From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Russian Nuclear Material Safety Description: The United States and Russia worked together on securing weapons-usable nuclear material at Russian locations from 1993-2014. David Trimble talks about the security of Russian nuclear materials after that cooperation ended. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-392, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Past U.S. Involvement Improved Russian Nuclear Material Security, but Little Is Known About Current Conditions Released: February 2020 [ Background Music ] [David Trimble:] There's concern that they may not be as focused on the risk presented by insider threats to these materials than they need to be. [Matt Oldham:] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the US Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. Russia has the largest stockpile of weapons-useable nuclear materials on the planet. Starting in 1993, the US and Russia worked together to improve security at dozens of Russian locations holding these materials. This cooperation ended in 2014, following Russian aggression in Ukraine, and David Trimble, a Natural Resources and Environment Director at GAO, is here to talk about what was completed before cooperation ended and what is known about Russia's security for nuclear material today. Thanks for joining me, David. [David Trimble:] Thank you. [Matt Oldham:] So, why were we spending money on securing Russian nuclear materials? [David Trimble:] Well, really, there are a couple of things. One, you know, after the fall of the Soviet Union, things were a little in disarray there, and why this matters, and this fear is because Russia had huge stockpiles, actually the largest stockpiles in the world of weapons-useable material. So, what that means is plutonium and highly enriched uranium, which is a pretty critical kind of threat because those are the materials you use to make atomic weapons. Compounding that is that this material was stored at many sites across the country, in some areas with some terrorist activity and general instability. So, the risk of loss of control and theft was huge, so the US government and DOE took the lead on this, undertook a program to improve the security at these sites to address the security risks present there. [Matt Oldham:] So, are these materials more secure today than they were when cooperation ended? [David Trimble:] What I would first note is that the program, up until 2014 when it ended, was effective. They made tremendous progress in addressing physical security and procedural security issues in Russia at these sites and across the country, addressing things like gates, harden gates, perimeter-detection systems, better security practices. So, the program was effective and made progress. They weren't done, but they made progress up until the program ended. Once the program ended, however, in 2014, sort of our eyes and ears into the status of the security of that material in Russia ended. We were no longer sort of physically there. We no longer had access to the key personnel to discuss security matters with the Russians. What we know is that, at that time, not all of the planned security improvements that we had on the books were completed, so we know that there was work remained to be done that was not completed when the program ended. [ Music ] [Matt Oldham:] So, it sounds like when nuclear security cooperation ended between the US and Russia, so did any chance of the American government staying informed on what measures Russia has taken since. [David Trimble:] You can always get secondary sources of information, but any sort of true insight, especially into something as sensitive over, security controls over nuclear material, your secondary sources aren't going to be very good. So, our real insight effectively ended at that time. [Matt Oldham:] And, is it likely, is it unlikely that Russia has replaced the level of funding the US was providing toward security? [David Trimble:] Yeah, so the stakeholders and the experts we talked to indicated that the security efforts in Russia continue to get funded, but not at the same level. No one believes that it was at the same level to make up for the loss of funding after the US program ended. [Matt Oldham:] So, David, what are the risks here going forward? [David Trimble:] You're in a country where there's still large criminal organizations, terrorist groups, there's still corruption, so the risks of theft and misuse is still there. I think the thing that we highlight in our work, which is what outside experts highlighted for us, is there's concern that they may not be as focused on the risk presented by insider threats to these materials than they need to be. [Matt Oldham:] So, last question. What's the bottom line of this report? [David Trimble:] Russia has the largest stockpile of weapons-useable material in the world. Our prior efforts to help improve security over this material paid significant dividends. It helped make the world safer, but since 2014, we're kind of at a loss as to know the status of that material and the risks presented by that material. [Matt Oldham:] David Trimble was talking about Russian nuclear material safety after cooperation efforts ended with the United States in 2014. Thank you for your time, David. [David Trimble:] Thank you. [Matt Oldham:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. 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