• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

US Amazed by Ukrainian Cruise Missiles Washington splurges to have them destroyed

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

The United States will contribute a total of $590 million to the liquidation of Ukraine’s strategic offensive weapons. Such is the result of signing, in Kyiv, supplements to the previous bilateral accords under the Collective Threat Reduction Program.

This time Ukraine will receive almost $80 million from Washington for strategic disarmament and conversion.

The Collective Threat Reduction Program, better known as the Nunn-Lugar Program for the Destruction of Strategic Offensive Weapons, represents one of the best and most successful aspects of Ukrainian-US cooperation, notes US Ambassador Stephen Pifer.

Ukraine, possessing the world’s third nuclear arsenal, has for the past three years been destroying its weapons of mass destruction, those very systems which during Soviet times were targeted at the US. Of its 176 missiles 85 SS-19 and 115 missile silos have been destroyed.

According to Laurie Halgate, special CTP coordinator, additional US aid must be channeled to complete work on the SS-19 missiles and prepare for the liquidation of the most modern SS-24 ones (there are 46 in Ukraine), and to dispose of some forty TU-160 and TU-95ms strategic bombers. Ms. Halgate admitted for the first time that the US will also help Ukraine destroy the cruise missiles with which these warplanes are equipped — over a thousand, she says.

Previously, the Ukrainian military never made public the precise number of these cruise missiles and special Western reference sources pointed to a figure about half as much.

“Does it mean that your reference sources are wrong?” I asked.

“When we got down to the storage facility with the missiles we were surprised at their number,” replied Ms. Halgate.

Well-well, it looks like Ukraine can still surprise Uncle Sam. It remains to wait when Ukraine will surpass the world with its economic attainments.

 

Rubric: