This book recounts the history of one of America’s most important national security 

programs and celebrates the work of the many public servants who have made it 

a success. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which became 

law in 1991, was aimed at providing American funds and technical expertise to help 

safeguard and dismantle vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological 

weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. Although much of this original 

mission has been completed, the capabilities of the Nunn-Lugar Program and the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which implements it, have expanded 

to meet global proliferation threats and much more important work remains to 

be done. Nunn-Lugar and DTRA will continue to be vital components of the U.S. 

national security strategy.

Eliminating and Securing Weapons of Mass Destruction with the

Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs

WITH COURAGE

AND PERSISTENCE

DTRA History Series

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

U.S. Department of Defense

2014

JOSEPH P. HARAHAN

DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY

Eliminating and Securing Weapons of Mass Destruction with the

Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs

WITH COURAGE

AND PERSISTENCE

DTRA History Series

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

U.S. Department of Defense

2014

iii

Foreword .......................................................................................................... v

Introduction ...................................................................................................... vii

Collapse, Independence, Nuclear Inheritance, New Alliances and New Initiatives ........................................ 1

U.S. Strategy for the New States’ Nuclear Inheritance ................................................................. 23

Belarus: From Nuclear Inheritance to Nuclear Succession ............................................................. 41

Securing Russia’s Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Arsenals:

Treaties, Agreements, and Nunn-Lugar Assistance, 1992-1995 ......................................................... 67

Resolving Ukraine’s Nuclear Inheritance ............................................................................ 101

High Tide of Cooperation with Ukraine ............................................................................ 135

Kazakhstan Translates Inherited Weakness into Regional Strength .................................................... 183

Assisting Russia in Eliminating Nuclear Submarines, ICBMs, and Infrastructure ....................................... 227

Assisting Russia in Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security, Fissile Materials Storage,

and Chemical Weapons Destruction ............................................................................... 265

Redefinition, Realignment and new CTR Commitments: The Bush – Putin Years ...................................... 303

The Obama Years: Program Continuity, New START Treaty and Global Expansion of 

Cooperative Biological Engagement ................................................................................ 347

Glossary ......................................................................................................... 373

Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 375

Index ............................................................................................................ 387

CONTENTS

v

This book recounts the history of one of America’s 

most important national security programs and celebrates 

the work of the many public servants who have made it a 

success. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program, which became law in 1991, was aimed at providing 

American funds and technical expertise to help safeguard 

and dismantle vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear, chemical 

and biological weapons and materials in the former Soviet 

Union. Although much of this original mission has been 

completed, the capabilities of the Nunn-Lugar Program 

and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which 

implements it, have expanded to meet global proliferation 

threats and much more important work remains to be done. 

Nunn-Lugar and DTRA will continue to be vital components 

of the U.S. national security strategy. 

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, several emerging 

nations inherited staggering quantities of nuclear, chemical 

and biological weapons and the infrastructure that supported 

them. For example, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus became 

the 3rd, 4th, and 8th largest nuclear weapons powers in the 

world. Political upheaval and economic hardship in the 

former Soviet Union left warheads, delivery systems and 

technology vulnerable to diversion or sale. A vast cadre of 

scientists, engineers and military personnel who had spent 

much of their professional careers supporting the Soviet 

Weapons of Mass Destruction complex faced the prospect 

of not being paid. In essence, the political structure and 

financing that had sustained and safeguarded the enormous 

Soviet WMD industry had broken down.

As the book describes, the Nunn-Lugar Program had 

to overcome great distrust on both sides of the Cold War 

divide. Americans were eager to reap a peace dividend 

by reducing overseas commitments. Launching a major 

effort to assist the former Soviet Union was politically 

counterintuitive in the United States. Russia’s opening of 

many defense facilities to its main geopolitical and military 

opponent was equally improbable. But both sides realized 

that peace and prosperity depended on how we resolved the 

threats posed by the arsenals created to fight the Cold War. 

Both sides accepted the responsibility to ensure that these 

stockpiles of weapons were safeguarded and dismantled 

so that they would not fall into the wrong hands. This 

common set of objectives, combined with the remarkable 

work of employees from the Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency and their counterparts in the former Soviet Union 

paved the way to success.

Since 1991, the program has amassed an impressive list 

of accomplishments in the former Soviet Union. The NunnLugar program facilitated the arrangements that led Ukraine, 

Belarus, and Kazakhstan to forego the nuclear weapons that 

were based on the territory when the Soviet Union broke 

apart. As a result, all three countries are nuclear weapons 

free. Overall, Nunn-Lugar has deactivated more than 7,600 

strategic nuclear warheads – more than arsenals of France, 

Britain and China combined. It has destroyed more than 

2,500 nuclear capable missiles, 1,187 missile launchers, as 

well as 33 submarines and 155 bombers. More than 1,675,097 

rounds of chemical munitions have been destroyed, and 

more than 4,129 metric tons of chemical weapons have been 

neutralized. 

