Russia airlifts enriched uranium out of Germany

DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - Russian experts removed a large quantity of highly enriched uranium from a Soviet-era atomic reactor in eastern Germany on Monday and were flying it to Russia for processing, officials said.

Some 326 kg (717 lb) of enriched uranium was flown out of Germany and was heading toward a processing center in Podolsk, Russia, said Udo Herwig, director of the Rossendorf research center where the material was stored and prepared for transport.

German police provided security for the transport from the forested Rossendorf research center to Dresden airport, police spokesman Thomas Herbst said. He added the operation involved up to 500 police and more undercover officers.

A convoy of around 40 police vehicles escorted the silver armored truck on its 10-km (6-mile) journey to the airport, where the nuclear cargo was loaded onto an Ilyushin 76 Russian cargo plane.

Security officials had dispatched a second decoy convoy.

The convoy carrying the uranium was briefly held up by a group of 20 to 30 anti-nuclear protesters along the way, forcing the vehicles to stop temporarily before changing routes and proceeding to the airport, officials said.

Roughly two thirds of the uranium is highly enriched, though it is unclear how pure the uranium fuel is. If enriched to a sufficient level of purity, there could be enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for several atomic bombs.

The other third is low enriched uranium, the officials said.

SECURE EVEN IN A PLANE CRASH

Herwig said all precautions had been taken to ensure the safety and security of the nuclear material -- even in the event of worst-case scenarios.

"We received an approval for the air transport. The German and international authorities would never have approved the transport if it had not been secure, even in the event of a plane crash," Herwig said.

Experts from the United Nations' Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration were on site assisting the Russians handling the transport.

Once back in Russia, the HEU will be mixed with low-grade uranium so that it becomes low-enriched reactor fuel that will no longer represent a proliferation risk.

The Rossendorf research reactor was built by the Soviet Union in the former communist East Germany, which ceased to exist after German reunification in 1990. The Rossendorf center remains a key site for scientific research, though the reactor was shut down shortly after reunification.

The transfer of the uranium is part of a joint U.S.-Russian programme in cooperation with the IAEA called the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). Its aim is to find, secure and recover dangerous nuclear materials around the world to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.

In a recent fact sheet, the U.S. Department of Energy said the GTRI program had secured more than 400 sites around the world containing enough radioactive material for 6,000 "dirty bombs," conventional explosives laced with nuclear material.

The amount of HEU being transported to Russia overnight is more than in all the other GTRI recovery actions combined.

The GTRI was launched in 2004.