(Newswire.net — August 26, 2019) — For fifteen days, very little is known about the incident at a Russian military training compound in which five engineers have lost their lives.
It turned out that at the time of the explosion, the measuring stations of the system that monitors nuclear tests in Russia were out of function. This was reported by an Organization based in Vienna, which oversees The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBTO)
Deutche Welle (DW) interlocutors assume that the Russians have deliberately excluded radiation measuring stations.
Subsequently, conflicting messages arrived from Moscow. First, it was reported that there were problems with the units of measurement, and then Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the transmission of data from those measuring stations to the CTBTO was “completely voluntary”.
Russia is one of 184 countries that have signed a treaty banning nuclear tests. Unlike the US, officials in Moscow have also ratified the treaty. But it has not yet come into force because some countries – including North Korea and Iran – have not yet put their signatures and ratified the treaty.
Nevertheless, Moscow has concluded an agreement with the CTBTO on the financing of measuring stations in Russia under the control of the Ministry of Defense. The idea is to make the radiation level measured by the station available to the CTBTO as well as to all other signatory countries.
According to Russian sources, after the incident, the measuring units were “canceled” by precisely the stations that could measure possible radiation – those in Dubna, in Kirov in the European part of Russia, as well as to the east in Bilibin, Salesov and Peledu. Only two measurement stations in the Far East remained in operation.
“Of course, it is doubtful when the stations that could measure possible radiation are excluded,” said Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center, a US non-governmental organization that handles radiation.
Two stations near Severdvinsk are working again and sending data to Vienna. This is why Michael Sheppner of the Vienna Institute for Security and Risk believes that the fallout of several measuring stations during the incident indicates that the cells have been deliberately switched off.
Ana Pelegrino, who works at the James Martin Center for Arms Control for DW, said that “Russia may have stopped transmitting data so that other countries would not be able to obtain potentially important information about the radioactivity released in Nunoxi.”
Experts from the American James Martin Center believe that a missile, which NATO has labeled under the code name “Skyfall”, is in question.
The deaths of the five engineers buried in Sarov have not yet been explained.