Russia withdraws from 25-year-old weapons-grade plutonium agreement

Russia's lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, approved a measure to withdraw from a 25-year-old agreement with the United States to cut back on the leftover plutonium from Cold War-era nuclear weapons.

The State Duma voted yesterday on a bill to withdraw from the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, first signed by both countries in 2000, which directed each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement went into effect in 2011.

2016 Suspension: Russia's official withdrawal comes after the agreement was suspended in 2016 via presidential decree from Russia and a federal law, as Nuclear News previously reported. Russia said at the time that the U.S. didn't uphold its end of the agreement when it changed how it disposed of the plutonium specified in the agreement without first obtaining consent from Russia.

Sergei Ryabkov, deputy foreign minister of the Russian Federation, listed additional reasons it was leaving the agreement, including sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Russia, U.S. support of Ukraine, and NATO's expansion and U.S. troops in Eastern Europe.

Plutonium plans: The U.S. government had initially intended to convert the plutonium into safer MOX fuel but terminated the construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in 2019, which is where the 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium was to be disposed. Instead, the National Nuclear Security Administration is pursuing a "dilute and dispose" strategy wherein plutonium will be downblended and stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

The U.S. State Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.