The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it returned the final tranche of highly enriched uranium from a Kazakh reactor to the material’s point of origin in Russia.
The U.S. stockpile steward and nonproliferation agency said in a press release it worked with Kazakhstan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics to repatriate the weapon-grade uranium from the VVR-K reactor in Almaty.
“This final removal will make INP HEU-free, ensuring that a bad actor can never acquire material from the site for a nuclear weapon,” said Dave Huizenga, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) acting deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, in the relesae.
The nonproliferation work between the NNSA and the Institute of Nuclear Physics that led to the return of the Russian highly enriched uranium began in 1996. As part of the effort, the U.S. agency helped convert the VVR-K reactor to run on low-enriched uranium: a material less useful for creating nuclear weapons. The NNSA and the Kazakh institute finished the conversion last year.
