Soviet rockets on sale in Moldovan breakoff region

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Three Soviet Alazan radioactive rockets from the Cold War era are reportedly for sale in the Moldovan Republic of Transnistria.

A Sunday Times reporter went undercover through a Transnistrian secret police office. Posing as a middleman for an Algerian Islamic group, the reporter met with an arms dealer, who offered to sell three of the rockets for US$500,000 (£263,000).

The Alazan is an 82mm diameter rocket originally developed to distribute cloud-seeding chemicals such as potassium or silver iodide. With a range of eight miles, the rockets could be used to contaminate an entire city center. These rockets were part of fifty thousand tons of equipment that Soviet forces left in the republic after the Cold War.

Some were converted into improvised munitions and modified to carry explosive warheads. Others were retrofitted with a warhead reputed to contain up to 400g of radioactive caesium-137 and strontium-90, to help scientists track clouds and other meteorological events.

The arms dealer offered to allow the reporter to inspect the rockets with a Geiger counter to confirm that they contained caesium and strontium.

Sources

Brian Johnson Thomas and Mark Franchetti. "Radiation rockets on sale to ‘terrorists’" — The Sunday Times, May 8, 2005
"Soviet Radiation Rockets on Sale in Moldova’s Breakaway Region — Paper" — mosnews.com, May 10, 2005

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Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

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Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.