Nuclear distillation: how could radioactive plutonium be exported from Russia
A US citizen confessed to illegally obtaining and selling plutonium-239, which, according to the US prosecutor's office, he received from Russia. At the same time, experts doubt that such material could be legally acquired and quietly exported from the country: the turnover of plutonium is strictly controlled, and its movement across the border requires special permission. What this radioactive element is used for, who has the right to work with it, and how realistic the version of its illegal export from Russia is is described in the Izvestia article.
Who transported the plutonium
Jacob Miller, a 44-year-old resident of Massachusetts, confessed to receiving radioactive plutonium-239 from Russia and selling it abroad, the US Attorney's office said. Miller organized the online store "Collect the Periodic Table" and sold chemicals, including radioactive substances, directly from home. From December 2020 to March 2025, he managed to mail plutonium to more than 67 buyers from the USA, Canada, Japan and Switzerland.
According to The New York Times, the American received the dangerous substance from a seller from St. Petersburg.: It is not reported exactly how the plutonium was removed from Russia. Miller is now accused of illegally importing nuclear materials, shipping ammunition, dangerous and explosive substances. Given his previous convictions, he faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of the charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January 2027.
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element. Its isotopes, such as plutonium-239 (Pu-239), are used to create nuclear weapons and fuel. The free sale of this element is prohibited in Russia: only organizations with a Rostechnadzor license and access to work with nuclear materials (Federal Law "On the Use of Atomic Energy") can legally purchase such substances, explains the managing partner of the Pen Bar Association. & Paper by Alexey Dobrynin.
— For example, these are Rosatom enterprises, scientific institutes and industrial organizations. It is impossible for a private person to purchase plutonium: there is no corresponding license for citizens on the list," says the lawyer.
The search engine for "buy plutonium" gives out only one company (we are talking about the legal market), whose catalog contains plutonium-239 and another isotope— plutonium-238 from an American company. Izvestia talked to the seller, and the manager clarified that such substances are supplied only on order, but their delivery is now "unlikely."
The export of such items from Russia is possible only under license. The Federal Customs Service told Izvestia that plutonium-239 is on the list of nuclear materials subject to export control. The relevant permits are issued by the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC).
To do this, the company must provide a whole set of documents, including a license to work with such substances, the agency explained to Izvestia. The decision is made after verification and examination. The FSTEC said that, given the danger of plutonium and the scope of its application, it is almost impossible to obtain an export permit, especially for a private individual. The law does not prohibit individuals and individual entrepreneurs from applying for a license, but they will have to explain the origin of the substance and the purpose of its use.
The agency considers the news of smuggling implausible, noting that a US citizen would not have been able to purchase plutonium in Russia: the element is under the control of Rosatom. Experts are confident that special customs terminals would have detected a dangerous element at the border.
Rosatom declined to comment.
What is the threat for smuggling
Criminal liability is provided for the smuggling of highly potent, poisonous and radioactive substances: up to five years in prison, with aggravating circumstances, for example, when committing an act as part of an organized group, up to 12 years (art. 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). But, according to lawyer Alexey Dobrynin, Jacob Miller's story is not about chemistry for Russian law, but about radiation and nuclear safety.
— Illegal movement of radioactive and nuclear materials is also prohibited in the United States. Such a violation is punishable by up to life imprisonment," the lawyer added.
Criminal liability is provided for illegal handling of nuclear materials. As explained by Yuri Piyagin, adviser and lawyer of the ICA Sobranie, Article 220 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation concerns the illegal acquisition, storage, use, transfer or destruction of nuclear materials and radioactive substances. A sale can be qualified as a transfer, and a purchase as an acquisition. No subsequent resale of the material is required to hold the buyer accountable. The main body faces up to two years in prison. It is also possible to restrict freedom for up to two years, forced labor for the same period, or arrest for up to four months.
Have there been similar cases and what does this mean for the United States?
Such incidents are rather rare in the United States. The only similar episode is the relatively recent case of Takeshi Ebisawa, the leader of the Yakuza mafia. According to the Ministry of Justice, since 2020, he and his accomplices have been trying to arrange an international deal with nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium from Myanmar. They expected to sell them to a representative posing as an Iranian general, and in return receive weapons. However, in fact, Ebisawa did not contact the buyer, but the employees of the DEA, the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Therefore, his story cannot be considered as a real importation of Russian Pu-239 — it was an operation for international trafficking of nuclear materials. But Ebisawa received a real prison sentence of 20 years in March 2026.
In the historical context, plutonium smuggling is usually associated with Europeans. The most famous example is the case in Germany in 1994. First, in July, about 6 grams of highly enriched plutonium-239 mixed with mercury were seized from the garage of businessman Adolf Jeckle in Tengen. German intelligence agencies claimed that it was of Soviet origin and had been imported illegally through Eastern European channels. The Russian side denied the charges at the time. However, in August, plutonium-239 was discovered again — three people were arrested at Munich airport: a Colombian and two Spaniards who had flown in from Moscow. One of them had a lead container with mixed uranium and plutonium oxide in his suitcase.
Both cases eventually led to an international scandal, which was discussed at the level of Boris Yeltsin and Helmut Kohl. At the same time, the German tribunal later admitted that the "smuggling" was staged as part of Operation Hades by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the agents themselves reached out to the sellers through front persons. Everything was done for the sake of publicly demonstrating some kind of "nuclear threat" from the East.
These episodes became part of a broader wave of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials in Europe after the collapse of the USSR. According to EURATOM, dozens of attempts to sell them were recorded in the first half of the 1990s, most of them in Germany. However, in the early 2000s, American experts assessed leaks from Russian stocks as a real but relatively small problem: there was no evidence of a large-scale and sustainable black market for weapons-grade plutonium.
According to Gleb Ignatiev, a lecturer at the Department of Politics and Management at the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences, the current episode also does not indicate the risk of large-scale traffic of nuclear materials. According to him, there are no official signs of political influence, blackmail or attempts to transfer the substance to a state that poses a threat to the United States. At the same time, Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada, believes that Miller's story points to a decrease in the effectiveness of American government control, especially after the Donald Trump administration came to power.
The case of Miller fits into the accents of the Republican campaign before the congressional elections, Vasiliev emphasizes. According to him, such stories help keep American society in a state of nervous tension and show that the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks against the United States persists. Ignatiev, however, believes that Republicans are unlikely to make a big case out of this story before the election. However, in his opinion, it can be used as one of the arguments in favor of strengthening measures to ensure national security.
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