Leaving Dunkirk on Saturday November 15, the Mikhail Dudin, carrying about 10 containers of reprocessed uranium containing traces of plutonium and other fission products, arrived in the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Wednesday November 26. It takes about 5 days for parcels from Ust-Luga to arrive by rail at Tomsk-7, the secret city in Siberia now known by the euphemism of Seversk.
The Mikhail Dudin is a general cargo ship that is almost 30 years old, the average age at which merchant ships are taken out of service. Before specialising in nuclear transport, she was used to transport ammonium nitrate and regularly visited the ports of Nantes, Saint-Malo and Les Sables-d’Olonne. Her owner is today Cargo Flow Line Ltd, based in Hong Kong. Her operator, NWS 2 Balt Shipping Co Ltd, is based in Estonia. The classification society for the Mikhail Dudin is Panama Shipping Registrar Inc. It describes itself as “the most competitive of the market, adjusted to the costs required by the shipowners.” “Shipbreaking”, Robin des Bois’ magazine of information and analysis on end-of-life ships, notes that Panama Shipping Registrar Inc (PSR) is mainly known for going along end-of-life ships on their final voyages to India, Bangladesh or Türkiye. PSR is obviously not a member of the IACS (International Association of Classification Societies).
The Mikhail Dudin is to our knowledge the only cargo ship that sails with a caravan near the deckhouse and wheelhouse, probably a dining room or extra berths in case of need, probably a dining or recreation room for cosmopolitan sailors who do not have access to the officers’ mess.
Mikhail Dudin, September 27, 2020, The Netherlands © Arnold Pohen
The Mikhail Dudin was inspected at Ellesmere, in the Mersey estuary in the United Kingdom, in May 2018 (3 days’ detention and 8 deficiencies) and in October 2021. Ellesmere is 5 km from the Capenhurst uranium enrichment plant operated by Urenco. The Mikhail Dudin‘s stopovers in Ellesmere undoubtedly indicate exchanges of radioactive materials between Russia and the United Kingdom. These have been suspended since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, the Mikhail Dudin remains a regular visitor to the port of Dunkirk. She was inspected there in November 2022 (4 deficiencies), December 2023 (2 days’ detention and 5 deficiencies) and February 2025 (3 deficiencies).
Robin des Bois is surprised that EDF (French State-owned power utility company) uses such a shuttle to transport contaminated uranium between France and Russia and enriched uranium between Russia and France. This negligence is all the more surprising given that the sinking of the ro-ro ship Mont Louis operated by the Compagnie Générale Maritime on August 25, 1984 off Ostend, carrying uranium hexafluoride bound for Riga, USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), had a global impact. The Mont Louis came from Le Havre and the uranium hexafluoride from Pierrelatte.
The nuclear partnership between France and Russia dates back to 1966. French civil nuclear power would not exist without Russia. France has always preferred to send reprocessed uranium to Russia rather than build its own enrichment plant. A project in the Tricastin nuclear complex in the Rhône Valley (or elsewhere) had been under consideration for some 15 years and surfaced from time to time, but rather than spending 2 billion euros (at least), the French nuclear industry, with the approval of successive governments, preferred to continue using Russia’s services and let it deal with the waste from this risky enrichment process.
This is not the only area of cooperation of France with the Russian friends/enemies. Russia’s participation in the construction of the ITER nuclear fusion reactor in Cadarache in the Rhône Valley is fundamental. ITER is directly inspired by the experimental “tokamaks” developed by Russia in the 1960s, whose progress was officially but secretly followed by the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
A “poloidal field coil” manufactured in Russia – i.e. a gigantic ring-shaped magnet weighing 200 tonnes and measuring 9 metres in diameter – was unloaded at Fos-sur-Mer in February 2023 after leaving Saint Petersburg in November 2022.
Departure from Saint-Petersburg © Rosatom
Arrival at Cadarache © Iter
The tugboat + barge convoy encountered some difficulties with transit, particularly in the Baltic Sea. The “coil” finally arrived by special road convoy on February 10, 2023 in Cadarache. It is one of 25 works built for ITER by the Russian Federation. The European Union, Japan, South Korea and the United States of America, which are also participating in the financing and design of the ITER adventure, are far from considering Russia’s exclusion from this promising yet reckless and ruinous adventure.
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