COUNTRY STATUS REPORT: RUSSIA
 

URANIUM MINING

The uranium complex at the Priangunsiy Mountain Chemical Combine is presently the largest uranium mining and milling complex in the world. This standing can only be challenged by the Comeco works in Canada. Just like the town, the Combine has a high degree of self sufficiency. It produces much of the machinery, chemicals and all of the energy that it needs. At present the Combine operates many facilities, amongst them: 3 underground uranium mining complexes, 1 open pit uranium mine and an ore processing plant. In addition, a number of facilities are owned and operated by the Combine, although they are located outside of the Krasnokamensk region. These include 1 uranium mine in Mongolia and a limestone quarry approximately 200 km away.

In recent years due to the practical disappearance of demand for military uranium, and to the steady decrease in nuclear energy capacity in the country, the Combine has been forced to reduce production capacity by 40%, and look for foreign markets in order to continue its operation. Two Mongolian mines, and two other mines in Krasnokamensk have been temporarily taken out of operation as part of this decrease in capacity.

At present 100% of the Combine's production is sold abroad. The Main customers of the Combine are: France (Cogema), Germany (Urangesellschaft), UK (BNFL), Spain, USA, Argentina and indirectly Canada (Cameco). A Swedish company (no name was given) has just made an approach for purchasing 100 tons of unenriched U3O8 directly from the Combine, rather than from one of Russia's enrichment facilities, as in the past.
 

NUCLEAR TESTS

The Soviet Union performed 715 nuclear tests explosions between 1949 and 1990. Of these, 215 were detonated in the atmosphere between 1949 and 1962. Between 1963 and 1990, 500 underground nuclear test explosions have been performed. Three underwater nuclear test explosions have been executed on the western coast of Novaya Zemlya. There are two major fields for nuclear test explosions in the Soviet Union: Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan and Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic. In addition, there were three minor fields for nuclear test explosions: Azgir and Astrakhan in Kazakhstan, and at Orenburg between the river Volga and the Ural Mountains. The 715 nuclear explosions include 115 "peaceful" nuclear explosions, some performed on the Kola Peninsula. The only test field of Russia is situated at Novaya Zemlya at the time being, but has not been used since the demice of the Soviet Union.

Atmospheric nuclear bomb tests were conducted at numerous sites across the Soviet Far North and had contaminated the entire food chain from Murmansk in the west to the Chukot Peninsula on the shores of the Bering Strait. From scientific investigations it appeared that in these regions the total radioactivity dose was double the average for the rest of the USSR and concentrations of cesium-137 in native population were 100 times higher than normal. It is common knowledge that the USSR's atmosperic nuclear tests conducted from 1958 through the autumn of 1962 led to global contamination. The most destructive thermonuclear explosion in history - equal to 100 megatons of TNT - was conducted by the Soviet Union on Nova Zemlja in 1961. Since all these tests were carried out in the Northern Hemisphere, it was there that 80 percent of the radioactive fallout settled. The year following the blast witnessed a sharp increase of concentrations of cesium-137 and strontium-90 in food and living organisms around the world.

On 29 August 1949, on seven o'clock in the morning, the first Soviet test took place. During the time of the explosion the wind direction was northeast with a speed of 45 meter per second. The radioactive cloud shaded the villages Dolon, Cheremusky, Mostik, Besterek and Budene. On the first days the residents of these little villages received a radiation dose of 102 rem. During one month the dose amounted 160 to 200 rem. The evacuation of 1953 was the first and one. Only the residents of who received a radiation dose of 200 rad were evacuated. The ones who received 170 to 180 rad stay where they were.
Chukot Peninsula, the most east arctic place of the Soviet Union, opposite Alaska has the highest deathrate as a result of gullet cancer. The entire local residents suffers on tuberculosis and the life-span expectancy is not higher than 45 year. According to a survey conducted by the Institute for Research on Radiation Hygiene in the then Leningrad (St. Petersburg), reindeer-herds in the neighbouring Chukchy have been exposed to yet higher radiation doses, because they also eat regularly reindeer meat. The quantity of lead-210 in their bones is 10 to 20 times as high as normal and the level of cesium-137 in their body tissues is hundred times to high. More than 90% of the population suffers on chronical affections.
The death-rate in the Kasakh Alma Ata is 430 times as high as in Germany because of nuclear contamination. The Chinese nuclear tests in Lop Nor, 800 km southeast of Alma Ata, are therefore responsible. Threethousand times as much infants as in Germany suffer from cancer. In the border area Narynkol seventy percent of the people suffer from anaemia.

