Russia

Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) has a weapons program which began before 1970, and is still ongoing.

Military Stocks of Fissile Material, end of 2003 (in tonnes)1,2
Plutonium145 (120-170)3
  Military Stock95
  Declared Excess50
    Under Safeguards0
Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)1070 (±300)4
  Primary Military Stocks5710
  Assigned to Naval Propulsion40-70 6
  Other Stocks75-10 8
  Declared Excess
    Remaining300
    Original500 9
      Under Safeguards0


1 From Global Fissile Material Inventories, June 2004.
2 Russia continues to produce about 1.4 tonnes/year of plutonium in its three remaining plutonium production reactors. Plutonium produced after late 1994, or almost 13 tonnes, is legally banned from use in nuclear weapons. However, this plutonium is not believed to be included in Russia's INFCIRC/549 declaration, and thus it is treated as part of Russia's military stock. Prior to 1994, Russia is estimated to have produced about 130 tonnes of plutonium.
3 The values in parentheses are the uncertainty ranges of the total estimated stock.
4 Russia's HEU inventory remains difficult to estimate. Little public information is available about Russian HEU production or stocks, and thus the uncertainty in the total estimated stock is large. Although Russia's production of HEU for weapons ended in 1987 or 1988, it is believed to have continued making HEU into 1989 and to have stopped by 1990. Because this estimate factors in total Russian HEU production, it is greater than earlier ISIS estimates.
5 This category lists estimates of the primary military stocks that contain HEU, mostly weapon-grade, assigned to nuclear weapons, reserves, or slated for future use in naval propulsion, other military programs or civil reactors. In the case of the United States, some of this HEU will be sold or assigned to civil research reactors. This stock also does not include any HEU already declared excess to military requirements or already scheduled to be excess HEU, as in the case of Russia's commitment to down blend 500 tonnes of HEU into LEU.
6 Russia is estimated to have roughly 40-70 tonnes of HEU assigned to its naval program. The lower value is less than a DOE estimate of 60 tonnes of weapons-usable material, assumed to be almost all HEU, discussed in official literature about U.S./Russian MPC&A measures on naval fuel. The reason is that this 60 tonne estimate may not have accounted for fission and transmutation, and thus it would represent initial masses of HEU in the fuel. The higher value assumes that some HEU remains in the naval program outside the scrutiny of the MPC&A effort, such as at naval fuel fabrication facilities or in storage following recovery prior to the demise of the Soviet Union.
7 This category includes mainly HEU used in military production reactors.
8 Russia is reported to have used HEU in its plutonium production reactors and its tritium production reactors. Although the practice prior to the demise of the Soviet Union was reportedly to recover the HEU from the irradiated fuel and recycle it in naval reactors, not all the HEU may have been recycled. In addition, since the early 1990s, this HEU may not have been recycled.
9 Russia has committed to blending down 500 tonnes of HEU to LEU. As of the end of 2003, about 201 tonnes of HEU had been blended down.
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