Meanwhile, Russian nuclear materials are totally safe from terrorists, he said. “We are going to diminish U.S. participation for such programs,” he said.

The US keep providing financial support for Russia to ensure safety and control over the nuclear materials in the country, but the nature of this support is changing, Rumyantsev added. “The ideology of the US assistance to Russia has changed. We are now working together at the devices that will allow to locate the fissile materials,” he said. At present, said the Rosatom chief, Russian nuclear materials are absolutely safe from terrorists.

“The way they are guarded, I cannot imagine such a thing. The nuclear materials could only be conquered in a full-scale battle,” he was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

Many terrorism experts say al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have focused for years on lightly secured nuclear facilities in Russia and other states in the former Soviet Union as potential sources for equipment and material needed to assemble an atomic weapon. The commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks recommended that US officials undertake a “maximum effort” to place Russian nuclear equipment off-limits to terrorists, Mosnews reported.