Since 1964 the Chinese detonate in Lop Nor 22 atomic bombs in the atmosphere. According to data from the Kazakh Department of Environment the radioactive burdening in Alma Ata today is twice as high as in the area around the then Soviet atomic test-site of Semipalatinsk in the north of Kazakhstan. To get any idea about this figure: the half a million people living in the area around Semipalatinsk have been exposed for 40 years on the fallout of 20.000 Hiroshima bombs.

Laboratories for mass-destruction.
The core from the the military industrial complex of the former Soviet Union was formed by towns with the code names Tomsk-7, Arzamas-16, Krasnoyarsk-26, Penza-19 and Zlatoest-36. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 900,000 people worked here of which 2000 know how nuclear weapons have been made. The most important nuclear weapon laboratory was situated 300 km east of Moscow, not far from the former Gorki. Here, in Arzamas-16 (now again named as Sarov), the first Soviet Bomb was made.

A bit east of the Urals mountains, 40 km north of Kysthym, is the nuclear complex Chelyabinsk-70. It was founded in 1955 a the second laboratory for the development of nuclear weapons.

The Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement.
It was in the middle of February 1989 when an underground nuclear test liberated a dangerous amounts of radioactive material. Scientists who measured the amounts of radiation gave a report to Olzhas Suleimenov, a Kazakh poet and geologist who was then a candidate as peoples representative for the then Peoples Congres of the Soviet Union. During a speech for his campaign on television Olzhas spoke unexpected on the consequences of the nuclear tests in Kazakhstan. He demanded the closure of Polygon and made a call for a meeting around the catastrophic consequences of the tests. More than 5000 people gave ear to this call. In this way the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, named to the most important two test sites. In August 1991 the president of Kazakhstan closed Polygon in Semipalatinsk forever.
 

NUCLEAR DISASTER IN THE URALS

In the winter of 1957-58 a disaster occurred on a temporary storage for nuclear waste near Kysthym in the Urals resulting in many casualties and widespread contamination of the surrounding area. The disaster became publicly known in November 1976 by an article of Zhores Medvedev in the journal New Scientist. In the article Medvedev described the rise of the dissident movement in Russia. Besides he named the concerned nuclear catastrophe as one of the reasons that leading atomic physicists, who had warned for the disaster, come to critical attention against the government policy. Not known that the disaster was nearly unknown in the West, Medvedev gave in his article a short description. According to him the disaster should be caused by an explosion of high level nuclear waste.
The article created unexpected sensation. In the press releases which followed on it the chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency styled the story as of Medvedev as "pure science fiction" , "nonsense" and "a chimera". He esteemed the disaster "highly improbable", "an explosion (of high level waste)... impossible, nuclear as well as thermical". A diversity of people in different countries, however, confirmed that a such-like disaster had taken place in 1958. Only the opinions on the source of the misery differed. Named was a reactor, a reprocessing plant (where plutonium is extracted from the irradiated uranium rods), a plutonium-storage and an underground storage for nuclear waste. In June and September 1977 Medvedev published two articles with additional information, based on articles in Russian journals for biology. In October 1977 the CIA gave an official confirmation of the disaster when they were forced by the Freedom of Information Act to declassify 14 partly censored articles on the case. Ten from this contain yet not early published articles.

