Ukrainian President Asks United States to Fund Rocket Fuel Disposal

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma this month asked the United States to restore funding for ballistic missile disposal efforts, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 11).

In a Dec. 17 letter, Kuchma asked U.S. President George W. Bush to honor 10-year-old U.S. pledges to underwrite the destruction of 5,000 metric tons of ballistic missile fuel for SS-24 ICBMs. The fuel is currently stored in eastern Ukraine and the country is at risk of “an ecological catastrophe in one of its most populated regions,” according to the letter.

In 2000, U.S. lawmakers approved $24 million to build a facility to destroy the fuel but the funding was later curtailed, according to AFP. The nuclear warheads were removed from the ICBMs in 1996 and transferred to Russia. The center was originally scheduled to be completed by 2004 and the fuel was to be destroyed by the end of 2007 (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 17).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.