Uranium fuel pellet’s route to Finland remains unknown

A radioactive nuclear fuel pellet found in an estate in Asikkala was made in the Soviet Union around the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, but investigators have been unable to trace how it reached Finland, Yle reports. Mikael Moring, a chief specialist at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), said someone may have taken it “with or without permission.”

Police said last week that the unused, low-enriched fuel pellet was found in 2024. Further tests in Germany established when it was manufactured. STUK had already concluded from photographs and other information that it was Soviet-made fuel of a type used at the Loviisa nuclear power plant and similar facilities.

Moring said the countries had commercial cooperation at the time, including fuel purchases for Loviisa from the Soviet Union, and Finnish inspection visits to facilities. Similar pellets have been found in other countries before, he said, adding that tracking their movements was less precise in the past than it is today.

The pellet posed no immediate danger to people or the environment because its radiation level was low. Moring said handling it required no radiation protection stronger than cotton gloves.

Police investigated the find as a possible offence involving the use of nuclear energy but ended the preliminary investigation because the suspected offender had died. Police do not know how the pellet came into the person’s possession.

Moring contrasted the pellet with radiation sources used in medical and industrial equipment, which can be life-threatening. He said people have died in several cases around the world after taking such sources from scrap yards and handling them carelessly.