The place of the catastrophe is in the neighbourhood of an huge nuclear complex for the production of plutonium and for atomic bombs. The complex was situated on circa 15 km distance of Khystym and include amongst others the first Russian nuclear reactor which became critical around 1946. It is situated in the province Chelyabinsky, in the middle of the Urals area which became after the second world war a center of heavy industry. The towns Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk are on a distance of 100 km from the place, which has in 1958 a population of 800.000 each. An area of 2700 square kilometers around Kyshtym was closed for the public in 1954, including the then residents, partly because of the presence of the complex, but also because of labour camps founded in the area.

Medvedev compared the explosion with an enormous volcano, which spirted radioactive dust and material high into the air. According to him the cause was a accumulation and overheating of gases around the very slovenly stored nuclear waste. The conditions therefore were undoubtly present. Through the intensive radiation of the radioactive waste radiolysis of the present water could be deliver detonation gas and from the organic material possibly easily inflammable compounds. The other possibility is that the waste was stored in a way that there was a critical amount of plutonium together. Suddenly entering water should work then as a moderator. The resulting chain reaction from this should not have enough explosion potential by itself, but the sudden heat can result in a steam explosion, which can have the form of a volcanic eruption.
 

FAST BREEDER REACTORS (FBRs)

The Soviet program of Fast Breeder Reactors started in 1956. The first significant facility - a loop-type, sodium-cooled BN-350 FBR - was put on line in 1972 in Shevchenko (Kazkhstan) to desalinate sea water and produce power. A commercial-size pool-type, sodium-cooled BN-600 fast reactor operation in 1980 at Beloyarskaya NPP near Ecaterineburg. The development of BN-1600 reactor, the last one from this family, was started in early '80s.
 

NUCLEAR WASTE

Radioactive waste dumping in the Kara Sea
The Russian Northern Fleet (formerly the Soviet) has since 1960 dumped radioactive waste in the Kara Sea and Barents Sea on a regular basis. This comprises solid radioactive waste, liquid radioactive waste, and nuclear reactors with and without fuel. Furthermore, radioactive waste has been dumped in the Barents Sea and Kara Sea from the civil state-run Murmansk Shipping Company's fleet of nuclear icebreakers. The navy has also dumped radioactive waste in the Japan Sea, Pacific Ocean, and Baltic Sea. In all, Russia (former Soviet Union) has dumped between 115,000 TBq (3,1 million Ci) and 333,000 Tbq (9 million Ci) at sea. In comparison, all other countries put together have dumped 46,000 TBq (1,24 million Ci) during the period of 1946-1982.

- Liquid waste
Liquid radioactive cooling water from the ship reactors and storage tanks for used fuel assemblies has since 1959 been dumped at sea. The last dumping of liquid radioactive waste took place November 1991, and this practice may be resumed if no alternative solutions are found. According to regulations set forth by the Soviet Navy in 1968, the liquid radioactive waste should have a maximal concentration of radioactivity of 370 Bq/l of long-life radioactive isotopes, and 1850 kBq/l of short-life isotopes. Whether these regulations are observed, is not known. The liquid waste of the highest radioactive concentration has been dumped in the three dumping fields furthest to the north in Barents Sea, while the less radioactive waste is dumped outside the shore of the Kola Peninsula.

- Solid waste
The Northern Fleet has sunk a total of 17 ships and lighters containing radioactive waste in the Barents- and Kara Sea. Aboard the ships there are different types of radioactive waste of varying levels of radioactivity, made up mainly of containers with radioactive waste, reactor parts, and other contaminated equipment. The dumped containment are mostly filled with low- and medium radioactive waste, such as contaminated metal parts from the submarines' reactor sections, Clothes, and equipment used for work at the reactors. Major items that have been dumped, are coling water pumps from reactors, generators, and varying reactor parts. Some of these are placed aboard ships and lighters before these were sunk.
Solid radioactive waste in and without containers has since 1965 to 1991 been dumped in 8 different bays off eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya, and in the Kara Sea. According to the Jablokov Report, a total of 6,508 containers of radioactive waste has been dumped directly in the Kara Sea. The Northern Fleet has dumped 4,641 of these. In archives of the Murmansk Shipping Company, dumping of 11,090 containers into the sea has been recorded. In addition to radioactive waste dumped in bays on the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya, the ship "Nikel" was sunk by the island of Kolgoyev in the Barents Sea. The ship was loaded with 18 radioactive items corresponding to 1,100 cubic metres or a radioactivity of 1.5 TBq (40 Ci).
A total of 31,534 cubic metres solid radioactive waste of a radioactivity of 574 TBq (15,502 Ci) is dumped, made up of 6,508 containers, 17 ships, and 155 major items.

