Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) (Obninsk).

Research reactors; research on weapons grade materials; critical assemblies.

Approximately 1150 kg of plutonium.

Perhaps as much as 7 tons of HEU.

Unsafeguarded.

This is the largest of the seven nuclear facilities in Obninsk.

Only 90 minutes by train from Moscow, Obninsk is one of the first few labs to be part of US-Russia "Quick Fix " program to improve security and inventory control at sites holding nuclear material. (As of autumn 1996, five of these sites are now secure.)

To date, Obninsk has the distinction of being the only Russian nuclear facility to host both Lab-to-Lab and Government-to-Government Material Protection Control & Accountability cooperative activities. In January-February 1995, U.S. representatives visited Obninsk to determine the MPC&A requirements of the facility. Under the U.S.-Russian Lab-to-Lab efforts, a substantial prototype MPC&ampA system has been established that includes portal monitors, metal detectors, digital video systems, computerized nuclear material accounting systems, and radiation detectors. The system was formally demonstrated on September 21, 1995. As of March 1996, the IPPE had signed forty-six contracts with U.S. national laboratories to be carried out in 1996 and was to receive $2 million worth of U.S. equipment and technology designed to prevent diversions of nuclear material. A Russian national training center for MPC&A specialists is being developed at Obninsk with assistance from the United States, EURATOM, and the European Commission Joint Research Center. The first classes have been held.

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