Russian 'smuggled Weapons-grade Uranium'

The safety of Russia's vast nuclear arsenal was called into question today after Georgia announced it had arrested a man trying to sell weapons-grade uranium hidden under his jacket.

Officials in Tbilisi said the man - Oleg Khintsagov - had been captured after smuggling the uranium into the country. Special agents posing as members of a radical Islamist group captured the Russian businessman in a sting operation.

Mr Khintsagov had offered to sell 100g of the already-enriched uranium for $1m, officials said. After producing a sample, he told agents he had another 2-3kg of uranium back at his home in Vladikavkaz in neighbouring southern Russia - enough to make a small but devastating bomb.

According to the New York Times, FBI officials later confirmed that the uranium was 90% enriched, but they said they did not know where it had come from.

Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Rosatom, also admitted the uranium was genuine, but they also said they could not identify its origin and accused Georgia of failing to cooperate.

"This is a dangerous amount of uranium. It's enough to build a modest nuclear bomb," Lev Fyodorov, a nuclear expert with Russia's Chemical Safety Union told the Guardian. "Uranium is easy to smuggle. It doesn't harm the person who carries it."

He added: "There are several places in Russia where it could have come from. Either Russia's intelligence agency is not doing enough to stop this sort of thing from going on, or there is a campaign underway to suggest that Russia is the kind of state where nuclear components disappear."

Russia's vast stocks of nuclear weapons have been a source of international concern since the fall of the Soviet Union, though it says its nuclear facilities are well guarded.

Officials in Moscow also cast doubt on the timing of today's revelation by Georgia - pointing out that the businessman was arrested in December 2005.

Mr Khintsagov, a 50-year-old trader, also sold fish and sausages, Georgian officials said. He was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison at a secret trial in Tiblisi. Officials said they had not revealed the operation earlier because they did not want to compromise their investigation.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have been for some time, though Russia's ambassador returned to Georgia this week following a diplomatic row late last year over allegations of Russian spying.