- Dumped reactors
Thirteen nuclear reactors from submarines have been dumped in the kara Sea. Six of the reactors have been dumped with used fuel aboard. All reactors come from nuclear submarines having had serious accidents where the reactors have been a radiation problem. The reactors were so wrecked, and the radiation so strong that the nuclear fuel was impossible to remove. This is the reason why the fuel is not removed before the reactors are dumped. In addition, three reactors from the nuclear icebreaker "lenin" have been dumped.
The Kara sea is linked to the Barents Sea. The Barents sea supports a highly important international commercial fishery, which is at risk from any leakage of radioactive material. The Karen Sea itself has lesser importance as as a fishery, but nonetheless some fish species are routinely landed from its waters. In addition, the populations of the cities of Archangelsk and Murmansk may be at risk from any radioactive contamination.

- Measurements of radioactivity in radioactivity in the Barents- and Kara Seas.
Examinations of the radioactivity have been made in areas where waste has been dumped, but the analyses are executed by military laboratories, and the results have never been released. Civilian scientists have since 1967 not been granted permission to perform research closer than 50-100 kilometres to the dumping sites.
A joint Norwegian-Russian research expedition to the Kara Sea in August/September 1992 was not granted permission to go within the 12-mile boundary of Novaya Zemlya, or to take tests at the dumping fields in the Kara Sea. Results indicate following pollution of sediments in the Kara Sea: 137Cs-radioactivity from 3 to 22 Bq/m3, 90Sr-radioactivity from 3 to 12 Bq/m3, and 239Pu + 240Pu-radioactivity of approximately 1.8 to 11.5 mBq/m3. Measurements indicate this pollution is due to contributions from reprocessing in Sellafield (UK), the rivers Ob and Jenitsej, and fallout following the Chernobyl accident. The preliminary results of the second expedition in  September/October 1993 indicate a possible leakage from one of the dumping sites in Stepovogo Bay.
Radioactivity has furthermore been measured on the eastern coastline of Novaya Zemlya. The examinations were performed by scientists from the nuclear testing field at the Matotchin Straight on Novaya Zemlya. It was claimed that, with one exception, elevated gamma-radiation was not detected. The exception concerns Abrosimova Bay, where parts of a used fuel assembly was found on the beach. Here, values of exceeding 100 Roentgen/h was measured.

- Chelyabinsk-65
The Mayak enterprise at Chelyabinsk-65 housed the Soviet Unions's first industrial nuclear reactors and produced the material for the country's first atomic bomb beginning in 1948. Between 1949 and 1952, Mayak dumped 2.75 million curies (Ci) of high-level radioactive waste directly into the nearby Techa River. When symptoms of acute radiation sickness began appearing in villagers downstream, Mayak shifted its dumping to nearby Lake Karachai. Today the lake is laden with 120 million Ci of radioactivity - several times the amount of long-lived radioactive isotopes released by the Chernobyl accident. In 1957, a radioactive waste storage tank at Mayak exploded, releasing 20 million Ci of radioactive material and contaminating more than 20,000 square kilometers of surrounding territory.

