Although Russian-American bilateral cooperative threat reduction programs continue, the war in Georgia has disrupted U.S.-led efforts to strengthen barriers against the transit of dangerous nuclear materials through the South Caucasus. This development is especially worrisome given that the region has experienced some of the most serious proliferation scares since the Cold War. Given Moscow’s decreased interest in cooperating with Washington, the struggle against nuclear smuggling is likely to suffer.

BACKGROUND: Georgia has long been a priority region for U.S. nonproliferation programs aimed at curbing illicit trafficking of biological, chemical, and especially nuclear materials through the South Caucasus to both state and non-state actors. Since the USSR’s disintegration, many attempts to smuggle illicit radioactive materials through the South Caucasus and sell them on the black market have been detected.

The Georgian government has attempted to enhance the safety and security of the nuclear materials under its control, but the anarchic conditions, weak law enforcement, and porous borders in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia have permitted widespread smuggling with neighboring Russian regions as well as into Georgia. This condition has facilitated trafficking in nuclear materials as well as more conventional forms of contraband (e.g., narcotics, counterfeit currency, and young women). Georgia’s pivotal location at the crossroads between Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Middle East has raised concerns that transnational trafficking networks could move nuclear materials from Russia through Georgia to international terrorist groups.

During the 1990s, Georgia suffered a series of worrisome incidents involving the discovery of scattered, low-level radioactive materials “orphaned” after the USSR’s collapse. The country has many scientific, medical, industrial, and other facilities containing radiological sources such as cesium-137 and strontium-90. With the assistance of monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and funding from the U.S. government, Georgian authorities have recovered hundreds of such radioactive sources in abandoned factories, waste depositories, and even private homes. Besides being health hazards in themselves, terrorists can use these radioactive materials to fashion highly disruptive dirty bombs, improvised explosive devices which spew radioactive elements when they detonate.

Although Georgia lacks a full-scale nuclear power plant, two nuclear research institutes exist on its territory. The Institute of Physics, located in Tbilisi, closed in 1990. The second, the I. N. Vekua Institute of Physics and Technology, has become an object of considerable nonproliferation concern because it is located in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, which has been a hotbed of regional smuggling and other lawless activity. According to some sources, up to two kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) disappeared from that Institute sometime in the early 1990s during the civil war in that breakaway region. The institute's former director, Guram Bokuchava, maintains that Georgian authorities no longer know the status of the facility’s nuclear materials. Mr. Bokuchava asserts that when inspectors from the international Atomic Energy Agency went to Sukhumi in 2002 to examine the uranium stored at the institute, Abkhaz authorities would not let them visit the storage site.

In April 1998, the United States and other countries conducted Operation Auburn Endeavor to avert a similar disaster at another Georgian research reactor located near Tbilisi. Following years of unsuccessful negotiations with the Russian government to permit the repatriation of the Soviet-made uranium fuel located at the closed IRT-M research reactor in Mtskheta, American officials eventually funded an operation to transfer the nuclear material to the British nuclear reprocessing plant at Dounreay, Scotland.

In June 2003, Georgian authorities apprehended Garik Dadayan, an Armenian national, in the border town of Sadakhlo for attempting to smuggle 170 grams of weapons-grade HEU across Georgia’s borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Smuggling had become rampant in the region after relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan deteriorated following their war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Dadayan told investigators that he had acquired the material from intermediaries of Russian and other nationalities in Vladikavkaz, in the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Georgian authorities concluded that the HEU originated in Novosibirsk, the location of a major Soviet and now Russian nuclear complex.

In 2006, Oleg Khintsagov, a Russian smuggler from North Ossetia, unsuccessfully attempted to sell 100 grams of 90 percent highly enriched uranium in Georgia. He was arrested on February 1, 2006, in a complex multinational sting operation that eventually involved the CIA, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Khintsagov and his accomplices claimed to have several more kilograms of diverted HEU available for sale, which they apparently obtained with the help of Russian middlemen peddling nuclear material diverting from the country’s massive nuclear complex.

IMPLICATIONS: These incidents—along with other, less serious nuclear trafficking cases in the region—highlight the vulnerability of the South Caucasus, especially Georgia, to the smuggling of nuclear materials. The U.S. government has undertaken multiple initiatives to reduce the nuclear material smuggling into and through the republic, but the Georgia War has disrupted some of the most important initiatives.

Since 1998, the U.S. Department of Energy has provided radiation detection equipment and training to former Soviet republics such as Georgia. The department plans to establish radiation detection systems at approximately 450 land, air, and sea transportation points in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean by the end of Fiscal Year 2013. The U.S. Department of State Export Control and Related Border Security Program has also provided radiation detection equipment and other counter-smuggling support to 30 countries, mainly in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The U.S. Department of Defense has supplied a range of training and equipment related to border security and law enforcement to Georgia and other former Soviet republics. One project, for instance, has equipped the Georgian Coast Guard and Navy with more effective technologies for combating maritime smuggling through the Black Sea.

After the Khintsagov case revealed continuing problems in Georgia’s defenses against nuclear smuggling, the United States and Georgia signed a major bilateral agreement in February 2007 that provided for additional U.S. equipment and training for Georgians engaged in countering nuclear smuggling. Under the agreement, the United States agreed to strengthen Georgia’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency and its border patrol forces. American officials also committed to assisting their Georgian counterparts in analyzing any intercepted nuclear materials. Other countries have provided financing and other support for some of these projects, which are part of the U.S. Nuclear Smuggling Outreach Initiative (NSOI).

Through the NSOI, the United States is working with Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ukraine, and Tajikistan to enhance these countries’ ability to avert, identify, and react to nuclear smuggling incidents. A NSOI team conducts a joint assessment with the host government to develop a joint action plan of steps to counter nuclear smuggling better. The NSOI, which is coordinated by the U.S. Department of State, then solicits American and other international assistance for projects the host country cannot complete on its own.

At the time of the Georgia War, a Department of Energy team was in the process of installing new U.S. radiation detection equipment at major transportation nodes such as border crossings and air and sea ports. On August 9, however, the department withdrew the Americans working on the project in Georgia. When the inspectors returned to Georgia in October, they found that Russian bombs had damaged several of the sophisticated radiation detectors, some so severely that they have to be replaced rather than repaired.

CONCLUSIONS: The tense relations between Russia, Georgia, the United States and the other conflict parties make uncertain when their governments will resume nonproliferation cooperation in this vulnerable region. Since much of the trafficked material appears to originate from Russian nuclear facilities and involve at least the passive collaboration of Russian nuclear workers, improving counter-smuggling operations in the South Caucasus will require considerable Russian assistance. Following the war, however, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Washington might need to disown the current Georgian government if it hoped for further security cooperation from Moscow: “The Russian Federation is ready for coordinated, full-fledged cooperation in fighting terrorism together with the United States and other countries. We believe it is our main task and think it would be far more beneficial for the U.S. than developing relations with rotten regimes.” 

AUTHOR’S BIO: Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Director for Project Management at the Hudson Institute.