Russia, Iran, and Nukes.

Are Russian nuclear scientists helping Iranians build a nuclear warhead? For years, people have been concerned that Russian scientists would take off and help some rogue country, whether Iran or North Korea, develop weapons. As David Hoffman, author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, said in an online Washington Post chat, officials in other countries had indeed tried to lure Russian scientists, and on one occasion a busload of Russian scientists, headed for North Korea, had been stopped at the airport. Today, Russian defense experts here in Moscow assure me that is no longer the case: The Russian scientists are not going anywhere, not as long as they are paid and well-fed, which they apparently are. A recent story in The Sunday Timesmakes it seem as though in fact some of them, at least, have apparently been meeting with Iranians. Israel's prime minister has given the Kremlin “a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead,” and in the past day or so the Russian press has picked up on the news. The story is complicated.

Russian officials have pointed out that people can do what they want, telling Interfax, a Russian news service, that “some nuclear scientists may have volunteered to work in Iran,” as Pavel Felgenhauer wrote in Eurasia Daily Monitor, “that in today’s Russia it is impossible to control the movement of people.” That is true – up to a point. The Russian scientists whom I have interviewed in Moscow seem acutely aware of the fact that people in the government are close observers of their work. Freelancing for the Iranians is possible, but it is also likely that if Russian scientists are doing this kind of work, they may not be doing it in secrecy.

Finally, it is possible that the Israelis were bringing up the issue for another reason: They may have been trying to use the issue as a way to pressure the Russians into supporting harsh sanctions against Iran, as Felgenhauer wrote, and to test the Russian reaction “to a possible Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.”

--Tara McKelvey