The Federal Security Service [FSB] directorate for Krasnoyarsk Territory jointly with other law-enforcement agencies held the Atom-2003 training exercise at the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine [Russia's major facility for production of weapon-grade plutonium and for reprocessing nuclear waste]. Its plan envisaged a special operation to rebuff a mock terrorist attack.

The fable for the exercise said that a group of "terrorists acting on behalf of an international terrorist organization" had intruded into the plant's secret facilities and had taken several workers hostage. During negotiations with official representatives, they made political demands and threatened to kill the hostages. A special-purpose unit rendered them harmless and freed the hostages within a few seconds, a spokeswoman for the Krasnoyarsk Territory FSB directorate, Stella Alekseyeva, told ITAR-TASS.

The secretary of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Security Council, Anatoliy Kovrigin, assessed the exercise positively.

CDI Russia Weekly #259 ~ Contents  •  Next