The Danube Program (Шаблон:Lang-ro)[1] was a secret Romanian project to develop their own nuclear weapons. The project began in 1978, and lasted until 1989.
In 1970 the Socialist Republic of Romania ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which banned them from developing and building their own nuclear weapons.[2] However, from 1979 until 1989, Romania had a nuclear weapons program, including plutonium extraction facilities.[3] The program started concomitantly with the project for the first nuclear power plant of Romania. It was carried out in secrecy at the Шаблон:Ill from Măgurele, where a VVR-S-60 research reactor had been built between the years 1955 and 1957 by a joint Romanian-Soviet team. From 1980, the reactor used S-36 type highly enriched nuclear fuel.[4][5]
Romania acquired Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) from United States of America's Atoms for Peace program, which gave highly enriched uranium to many countries. The project also made use of a TRIGA nuclear reactor, that had been given to them by the United States, to create plutonium from the HEU.[6] Although the project succeeded in creating plutonium, it did not actually construct any nuclear bombs,[3] although it is estimated that with the materials the project had, they could have made up to 240 plutonium bombs, assuming that Шаблон:Convert of plutonium would be used for every bomb.[8]
According to Ionuț Purica, former director of the Nuclear and Radioactive Waste Agency, Шаблон:Convert of plutonium were extracted from the Măgurele reactor in the 1980s. With this amount, Romania could have manufactured six nuclear bombs.[7]
