KYIV, July 16 – U.S. defense experts arrived in Ukraine Monday to monitor the elimination of many of the former Soviet republic’s disarmed SS-24 missiles. The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction team is charged with verifying that the disassembly and elimination of deactivated SS-24 missile components stored at Pavlohrad comply with requirements under the 1991 START Treaty.
The destruction of some 54 intercontinental ballistic missiles at Pavlohrad began in June 2000, according Lt. Dave Gai of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, speaking by telephone from Washington. Approximately 30 of the silo-based missiles have been dismantled so far.
Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, including hundreds of missiles and dozens of strategic bombers. In 1996, Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons and transferred all its 1,300 nuclear warheads to Russia for destruction. Some of those warheads had armed the SS-24 missiles now being eliminated as part of an ongoing U.S.-Ukraine program.
