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Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

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Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#61

Post by smacktoward »

tptacek wrote: post #57
IshKebab wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me never to sign a memorandum with Britain or America...

You think a shooting war between the US and Russia, or nuclear brinksmanship between Ukraine and Russia, would be preferable to what's happened instead?

The argument would be that certainty of an invasion of Ukraine prompting an American military response, or a Ukrainian nuclear one, would have deterred the Russians from carrying out the invasion in the first place.

This is of course arguable, since it rests on a counterfactual. But given the pains Russia took to camouflage their invasion as a domestic uprising (see http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26532154), it seems at least plausible, since the only reason for them to disguise their involvement would have been to reduce the risk of retaliation.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#62

Post by smacktoward »

SEJeff wrote: post #18
BowBun wrote: post #6

I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.

A dirty bomb would be trivial to create, but an actual nuclear device would require some serious expertise and hardware to create

The expertise and hardware would mostly be required to enrich the uranium up to weapons-grade levels. If you can get uranium that's already been enriched, you can skip all that. Hence the concern.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#63

Post by MengerSponge »

I'm amazed that no one in this thread has mentioned Project Sapphire yet. It's my favorite bit of 90's spycraft.

Project Sapphire Wikipedia Entry:

Project Sapphire was a successful 1994 covert operation of the United States government in cooperation with the Kazakhstan government to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. A warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant outside Ust-Kamenogorsk housed 1,322 pounds (600 kg) of weapons grade enriched uranium to fuel Alfa class submarines (90% U-235). Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fuel was poorly documented and secured, and in danger of being sold for use in the construction of nuclear weapons.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09...

http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/report/project-sapphire-today

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#64

Post by vonmoltke »

akiselev wrote: post #25
gh02t wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten kilos of HEU may or may not be a concern, it's hard to say and I don't see the actual enrichment in the article. "Highly enriched" means any enrichment above 20% enrichment but below "weapons grade" (85%). It usually means something close to 20%... 10 kg of 20% enriched is scary but is a small fraction of what you need to make a bomb, so while it's scary it isn't necessarily that some terrorist group almost bough…

From the article: *>> Rockefeller asked then-CIA Director Porter Goss whether enough had vanished from Russia’s stockpile to build a nuclear weapon. “There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon,” Goss responded. Previously in the article they mentioned that this 10kg of Uranium believed to be for sale on the black market is a fifth of…

> Previously in the article they mentioned that this 10kg of Uranium believed to be for sale on the black market is a fifth of what you would need for a Hiroshima-type weapon but it's just about enough for a well designed implosion nuke.

With 60kg of HEU I could build Little Boy by myself in my garage with parts I can get at Home Depot and Cabela's.

With 10kg of HEU I could build Fat Man with a breeder reactor, a couple hundred thousand in precision machine tools, several tens of thousands in specialty electronics, and a small team of specialists.

Both are possible, but one is far more feasible to do than the other for a terrorist group. That said, 10kg in a Little Boy type device would still cause a pretty big boom. The damage from the radiological hysteria that would follow its use would be far greater than the explosive damage, though.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#65

Post by smacktoward »

MengerSponge wrote: post #63

I'm amazed that no one in this thread has mentioned Project Sapphire yet. It's my favorite bit of 90's spycraft. Project Sapphire Wikipedia Entry: Project Sapphire was a successful 1994 covert operation of the United States government in cooperation with the Kazakhstan government to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. A warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Pl…

Thank you! I remembered reading this story in the Post years ago, but couldn't remember the name of the operation so my Google-fu was insufficient to dig it up. Glad you shared it.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#66

Post by mikeyouse »

hackuser wrote: post #36
hackuser wrote: post #2

Also of interest is this table showing prior siezures (by law enforcement and government security agencies, I assume) of nuclear material, including over a dozen instances of highly enriched uranium (!) http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/12/18849/previous-sei...

Dang (or whoever is minding the store right now): A minor concern, but something is wrong with the time on comments: * I posted the parent comment yesterday * Currently, it says "2 hours ago" * If I click "2 hours ago", the new page still says "2 hours ago" * If I click "reply", the new page says "22 hours ago", which seems plausible.

In some cases, articles that the HN staff find interesting are reposted at a later date if they don't 'connect' the first time around.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#67

Post by bradleyjg »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #53
IshKebab wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me never to sign a memorandum with Britain or America...

Ukraine itself didn't learn from what happened to Poland in 1939. We had treaties that said we're to be aided by France and the UK...

Which they did at enormous cost in lives and money. Ditto for Belgium in 1914.

If you had said Czechoslovakia in 1938 that would have been a much better example.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#68

Post by smacktoward »

madaxe_again wrote: post #17

So, when the USSR disbanded, many ex-soviet states (i.e. Ukraine) were stuck with a nuclear arsenal they couldn't maintain and didn't want. In theory, Russia took the warheads back and looked after them. In practice, there was an initial period of everything that wasn't bolted down disappearing from silos, and the response was to fill them with concrete to prevent any further access. What then happened is gangs came…

> In practice, there was an initial period of everything that wasn't bolted down disappearing from silos, and the response was to fill them with concrete to prevent any further access. What then happened is gangs came in the dead of night with diggers and drills and unearthed silos, and took who knows what.

Yeah, and it wasn't just in the silos, either. The notorious arms smuggler Viktor Bout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout), for instance, built the private air force he used to deliver his goods around the world by grabbing Soviet Air Force transport planes wherever he could. The story goes that his people even pried one off a pedestal that had been placed in front of an air force base as a display piece.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#69

Post by excuse-me-sir »

vonmoltke wrote: post #64
akiselev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: *>> Rockefeller asked then-CIA Director Porter Goss whether enough had vanished from Russia’s stockpile to build a nuclear weapon. “There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon,” Goss responded. Previously in the article they mentioned that this 10kg of Uranium believed to be for sale on the black market is a fifth of…

> Previously in the article they mentioned that this 10kg of Uranium believed to be for sale on the black market is a fifth of what you would need for a Hiroshima-type weapon but it's just about enough for a well designed implosion nuke. With 60kg of HEU I could build Little Boy by myself in my garage with parts I can get at Home Depot and Cabela's. With 10kg of HEU I could build Fat Man with a breeder reactor, a cou…

Welcome to the list.

Re: Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say

#70

Post by lojack »

AUmrysh wrote: post #59

If western intelligence knows about this and wants to get it off the black market, why don't they just buy it themselves? Surely the criminals selling it don't care where the money comes from.

> But no one in the West knows exactly who has this nuclear explosive material, and where they may be

Probably because of this.

I'm also quite certain that the criminals do care very much where the money comes from. Most criminals I know understand this is the difference between a pay day and a prison sentence.

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