Pavel Podvig

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/99035408093

Abstract: This presentation describes an approach to nuclear disarmament verification that is designed to avoid having to deal with sensitive information about nuclear weapons or weapon-related fissile materials. In elimination of warheads, this approach relies on verifying the absence of nuclear weapons in weapon storage facilities. In dealing with weapon-usable fissile materials, the deferred verification arrangement proposes a mechanism that would allow nuclear-armed states to declare the amount of fissile material that they possess and, most importantly, do it in a verifiable way. These approaches could be used in a variety of situations, from removal of non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to verifying declarations in a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and disarmament in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Bio: Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, where he runs his research project, "Russian Nuclear Forces." He is also a Senior Researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and a researcher with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University. His current research focuses on the Russian strategic forces and nuclear weapons complex, as well as technical and political aspects of nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, missile defense, and U.S.-Russian arms control process. Pavel Podvig is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. He has a physics degree from MIPT and PhD in political science from the Moscow Institute of World Economy and International Relations.