Turning the pages back... January 5, 1996 (01/04/98)

Turning the pages back...

January 5, 1996

On January 5, 1996, 250 kilometers south of Kyiv, the defense ministers of Ukraine and Russia, and the defense secretary of the United States witnessed the destruction of an ICBM missile silo - one of 130 in Ukraine that were to be destroyed by November of 1998 in accordance with provisions of the START I disarmament treaty.

The silo, located in Pervomaisk, was the third destroyed by Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry and Russian Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev had arrived in Ukraine two days earlier for talks with Ukrainian Minister of Defense Valerii Shmarov. The three met with President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine. Messrs. Perry and Shmarov also signed an agreement on closer military cooperation between the United States and Ukraine.

The three defense officials flew from Kyiv to Pervomaisk on January 5, but due to inclement weather their plane was forced to land not at the airport near that city in Mykolaiv Oblast, but on an icy runway in Uman, Cherkasy Oblast. From there the entourage traveled some 90 kilometers by car to the base of the 43rd Strategic Missile Forces. Demolition of the missile silo at Pervomaisk got under way at 1 p.m., four hours later than scheduled.

On January 14, 1994, Ukraine had signed a tripartite agreement with the United States and Russia, thus paving the way for Ukraine's disarmament and the destruction of its nuclear arms. At the time, Ukraine possessed 1,300 warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles and more than 600 cruise missile warheads. It had 176 silos for strategic nuclear missiles: 130 SS-19s and 46 SS-24s. Thus, it was the world's third largest nuclear power.

However, Ukraine had stated in 1990 in its Declaration on State Sovereignty that it would abide by three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, not to provide and not to procure nuclear weapons. Then, in 1993, the Verkhovna Rada ratified START I.

At of the end of 1995, 90 percent of Ukraine's missiles had been deactivated; 70 percent of its warheads had been transferred to Russia, where they were being destroyed under international supervision, including representatives of the Ukrainian military.

Source: "Defense ministers witness demolition of missile silo in Ukraine," special to The Ukrainian Weekly by Borys Klymenko, January 14, 1996, Vol. LXIV, No. 2.