Bloomberg: Russia is supplying China with fuel for a reactor that can produce the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons

Russia supplies China with large quantities of nuclear fuel for the fast neutron reactor located on Changbiao Island. It can produce the plutonium needed to develop nuclear warheads.

Bloomberg writes about it.

American intelligence is actively monitoring Chinaʼs nuclear installation on this island. They believe that if the reactor is operational this year, China will be able to quadruple its stockpile of nuclear weapons within 12 years. This will allow Beijing to match the US and Russia in terms of nuclear potential.

UN experts point out that it is not necessarily about the development of nuclear weapons. But China stopped reporting plutonium stockpiles for civilian and other uses, a bad sign.

Since the release of the 2021 report to Congress, US Defense Department officials have repeatedly raised concerns about Chinaʼs nuclear ambitions. According to military planners, the reactor could play a crucial role in increasing Chinaʼs stockpile of warheads from the current 400 units to 1 500 in 2035.

• On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin informed that the Russian Federation was suspending its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty. This treaty is one of the main ones between the USA and the USSR, and then Russia, in the issue of control over the nuclear weapons of both countries. The Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons was signed between Russia and the United States in 2010. This is already the third agreement between the two states — the largest owners of nuclear weapons, and it is valid until 2026. The United States signed the first such agreement with the USSR in the summer of 1991, and the second with Russia in 1993. The agreements provide that Russia and the United States will jointly reduce their nuclear warheads, as well as the possible carriers of nuclear weapons, from missiles to strategic bombers.