Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 23:40:43 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-G: Playing with nukes, Russian style


Here's a snippet of news from Johnson's Russia List that'll cheer everybody up!

The future of humanity is in safe, reliable hands ...

Cheers,

Hugh

_____________________________________________________

Russian expert tells of drunken A-bomb theft
April 20, 1997

BONN, Germany (Reuter) - A pair of drunken Russian workmen stole two atomic
warheads from a factory as a prank in 1993, according to a Russian
disarmament expert quoted by a German newspaper.

The expert, Vladimir Orlov, told a seminar in Bonn at the beginning of
April that the theft -- done on a bet -- was the first time an actual
nuclear weapon had been stolen, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper
reported.

Security forces traced the two missing warheads to a garage in a
residential area, he said.

Orlov said the incident took place at ``Factory X'' east of the Urals in
November 1993.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western governments have
worried that material stolen in former Soviet bloc could put nuclear arms
within reach of non-nuclear states.

The newspaper said Orlov was the head of the Moscow Institute for Security
and Politics which it said had a good reputation among scientists outside
Russia.




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