nuclear materials, which were seized from illegal circulation. The systems of physical protection for Southern Ukrainian nuclear power plants at Sevastopol Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry and the National Scientific Center “Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology” have been improved considerably in the past few years. An agreement has been reached about the co-operation between the US Defense Ministry and Ukraine in order to increase the level of physical protection of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its “sarcophagus.” Ukraine also hopes to attract other countries (Germany, Finland, and France) to help modernize the system of physical protection at the Khmelnitskaya and Rivnenskaya nuclear power plants.

    Minenergo and the State Administration of Nuclear Regulation (SANR) of Ukraine conducted the training that focused on revealing the efforts to commit unauthorized actions with nuclear materials. This was done in order to check the effectiveness of the following: the system of physical protection, the training of personal conduct at nuclear power plants, guarding, performance of all units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Security Service of Ukraine at nuclear power plants and at the Kiev Research Nuclear Institute.

    According to SANR data, the analysis of the systems and results of the training revealed a range of serious problems. Many of these problems are connected with the fact that many of the nuclear objects were designed during Soviet times. These do not take into account the potential threat from the so-called “internal terrorist” and do not quite meet the current standards for physical protection. Nor do they take into consideration global experience and IAEA recommendations. The improvement and modernization will require computer systems of accounting and control over access to nuclear materials. Impenetrable engineered technical boundaries should be constructed to reveal illegal penetration. Passing points should be equipped with all modern means of revealing demolition explosives. Reliable physical barriers and automated systems for stopping a possible terrorist en route to the power-station control panel are also needed.

    An important part of the state system of physical protection is training specialists in this area. With the help of the US, a new specialized training center was established in Kiev. This center was named in honor of John Kuzmich, who tragically died in a car accident in Ukraine.

    The improvement of the acting legislation and legal base in this area continues with “The Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials. “ The draft has been worked out to determine all possible kinds and levels of attack on nuclear installations. The rules of treating information about physical protection of nuclear materials and installations have been determined. The development of other documents that regulate physical protection and its improvement is an ongoing process.

    A complex set of measures designed to improve the physical protection of nuclear plants has been established. Included in this set of measures is the adoption of a special law about physical protection and establishment of special-purpose funding.