Russia took charge from Yugoslavia on Friday of enough weapons-grade uranium for two nuclear bombs, under a unique scheme to prevent extremists from obtaining material for atomic devices.
The US-funded operation flew 6,000 uranium rods from the Vinca nuclear research institute near Belgrade to Russia, where the fuel will be blended down and used for research or in civilian power stations.
"The current operation is an excellent example of Russian-American cooperation to prevent the threat of international terrorism," the RIA news agency quoted Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart George W. Bush made the fight against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction a priority at their May summit in Moscow.
The following month US Attorney General John Ashcroft said the US authorities had captured a suspected American al-Qaeda operative ordered to help plan an attack on the US with a radioactive "dirty bomb." Osama bin Laden's network is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.
The US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative said it had helped clear the way for the operation by providing US$5 million to clean-up and decommission Vinca, which the Yugoslav authorities had linked to the fuel's repatriation.
Congress spending rules meant US government money could only be used for the transfer of the fuel -- 48.4kg of highly enriched uranium -- and not to meet ecological concerns.
"Highly-enriched uranium is the raw material for catastrophic terrorism, and it requires the same security discipline that we currently apply to nuclear weapons," said Sam Nunn, the NTI co-founder who spent much of his Senate career working to eliminate or make secure Russia's Soviet-era weapons of mass destruction.
Laura Holgate, NTI vice president in charge of Russia and former Soviet states, said the material transferred to Russia was enough for two-and-a-half nuclear bombs.
"It's exactly the kind of material that is suited for a nuclear weapon" she said in a telephone interview from Washington.
"It's not radioactive and can be carried in your pocket, which is what makes it a proliferation concern."
The Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dmitrovgrad, in Russia's Volga region of Ulyanovsk, has worked for years with the US Energy Department to boost the security of its vaults where fissile material is stored, said Holgate.
She said US personnel on the ground had confirmed the uranium's safe arrival with its IAEA security tags intact.
The NTI says around 2.5 tons of spent fuel remains at Vinca in a highly contaminated pool near the now disused reactor.
"Normally these pools look like swimming pools, they are pristine, they are clear, you can read numbers on the [fuel] rods," Holgate said. "This pool looks like a cesspool."
The NTI will now help plan Vinca's decommission and clean-up. Similar Soviet-era research reactors are believed to remain in around 16 countries including Belarus, Libya, Romania and Egypt.
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