Translated material
Forward, in the 1950s
What Putin was silent about in his Waldai speech and what is behind his threats of the “mirror answer” of the United States
The shipment of the last batch of low-enriched uranium, made under the Russian-American agreement of the VOU-NOU. Representatives of state departments of the Russian Federation and the USA, as well as Russian and foreign companies participating in the implementation of the agreement, signed on containers with Uranus. St. Petersburg, November 14, 2013. Photo: nuclear.ru
“We will still surprise the whole world of its ingratitude”-this phrase, which the Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary Felix Schwarzenberg described a policy against Russia a century and a half, may well serve as an epigraph to speak the Russian president at a meeting of the Valdai International discussion club on October 19. Trying to talk about the future, he traditionally quickly turned into the past, becoming habitually accusing the United States of non -compliance with obligations under international treaties, attempts to humiliate Russia and ignore its original interests. Putin walked according to the well -known list: the United States’s exit from the Pro on the proceedings that allegedly existed by Washington's intention to get out of the contract for the elimination of medium and smaller missiles (RSMD), as well as violation of the United States of the Plutonium recycling agreement, which Moscow suspended the participation a year ago.
But Putin was not limited to this ordinary list of claims. This time, the program of Nanna-Lugar, the VOU-NOU agreement (on the production of low-enriched uranium from the gunsmith uranium), the implementation of the Convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons and the destruction of its reserves were also elected as an example.
First -person pathetics
The Nanna-Lugar program was carried out from 1991 to 2013. The fault of the Americans Putin makes that they made “620 verification visits, and in the holy of the Holy of the Russian Nuclear Weapons Complex: at enterprises engaged in the development of nuclear charges and ammunition, the development of plutonium and uranium weapons quality. The United States gained access to all secret objects of the Russian Federation. ”
And according to the VOU-NOU program, the Russian president is outraged, the Americans visited our enrichment plants 170 times, and they were again allowed into the most closed zones-into the mixing nodes and in warehouses of storage of materials. And at the nuclear enrichment of the Ural electrochemical plant, a permanent American observation post was even equipped, and permanent jobs were created right in the workshops of this plant.
The fact that the state can lose control of tens of thousands of warheads and hundreds of tons of weapons uranium was not warned by American agents of influence. And solid patriots like the Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov
The consequences for the Russian president are obvious: the US intelligence, taking advantage of the unprecedented openness and gullibility of Russia, recognized the real, non -cable state of the domestic nuclear arsenal. As a result, Moscow was stopped considered a global player and humiliated in every possible way (well, at least until the very moment the country was headed by Vladimir Putin). Speaking about cooperation with the United States, Putin has pathetically exclaims: “What we received from this is also well known: the complete ignoring of our national interests.” But he forgets to add one rather significant detail: as a result of all this injustice, Moscow received several tens of billions of dollars more. Moreover, long before the Russian budget began to break from revenues from the export of hydrocarbons.
"Forgotten" billions
All the 1990s, the state of Russian nuclear potential was one of the main international problems. The economy was in collapse, and military transport aircraft of leading NATO countries delivered army rations to Moscow in the very beginning of the 1990s so that the capital escaped hunger. The fact that the state can lose control of tens of thousands of warheads and hundreds of tons of weapons uranium was not warned by American agents of influence, but firm patriots like the Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov. In 1996, Alexander Lebed seriously claimed that in one of the military units he found an ownerless nuclear ammunition. And Boris Yeltsin ordered Viktor Yesin, who then led the military department of the Defense Council, personally count all nuclear ammunition in the arsenals of the country.
Programs of Nanna-Lugar. Photo: Eurasian-defense.ru
That is why in the early 1990s the programs were adopted that Vladimir Putin speaks of. He rightly reports that it was a question in the Nanna-Lugar program about "modernizing the control, accounting and physical protection of nuclear materials, dismantling and disposal of submarines and radioisotope thermoelectric generators." But he forgets to add the word - "Russian".
For almost 20 years, the Americans spent half a billion dollars a year ($ 9 billion were spent in total) on all types of protective equipment for our nuclear arsenals - from alarm to fire extinguishers, paid for the transport with special ammunition compounds where they were dismantled.
By the way, it’s not true that the Americans visited everything they wanted to visit. So, for example, they financed the modernization of the physical protection system of the so -called “objects C” - over -secret arsenals, where nuclear ammunition were stored. They were not allowed there. A rather complicated system was developed, which theoretically allowed inspectors from the USA to check that the dollars were spent on purpose. Each fire extinguisher purchased as part of the program was assigned a unique number. And the inspectors, while in Moscow, could request a specific fire extinguisher for verification by this number.