- Tomsk-7
The Tomsk-7 complex in Siberia, 2,800 km east of Moscow, started operations in 1958 with the first of five dual-purpose nuclear reactors producing plutonium for the Soviet nuclear weapons and generating electricity. Two of this reactors still operate. Waste management problems at Tomsk date back to at least the 1970s, when a senior engineer reportedly discovered that "a vast quantity" of radioactive material had been dumped into a nearby reservoir. His warnings went unheeded until May 1990, when the newspaper Izvestiya reported that the radioactive waste burial site at Tomsk was unfenced and open to roaming animals. Thirty-eight people who had consumed the wild game were found to have higher than permissible levels of radioactive substances in their bodies, and seven were hospitalized.
On 6 April 1993, an explosion at the Tomsk-7 nuclear reprocessing plant contaminated an area of 120 square kilometres and sent a cloud of radiation into the atmosphere. Fotunately, the cloud blew away from the nearby town of Tomsk. Initial statements played down the explosion and claimed that only about 1000 square metres of land had been contaminated. It was also claimed that plutonium was released. Subsequently, officials admitted that the accident was much larger than originally believed, and that very small amounts of plutonium had been released.

- Krasnoyarsk-26
The three reactors at Krasnoyarsk-26 began to produce plutonium for Soviet nuclear weapons in the ealy 1950s. One dual-purpose reactor still operates, producing weapon-grade plutonium, steam for district heating, and electricity. In 1991, Alexey Yablokov, Presidents Yeltsin's environmental adviser, reported that studies of the nearby Yenisei River had revealed heightened levels of radioactivity in the river and in the sediment along the river bank for hundreds of kilometers downstream. The environmental journal Man and Nature reported in March 1991 that gamma radiation levels in the Yenisei River below discharge from the Krasnoyarsk facility were 120-150 times above normal. In 1992, the Russian government fined Krasnoyarsk-26 6.5 billion rubles ($135 million) for radiation contamination of the region's air, soil, and water. Russian experts say that is the cost to clean up the Yenisei river bed and river bank along the 250-km stretch and to spread 70 million cubic meters of clean topsoil arounnd the Krasnoyarsk facility.

Reprocessing
In addition to producing nuclear materials, the cities of Chelyabinsk-65, Tomsk-7, and Krasnoyarsk-26 house the three known facilities in the former Soviet Union for chemical separation, or "reprocessing," of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
According to recent analyses, over the past four decades reprocessing in Russia has resulted in large releases of radioactive isotopes to the environment: for example, approximately 800,000 Ci of Kr-85 are released into the atmosphere at Chelyabinsk annually, as well as 300,000 Ci at Tomsk-7 and 170,000 Ci at Krasnoyarsk. The liquid high-level wastes from each of these facilities also composed of large quantities of acids, cyanide, and organic solvents. Although these wastes can pose substantial health and environmental risks by themselves, when mixed together the risks posed by the radioactive materials may be increased through chemical and biological interactions.
The Ministry of Atomic Energy is considering sites for underground repositories at several locations, including Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, the Kola Peninsula, and Chelyabinsk. Meanwhile, experts have reported that each year at Tomsk more than 200 million Ci of liquid high-level radioactive waste are currently being injected directly into deep geological formations, a disposal method that was discontinued in the United States years ago.
 

TRANSPORT

According to IAEA there has not been registered any health damage for 40 years of transporting radioactive materials. But putting into the annual circulation hundreds and then thousands of tons of high-activity nuclear fuel will require maximum effort to achieve technological culture of the highest level. When fuel starts on a journey from a nuclear power plant it gets into the power of a number of organisations incompetent in questions of nuclear engeneering and this can be revealed when one expects it least of all. Who will be responsible for an accident: The Ministry of Railways, The Departments of Sea or Air Transport or the Ministry of Fuel having laid a wrecking pipeline near routes of transportation? And if the training of operators is of paramount importance for nuclear power plant safety, in the case of spent fuel transportation the choice of a safe route and a well-thought-out schedule of container trains comes to the fore.
The fact that the Russian government (under pressure of the Ministry of Atomic Energy) continues the practice of accepting high-activity wastes from abroad causes a particular concern. In November 1993 the Finnish state company on generating nuclear energy <<Imatran Voima>> (IVO) planned to deliver 25 tons of spent fuel from two reactors operating in the town of Loviys (Finland) to the industrial association <<Mayak>> in Russia. IVO has been sending its radioactive wastes for burial and reprocessing to Russia according to a inter-governmental treaty since 1981. Russia is bound with the commitments of this kind with all NPPs built on Soviet designs abroad.

