U.S. Firm to Help Russia Sell Military Technology to West
An American company struck a deal Tuesday with Russia’s top nuclear weapons and energy laboratory to help sell ex-Soviet military technology to the West.
New York-based National Patent Development Corp. pledged $1 million to launch the joint venture with the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, which employs 10,000 nuclear experts.
“We see in the Kurchatov Institute an incredible amount of technology that has not been exposed to the world, that has been used in their military operations,” Jerome Feldman, the New York firm’s president, told reporters.
Feldman said the venture will earn “vast amounts of dollars” by selling leftover weapons technology, including diamond-hard protective coatings and devices for automated nuclear reactors.
The plan to market former Soviet military secrets was announced two weeks after President Bush approved a $14-million purchase from Russia of a space-based nuclear reactor, plutonium-238 space fuel and related technology.
The Bush Administration said it will encourage such purchases from Russia if the Russian technology is better than its American counterpart or if the United States would have to spend too much money to develop the technology on its own.
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