In order to realize the ultimate goal of global nuclear abolition, it seems that many countries are waiting for a positive signal from the Europeans. However, many European countries still harbour nuclear weapons on their soil. Amongst these are Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and of course the Nuclear Weapon States of France and the United Kingdom. Adding to this is the vast number of hazardously insecure nuclear weapons in Russia. The catastrophic sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine “Kursk” a few years ago and several incidents of mutiny on such vessels do not serve to establish confidence in the Russian nuclear fleet.

A Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Europe would be a milestone on the path towards global nuclear disarmament. How to achieve this? An IPPNW Congress of doctors, abolitionists and political decision makers in the Baltic port city of Rostock last year proposed the concept of a Nuclear Free Baltic Sea as a first concrete step towards ridding Europe of its nuclear Cold War remnants. Already, many coastal cities in Denmark, almost all Swedish port cities, communities in the Baltic states and some German towns along the Baltic coast have joined the movement with the goal of preventing the development, the transport and the stationing of nuclear weapons in and around the Baltic.

In an appeal signed by more than 20.000 citizens, representatives of IPPNW, the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists against Proliferation (INESAP) urged the German government to use its Presidency of the Baltic Council to lay the groundwork for such a historic step. Also, these three groups joined up in an Abolition Coalition and drafted a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which calls for the step-by-step abolition of nuclear arms and outlines the creation of Nuclear Weapon Free Zones as one step towards achieving this goal.

It is important to realize that despite earlier statements declaring the removal of nuclear weapons from submarines of its Baltic Fleet, Russian nuclear submarines are probably still stationed in the Baltic Naval Bases. In July of 2003, Captain Igor Dygalo, an aide to the Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief, stated that Russian nuclear submarines have never stopped patrolling the world ocean and referred to joint tactical exercises of the Baltic and Northern fleets in the Baltic Sea at the end of June 2003 and a joint Russian-Indian naval exercise, which demonstrate the Russian nuclear capability in the region.

The recent opening of a simulator centre for Indian nuclear submariners in the Baltic port of Sosnovy Bor (80 km West of St. Petersburg) has added to the concern of a continued stationing of nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea. For more than 40 years the models of developed nuclear submarines have been tested in the A.P. Alexandrov Research Institute of Technologies (NITI) in Sosnovy Bor. Sosnovy Bor also hosts the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant and is home to the Training Center for Officers of the Russian Navy which houses working nuclear reactors of the type found on nuclear submarines. These reactors are used to test nuclear fuel and other technologies applicable to nuclear submarine reactors. Attached to this new training facility for Indian nuclear submariners, Russia is negotiating lending nuclear submarines to India in an unprecedented case of nuclear proliferation. In the opinion of experts, the completion of the submarines, development of the harbour infrastructure and training of their crews may bring up to $2 billion to Russia. This deal will stimulate India-Pakistan atomic controversy and nuclear arms race in the Indo-China region. India is one of four influential countries that are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We should keep in mind that the Russian coast of the Baltic Sea, next to the 5-million St. Petersburg, is already saturated with nuclear-hazardous facilities: Leningrad NPP (LAES) with four “RBMK-1000” reactors, several military research reactors for submarines in the NITI, temporary storages of high-level nuclear waste of LAES and NITI, which contain super-toxic radioactive materials enough for many dozens of "Chernobyls". This area also hosts the "Radon" - regional surface storage facility of medium- and low-level waste collected in the Northwest of Russia, and also Ekomet-S, the largest plant for reprocessing radioactive contaminated metal in Europe. All these facilities are sited at a distance from several tens to several hundreds of meters from the Baltic Sea shore. So there is a constant risk of contamination of the Baltic seawater, which washes the coasts of 9 European countries – water, which has already seen its share of nuclear contamination. Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing was being carried out at Novaya Zemlya in the 1950s and 1960s. Fallout from these tests spread evenly across the whole of the Baltic Sea drainage area. The fallout consisted mainly of cesium-137 and strontium-90. As a result, the sea water in the sea areas surrounding Finland had cesium and strontium concentrations of 40-50 becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m3) of water, according to the Helsinki Institute, which monitors radiological data in the Baltic Sea.

The establishment of the International Center for nuclear cooperation between the armed forces of Russia and India can make the radiologically hazardous facilities on the seashore a target for international terrorism. A terrorist attack may have large-scale and long-term catastrophic consequences not only for Russia, but also for dozens of millions people living in all countries of the Baltic Region. At the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant alone there are four reactors of the Chernobyl-type RMBK 1000, several naval reactors at NITI, temporary storage for highly radioactive waste from the nuclear power plant, and enough highly toxic waste to constitute dozens of Chernobyls. A nuclear submarine can contain up to 10 kilograms of plutonium in its spent nuclear fuel.

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