The total amount of spent nuclear fuel in the Russian Federation is more than 15,000 tons. The reprocessing plant RT-1 for regeneration of spent nuclear fuel formed by VVER-440, ship and and research reactors has been working in the town of Chelyabinsk-65 since 1977. Its annual production is 400 tons. Fuel from VVER-1000 reactors is to be reprocessed only after 2005 at the plant RT-2 in Krasnoyarsk-26. The construction of the plant of a productivity of 1500 tons/year was frozen because of uncertain prospects of nuclear engeneering. A temporary storage for spent fuel from VVER-1000 reactors at the plant RT-2 is designed for 2,000 tons (more than 1100 tons have already been taken for storing) and will not be filled till 2000. More than 1000 tons of spent fuel is being stored at NPPs. Reprocessing spent fuel from RBMK reactors is considered to be economically inexpedient, that is why it is planned to bury it after due storing in cooling ponds.
More than 6000 tons of spent fuel is being stored at NPPs with RBMK reactors and there are problems with with its placing. However, the construction of a centralised storage is delayed, so it is necessary to increase spent nuclear fuel storage capacity at Leningrad and Kursk NPPs. A storage at Smolensk NPP will be soon put into operation.
 

ACCIDENTS

Kola Peninsula NPP
At the Polyarnyi Sori on the Kola Peninsula there are four PWR nuclear reactors, the oldest is 23 years old and number four started operation some 11 years ago. In February 1993, and only after any immediate danger had passed, Russian authorities reported an incident at this facility which categorized as 'Zero' in a report to the IAEA. So nothing happened. Or at least that is what the IAEA put in its files.
Even according to IAEA officials it is still difficult to reconstruct, but so far this is clear: on 2 February 1993 a terrifying hurricane struck the Kola Peninsula. The hurricane was responsible for a loss of electricity supply to the reactors. As a result of that, the four reactors were automatically shut down. But the danger wasn't over. On the contrary. According to new IAEA information, the loss of power resulted in failures of the coolant system of two of the four reactors. And, to make the horror story complete, the emergency aggregrates didn't fuction. Panic and complete chaos by the control room personnel followed. Only a few seconds before a melt down personnel succeeded in starting the emergency aggregates. And only after that did Russian atomic energy inspector Gosatomnadsor send a message to IAEA. But that message claimed that there had simply been a minor incident without any consequences.

Eight months later, in October, an IAEA delegation went to the Polyarnyi Sori nuclear complex. Wan Lee Zong, a Japanese expert and part of the delegation, had this to say about the incident: "Since Chernobyl, I haven't heard of such a dramatic situation at a nuclear reactor as this one". Nevertheless, the IAEA reports that it is relatively satisfied with the present technical status of the reactors after some safety adjustments were made during the last months of 1993.

Sosnovy Bor NPP 3
On 24 March 1992 Russia's Minatom (the Russian Federation's Nuclear Power Plant Operating Directorate) reported an accident had occured at 2:37 AM at the number 3 unit of the Leningradskaya NPP (also known as Sosnovy Bor 3). This Light Water Graphite Reactor (LWGR) suffered an accident in at least one of it's fuel channels as a result of the on line fueling processes. Apparently one of the pressure seals failed due to a loss of pressure. Greenpeace said that early the same morning it had received reports that there had been a release of gas and 3,000 curies of radiation. Minatom, however, denied this and said the released gas contained inert radioactive gases, iodine-131 and various short-lived isotopes.
When Minatom originally reported the accident to the IAEA, it rated it at level 3 on the IAEA's International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). The INES rates incident-accidents on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the most severe. Level 3 is defined by the IAEA as a serious "incident", not an accident. This means that there have been external radioactive releases above authorized limits, but, again according to the IAEA, public health has not been endangered. In a report sent to the IAEA later that afternoon, Russian authorities had downgraded the accident to level 2, meaning that the release on-site was not significant. The IAEA said the data they were given in the report for airborne activity on-site and off-site is consistent with this second rating. But the IAEA went on to say, "there is an indication of a somewhat higher than authorized release of iodine from the stack. The final determination of the level will be made after a more detailed evaluation."

