Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, environmental issues have not been high on the priority list of the government of the new Russia. The collapse of its economy, and the massive task of rebuilding government and society has pushed other issues into the background. Yet the former Soviet Union was one of the worst abusers of the natural environment in the world. From its thirty-year arms race with the west has sprung a new set of threats with potentially disastrous implications for the people and the environment in Russia, of surrounding countries and of the entire world.

Much of Russia's enormous nuclear military establishment remains. But because of the state of Russian society, the military cannot afford to maintain all of these weapons and reactors in safe working order. The result is the very real threat of a nuclear accident in Russia, possibly rivalling the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986.

RUSSIA's NUCLEAR SUBMARINES

The Russian fleet of nuclear submarines is a case in point. During the Cold War arms race, the Soviet Union built and operated a large fleet of nuclear powered submarines. Most of these patrol the Barents Sea, between Russia and Norway. As a result, the Kola Peninsula, adjacent to the Norwegian border along the Barents Sea, today has the highest concentration of nuclear reactors in the world. Eighteen percent of all the world's nuclear reactors are located there. At present, Russia owns 52 retired submarines still containing nuclear fuel, along with 67 nuclear submarines still in operation. The scale and pace of the arms race meant that no plans were made for how to decommission these dangerous reactors. The present generation must now work out what to do with them.

ALEXANDR NIKITIN AND BELLONA

The Norwegian environmental group Bellona was established in 1986 after the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl drew the world's attention to the dangers of aging nuclear reactors in Russia. Bellona concentrates its activities on northwestern Russia, which borders Norway. It is in this area that submarine accidents, overburdened radioactive storage sites, submarines taken out of active service and the ocean dumping of nuclear waste have spurred fears of

nuclear pollution. Bellona seeks to bring attention to t problems and to work towards solutions.

In 1995, Bellona began investigating the problem of the neglected Russian nuclear submarine fleet. It was concerned that the neglect it had suffered, the dire financial situation of the Russian military and the lack of real proposals for safe decommissioning of nuclear submarines could lead to the leak of nuclear materials into the seas around Russia and Norway. Such materials could then be carried elsewhere in the world by ocean currents. It is even possible that one of the reactors in the submarines could melt down, with disastrous consequences.

Bellona worked to prepare a report on the problem. In its research on the issue it received help from a retired Russian naval Captain, who was only too aware of the problems presented by Russia's submarines. Alexandr Nikitin gathered information for Bellona about the state of the submarines, which they used to prepare the report. The information he gave to them was in the public domain in Russia: none of it was classified. Furthermore, the Russian Federal Law on State Secrets, adopted in 1993, contains provisions saying that no information on the condition of the environment, or on extraordinary incidents and catastrophes that may endanger human life, can be classified as state secrets. In other words, what Alexandr Nikitin did was not illegal.

But the Russian secret police thought otherwise. In October 1996, just after Bellona's report-"The Russian Northern Fleet"-was published, the Federal Security Service (FSB) raided Bellona's Russian office and confiscated all materials being used to prepare it. They impounded copies of the report and banned members of Bellona from entering Russia. Then, four months later, they raided the home of Alexandr Nikitin. They arrested him, and threw hi-in in jail. But he never knew what for.

The FSB were never able to come up with a crime to charge Nikitin with. They said he had violated secrecy laws, but they didn't tell him, or his lawyer, what those laws were. They just wanted him out of the way, and they wanted the state of Russia's submarine fleet covered up. While Nikitin was in jail, some Russian journalists who wrote about his case were fired. Nikitin might have stayed in prison without trial or charge forever had not an international campaign by NGOS, including Amnesty International, Human

Rights Watch, the international environmental community, as well as, many individual Russians and Russian environmental and human rights groups, succeeded in putting pressure on the Russian government to treat Nikitin fairly. On 14 December last year, Nikitin was finally released, after 10 months and 8 days in jail.

But his ordeal is not over yet. Now he faces additional time in jail, still for unknown charges. After his ordeal, he is keen to clear his name in court, and prove he has not committed any crime. But he knows that the FSB are out to convict him at almost any cost, and he is worried that his trial will not be fair. His lawyer is demanding that he be informed of the charges against Nikitin before he is brought to court-if this doesn't happen, his trial will be little more than a farce. Nikitin also wants his case transferred to Russia's high court. He knows the officials who arrested him are anything but impartial, and wants Russia's General Procurator at the high court to try his case.

The Nikitin affair is a test case for the rule of law in the new Russia. It will determine whether Russian citizens are able to exercise their democratic rights to protect their environment.