Viktor Yesin was one of those who checked the safety of "nuclear suitcases" and who personally counted their number. He asserts with full responsibility that suitcase-sized nuclear devices could not disappear from Russia (such a mine's nuclear charge with a capacity of up to one ton can completely devastate an area of 1,200-1,600 meters in diameter).
It was at the initiative of George Bush, Sr., and Mikhail Gorbachev, says the colonel-general, that all mini nuclear weapons were to be eliminated. They were destroyed in the United States, according to certain data, at the end of 1991 and, according to other information, in 1992. Russia declared about the elimination of all nuclear mines at the conference on progress in implementing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the April of 2000.
In the opinion of the expert, other countries, apart from Russia and the U.S., that are in a position to posses suitcase-sized nuclear weapons are China and Israel since they are supposed to have nuclear artillery shells which are close to nuclear mines in construction.
Experts report, however, about the existence of so-called nuclear "dirty bombs" which can be hand-made. The explosion of such a container is not accompanied with a nuclear blast but radiation affecting people does spread.
There are more than a hundred states capable of manufacturing fissionable materials for making "dirty bombs".
A draft international agreement placing all the production of fissile nuclear materials under IAEA control was compiled more than five years ago but has still failed to be adopted in Geneva because of the apprehensions by some countries that the agreement will undermine their nuclear engineering for peaceful purposes. Mr. Yesin is confident that this agreement is the only way of removing the threat of acts of terrorism with the use of nuclear explosives.
