PERVOMAISK (Ukraine), October 25 – Shoveling famously fertile soil from this former Soviet republic’s breadbasket onto the last of its decommissioned nuclear missile silos Thursday, Ukrainian and U.S. officials closed the final chapter of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons legacy.
Wheat will soon grow where SS-24 nuclear missiles once were hidden underground at the Pervomaisk Missile Site some 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Kyiv where U.S. and Ukrainian officials celebrated the closing of Ukraine’s last nuclear missile silo and the 43rd Rocket Army that controlled some 130 SS-19 and 45 SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Each missile was armed with 10 nuclear warheads, equal to about 150 Hiroshima bombs, said Colonel Oleksandr Vailopov, former commander of the Pervomaisk Missile Division. “Where the flags of the U.S. and Ukraine now stand, not long ago were missiles, and they weren’t friendly missiles, and now the flags symbolize friendship,” said John Booker, of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. “That sends a global message – that the world can be small and can get along.”
Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile with the 1991 Soviet collapse, including an arsenal of ICBMs and dozens of strategic bombers. The country later renounced nuclear weapons and transferred its 1,300 nuclear warheads to Russia. After processing, the nuclear materials from the warheads were brought back to Ukraine to fuel power plants.
The 1991 START treaty required Ukraine to eliminate each missile silo by destroying the technical equipment, filling the shafts, cleaning the surrounding land and restoring the site to fit the contours of the pastoral countryside. However, with Ukraine’s budget on a frayed shoestring after years of wrenching transition to a market economy, it could not afford the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for such a massive undertaking.
The United States established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to reduce the nuclear capability of former Soviet Union nations and contributed more than US$500 million to help Ukraine meet its demilitarization obligations under the START Treaty.
Some 175 ICBM silos and 17 underground launch control centers have since been eliminated. “We asked for help and the Americans always gave it to us,” said Vailopov. “Americans didn’t destroy our weapons, we did,” he added, responding to oft-heard criticism that Ukrainians left themselves vulnerable to attack by disarming.
Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Mykhtiuk, retired general of the 43rd Rocket Army, said Ukraine’s choice to get rid of its nuclear weapons was tough, but exemplary. “Ukraine was the first nation in the world to reject its nuclear potential … demonstrating to the whole world its responsible attitude to nuclear safety and peace,” he said. Moments later, Randy Regan construction manager at Bechtel, an American company hired by the U.S. government to implement the silo closures, released some 30 doves into a bright, Indian-summer sky. “We’re burying a part of history … it’s a great feeling to know we’ve made the world safer,” he said.
