The procedure for monitoring and taking stock of nuclear materials has been based on principles of trust. This principle must gradually be abandoned. It can be confidently maintained that the Atomic Energy Ministry's monitoring of facilities is for the moment working effectively. Monitoring by means of spectrometry is accessible to only a limited number of enterprises. The difficulties of instrument monitoring are technical complexity, the need for highly qualified personnel, and the cost of the apparatus.
Quantitative monitoring is no less complex.
All other forms of monitoring are indirect and liable to error, indicating the presence of something, but not revealing what. Whereas in the past total confidence was placed in the monitoring of facilities, the new conditions require that monitoring principles be changed so as to exclude individual access to nuclear materials by all service personnel, as has been done at the Physics and Power Engineering Institute, the Kurchatov Institute, and a number of other Russian facilities. The process of inventorying nuclear materials, as a form of monitoring nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear technologies, is very complex, especially when the materials are contained in waste, because the presence of radioactive impurities complicates stocktaking and monitoring. Special monitoring takes place when nuclear materials are transported. During legal transportation both the inspector and the person accompanying the load have to rely entirely on the accompanying documentation.