The Kurchatov Institute published bid to purchase foreign anti-drone systems as domestic ones deemed unreliable or unavailable.

The Kurchatov Institute, one of Russia’s largest national research centers, has published this week a bid to procure two foreign anti-drone systems worth 17.5 million rubles for the protection of its two experimental nuclear reactors in the Moscow metropolitan area.

At least one of the reactors was still operational, the investigative outlet Agentstvo (The Agency) learned after spotting the bid.

The irony is that Kurchatov Institute’s president Mikhail Kovalchuk spoke a week ago to President Vladimir Putin about the superiority of Russian science and military.

While the type and manufacturers of the defense systems were not revealed, the justification note says no analogue equipment was available in Russia. Which may also mean the domestic anti-drone systems are not reliable in a direct standoff with eventual Ukrainian drones.

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The hardware and software-based monitoring and anti-drone systems will cost the institute 5.5 million and 7.6 million rubles, respectively, with an additional 4.4 million rubles required for installation and commissioning.

The first system will be installed at the Gas Plant complex on 23 Zivopisnaya Street, and the second at the Kurchatov Complex of Theoretical and Experimental Physics on 25 Cheremushkinskaya Street.

One of the few publicly-available pictures of a Kurchatov nuclear reactor.

The names of the vendors were not revealed either and it's not clear how the acquisition will avoid the sanctions.

The Kurchatov Complex of Theoretical and Experimental Physics is located in Moscow's Kotlovka District. Until 2022, it was known as the Alikhanov Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, which was founded in 1945 to develop a heavy-water nuclear reactor.

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It houses a nuclear reactor that was shut down in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster but has never been fully decommissioned, Anton Tyulyusov, a Kurchatov employee, said in a 2020 interview.

In addition to the reactor, the complex contains six accelerators and the Maket electro-nuclear installation, Tyulyusov claimed.

Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Kovalchuk.

According to a federal program, this 2.5 MW reactor is scheduled for decommissioning by 2028.

Between 1954 and 1983, the complex housed two research water-cooled reactors with capacities of 3 MW and 300 kW, according to the journal Atomic Energy. Between 1983 and 1986, the complex was rebuilt, and a new 300 kW reactor was launched for experiments, while the two older ones were dismantled. By 2013, spent nuclear fuel had been removed.

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That same year, the government announced plans to decommission the third, last reactor, during a decade-long period, 2015-2025, under supervision by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the domestic nuclear agency Rosatom.

A week ago, Vladimir Putin took the floor at the Future Technologies Forum, where he was joined on stage by Kurchatov Institute president Mikhail Kovalchuk. Both Putin and Kovalchuk spoke about the achievements of Russian science.

The dictator was especially enthusiastic about the ballistic missiles Oreshnik and Avangard, which he hailed as unparalleled in the world. His Kurchatov guy in turn praised Russian rocket engineering – assuring Putin that domestically-made “non-electronic plasma rocket engines” are capable of travel to the Moon and Mars.

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