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NEWS FLASHBACK "74 Russian Suitcase Nukes.."MISSING!!!"
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[link to cns.miis.edu]
The loss of nuclear explosive devices might have occurred in the early 1990s, just prior to or during the transfer of all nuclear weapons to the Russian territory. Tactical nuclear weapons were stored in the territories of all 15 republics that made up the Soviet Union. According to Lebed, portable devices were kept in republics around the perimeter of Soviet territory, which makes the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, and South Caucasus particularly suspicious from the point of view of control of portable nuclear devices (since the Soviet Union was geared for a war with NATO, it is likely that nuclear weapons intended for use by Spetsnaz forces would be kept close to borders with NATO).
The period of 1990-91 was marked with increasing chaos, the emergence of nationalist and/or pro-independence movements in some republics, in particular in Ukraine, the Baltics, and South Caucasus. Many servicemen joined these organizations, whether openly or secretly, and thus opportunities for unauthorized access to nuclear warheads could not be ruled out.
Several stories published in Russian newspapers in the mid-1990s concentrated on this scenario. One such story, which fit Lebed's allegation about Chechnya, described the purchase of two 30 kg "rucksack" nuclear devices by Chechen representatives in Lithuania in November 1991-January 1992. Another report about a "Chechen bomb" appeared in the fall of 1999, when Russian troops were starting a new war in Chechnya.[24] The devices were reportedly stolen prior to the transfer of nuclear weapons to Russia and hidden there until sold to Chechnya. It should be noted, however, that Russian newspapers, which published stories about the sale of nuclear weapons to the Chechens, are among the least reliable sources of information in Russia, so their evidence should be taken with a grain of salt. Lebed himself stated that the story about the diversion of portable nuclear devices to Chechnya, which prompted his investigation in the first place, was eventually found to be false.[25] Incidentally, according to former Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, Chechen President Jokhar Dudaev approached the U.S. government in 1993 claiming he possessed Soviet nuclear weapons, but could not support his claim.[26]
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