At 2:00 PM GMT, monitoring stations in Finland, Sweden and the UK were not picking up unusual levels of radiation. By 3:00 PM GMT, however, there was a report that monitoring stations in Finland had begun picking up slightly higher than normal reading. A spokesperson for the Finnish Center for Radiation and Nuclear Safety in Helsinki said, "The increases are minute and are only detectable very high up in the air." This report is inconsistant with Russia's Minatom attempt to downgrade the accident. Even in the official press release from Minatom, the figures for the radioactive release of Iodine-131 are listed as "less than 0.2 curies/day" when the maximum permissable release is 0.05 curies/day.
According to Oeko-Institute in Darmstadt, information they received directly from Lovisa in southern Finland says that on 24 March the level of iodine-131 there was 4.7 millibecquerel per cubic meter. This is 1000 times higher than before the Sosnovy Bor accident. The institute also reports that this level of contamination indicates probable partial damage to the core, and fuel rods are likely to have been damaged.
If the initial reports from Greenpeace International of 3,000 curies released are correct, this would make the "incident" the third worst accident (where the results had been monitored).

Chelyabinsk plutonium processing plant
On 17 July 1993 an accident took place in the Chelyabinsk area: an explosion occurred in a plutonium processing plant, radiation was released - and the public was told nothing for two days. Only on the third day did officials of the Atomic Energy Ministry and the State Inspectorate of Nuclear and Radiation Safety respond to a chorus of demands from the mass media and issue brief and uninformative statements. By this time, however, journalists had already received many details of the accident from unofficial sources through the environmental organization Greenpeace Russia.
The accident occurred in Plant 45 of the Mayak Production Combine in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-65 in the southern Urals. Until recently the city was so secret that it was not even marked on maps. It is still off limits to foreigners. The Mayak combine recycles used reactor fuel rods, extracting plutonium and using it to prepare fresh nuclear fuel. Early in 1993 Mayak concluded a contract to supply plutonium for use in the US space industry; Plant 45 is believed to be involved in filling this contract.
According to statements by the authorities, the accident resulted from an "irregular situation" in a 20-liter absorption column used for the seperation of plutonium. A mixture of hydrogen and oxygen accumulated and ignited, and the explosion partially destroyed the vessel. Mayak's deputy director reported "local contamination of a small area surrounding the installation". No personnel was exposed to radiation. Officials stated that a total of 0.2 millicuries of radiation in the form of alpha particles was released into the atmosphere via the plant's ventilation system. This was 'only three percent of the maximum permissible daily release of radiation'.

Three days after the release of radioactivity, journalists for the Moscow daily Izvestia were still complaining that they "could not obtain detailed, clear, exhausive information from the Russian nuclear authorities" on what had happened. A journalist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta complained that it had taken him three hours to get a half page of minimal information from the State Inspectorate of Nuclear and Radiation Safety".
Then, according to the official statement of Minatom, on August 2 at 11:55 AM (Chelyabinsk time), another accident took place at Mayak, this time in plant N22. As a result of a puncture in the pulp purification works' pulp feed-line, about two cubic meters of pulp with a total activity of 300 millicuries escaped into the environment. This is 1,500 times as much as what was released on July 17. An area of 100 square meters on the grounds of the facility was contaminated.
 
 

Written by the LAKA Foundation for Steps to a nuclear-free world
5 October 1995