For almost 20 years, the Americans spent half a billion dollars a year ($ 9 billion were spent in total) on all types of protection of our nuclear arsenals - from alarm to fire extinguishers, paid for the transport with special ammunition compounds for factories where they were dismantled
Megaton on megavatts
As a result of Russia's fulfillment of its obligations on START-1 and other agreements, a considerable number of enriched uranium accumulated-about 500 tons (this is enough to create 20 thousand nuclear ammunition). And then the Americans had the idea of "changing megatons to Megavatts." It consisted in turning a highly enriched weapon uranium into a low-enriched (hence the name of the program-VOU-NOU), and then use it to create fuel elements for nuclear power plants. By agreement, the United States took the obligation to purchase this uranium. And they regularly did it for about 20 years. During this time, Russia sold 14,446 tons of low -enriched uranium in the United States. The income of the Russian side amounted to about $ 17 billion, of which 13 billion entered the budget. At the same time, the Americans wanted to have guarantees that it was Russian weapon uranium that is being processed. Moscow wanted guarantees that our Uranus would not be used for military purposes. For this, the United States and Russia received the right of inspections of relevant industrial facilities. But since the main work on the implementation of the agreement took place on Russian territory, most of the control procedures were again carried out at Russian enterprises. So, the Americans installed equipment for continuous control over the process of diluting uranium, got the opportunity to control the exact Isotopic composition of the materials ... but they also paid for everything ...
Lagging America
The same story with an agreement on the elimination of chemical weapons. Three times the term of its implementation was extended due to the financial problems that our country faced. In the end, the “big eight” adopted in 2002 a global threat to reduce the threat, in which Russia, which had not yet managed to “rise from the knees”, was supposed to assist in the amount of $ 20 billion. The money was intended to eliminate the consequences of the Cold War: a huge number of nuclear waste, which were disabled, and one and a half of atomic submarines, as well as to eliminate the largest in the world reserves of poisonous substances. As a result, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Canada allocated more than $ 1 billion on the Russian chemical weapons recycling program.
Even in Russian official figures, foreign (primarily American) assistance amounted to about 10% of investments in the liquidation of the chemical weapons of the Russian Federation. It is necessary to have a fair amount of impudence in order to now reproach the United States for the fact that they are delayed in the elimination of their own
Financing the construction of facilities for the elimination of chemical weapons did not go without problems. The tedious Westerners endlessly found fault with the documentation for the construction of objects to destroy chemical weapons, and Moscow periodically put them in appearance for interruptions with financing. Be that as it may, even in Russian official figures, foreign (primarily American) assistance amounted to about 10% of investments in the liquidation of the chemical weapons of the Russian Federation. It is necessary to have a fair amount of impudence in order to reproach the United States after all this for the fact that they are delayed in the elimination of their own. (The lag, by the way, was caused by the fact that in the 2000s a lot of time was spent on resolving relations with the authorities of territories where the liquidation, analysis of judicial claims excited by environmental organizations and local residents should undergo).
Of course, investments in ensuring the safety of Russian arsenals, the disposal of nuclear and chemical weapons were not pure charity. The West was led by an excusable desire to avoid disaster. The old opponents financed a decrease in the threat. At the same time, the one who gave the money had, of course, other rights than the one who received them. It was this dyspropetism, apparently, that gave a reason to Putin for the indignation done. That's just for the people of the knowledgeable, this sounded like black ingratitude.
"Caliber" is not enough
Putin-2017 speech has become the most negative description of the American policy over the entire existence of the Valdai club, quoted by Bloomberg quoted in the hall during the speech of the President of the Russian Federation Toby Gati, in the past of a senior official of the State Department and the National Security Council. But Putin, of course, was not accidentally hit by contracts concluded with the United States shortly after the collapse of the USSR. And equally, it was no accident that Putin during the discussion insultingly spoke about the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Andrei Kozyrev, who personifies the Russian foreign policy in the early 1990s. In those years, the West not only helped our country support its nuclear potential. It was with the help of Western states, and above all, the USA, Andrei Kozyrev and Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev managed to pull out all the nuclear weapons from the territory of the CIS countries, preserve Russia as the only heir to the USSR atomic potential. But now the task has been set: by any means to prove that Washington always violates obligations.
The main thing was the main thing from our chief boss: in case of abandonment of the RSMD agreement, the United States will have the opportunity to “get” Moscow and St. Petersburg with their “tomahawks”. In addition, it is obvious that Washington has ten times more “tomahawks” than Moscow - “calibers”
Apparently, those analysts that suggest: the Russian authorities headed for the scope of the existing contractual system in the military-strategic sphere. This is precisely about the Putin threats that sounded in Sochi “give an immediate mirror answer” to a purely hypothetical assumption about the intention of the US withdrawal from an agreement on medium and lower -range missiles. According to the experts with whom NT said, someone convinced Putin that this treaty is harmful to Russia, that our armed forces need the ability to inflict a massive nuclear strike on European or Asia-Pacific Theater Theaters. At the same time, the main thing was concealed from our chief boss: if the USA, the United States will have the opportunity to “get” Moscow and St. Petersburg with its “Tomagavi” by the RSMD agreement. In addition, it is obvious that Washington has ten times more “tomahawks” than Moscow - “calibers”, which Putin managed to boast of.
In his speech, Putin complained that Russia, they say, was wanting to return its enemies in the 1950s. But does it only depend on the enemies? For example, the validity of the Main Russian-American Agreement-the START-expires in February 2021. It can be extended, but no negotiations are on this score. And it seems that no one is going to lead them. In the event that this agreement disappears, an unexplored nuclear weapons race can become a reality. And then the world will really return to the 1950s. And far from the fact that the current leaders of Russia and the USA will show wisdom and restraint, which Khrushchev and Kennedy showed at one time ...