During the 1990s and into the new century, the threat 

posed by WMD proliferation grew in complexity as terrorist 

groups acquired a global reach, new nuclear weapons states 

emerged, and the explosion of information technology 

facilitated the spread of WMD know-how. Building on 

the expertise acquired in dealing with WMD in the former 

Soviet Union, the Nunn-Lugar Program has evolved to meet 

emerging global threats. Today, Nunn-Lugar is not merely a 

program, or a funding source, or a set of agreements. It is 

an engine of non-proliferation cooperation, expertise, and 

FOREWORD
vi

problem solving that can be applied around the world. 

It serves as a resource for responding to proliferation 

emergencies and building ties to countries that want help 

contending with WMD stockpiles and infrastructure. It 

has been instrumental in dealing with chemical weapons 

stockpiles in Albania and Libya, and it is engaged with 

international partners on the problem of Syria’s chemical 

weapons.

 The Nunn-Lugar program also is devoting increasing 

attention to reducing the risks associated with biological 

weapons, and with good reason. Terrorist organizations have 

made no secret of their desire to use biological weapons. 

Deadly pathogens are easier to obtain, conceal, and 

transport than nuclear materials. Even crude bio-weapons 

could produce terror and chaos with random outbreaks of 

virulent diseases. Self-infected suicidal bioterrorists could 

carry their deadly cargo anywhere in the world in just days. 

This is why strategies to combat bioterrorism must include 

efforts to protect laboratories and other pathogen sources, 

sharpen bio-weapon identification, and improve means of 

interdicting bio-weapon supply chains. Nunn-Lugar’s work 

in Africa, Central and South Asia, and elsewhere is helping 

to secure vulnerable facilities, promote cooperative research 

and transparency in the handling of dangerous pathogens, 

and build an early warning system devoted to detecting and 

diagnosing infections quickly.

It is impossible to determine what tragedies may have 

been avoided because of the work of the Nunn-Lugar 

Program. But we know that the stakes remain high. 

Controlling WMD is essential, not merely because of the 

horrific loss of life that could result from a WMD attack, but 

also because such an attack could shake the global economy, 

further burden national budgets, constrain investments in 

human development, and create instability in many parts 

of the world. It would also increase the chances for nuclear 

proliferation and add disturbing uncertainty to future 

terrorist threats.

We believe that the proliferation of WMD remains the 

number one national security threat facing the United States 

and the international community. Overcoming this threat 

requires constant vigilance and effort. This book’s thorough 

and insightful account of the history of the Nunn-Lugar 

program will expand any reader’s understanding of the 

ongoing proliferation challenges that we face and the need 

for resolute action. Equally important, it demonstrates that 

even under conditions of rivalry and distrust, cooperation is 

possible to address the risks that weapons of mass destruction 

pose to humankind. 

Senator Richard Lugar and Senator Sam Nunn
vii

When the Soviet Union collapsed suddenly in December 

1991 it was the world’s largest nuclear state and its failure 

had serious consequences. The end of the Soviet Union was 

rapid, unplanned, and chaotic, especially for political and 

military leaders of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. 

These nations inherited all of the Soviet Union’s nuclear 

weapons, its chemical weapons, and most of its biological 

weapons institutes and production facilities. That is the 

point where this history begins.

The United States government and the Congress had to 

address a series of new policy issues. What would be U.S. 

foreign policy and military strategy towards all nations of the 

former Soviet Union? What would be its policy towards the 

four new states – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 

that had inherited operational strategic forces and nuclear 

weapons in the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal? That 

arsenal had approximately 27,000 strategic and tactical 

nuclear weapons, eight modern strategic rocket armies with 

1,398 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 162 long-range 

strategic bombers, and 940 modern submarines, equipped 

with 2,804 submarine launched ballistic missiles. Would 

U.S. leaders renegotiate and modify existing strategic arms 

reduction treaties, for instance the Strategic Arms Reduction 

Treaty (START) or the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces 

(INF) Treaty?

These arms control treaties were the key. The United States 

decided to offer assistance to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and 

Kazakhstan, initially with equipment and expertise, so that 

they might meet their START Treaty objectives and to achieve 

their nonproliferation objectives. Initiated in 1991 by U.S. 

Senators Sam Nunn and Richard G. Lugar, the cooperative 

assistance program began slowly. Gradually political and 

military leaders in the new nations examined the status of 

their inherited strategic forces, the international arms control 

treaties, and the American offer of assistance. A few General 

Staff and Strategic Rocket Army officers stepped forward and 

engaged American defense leaders in discussions on how to 

develop practical ways to assist strategic rocket armies in the 

field. From the beginning, it was a cooperative international 

program, one based on a concept that the United States 

would respond to specific requests from the recipient nations.

In the decade of the 1990s there were constant 

adjustments in leadership, financial commitments, managerial 

structures, environmental standards, legal commitments, and 

Congressional oversight. Driven by U.S. strategic interests, 

the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program 

directly aided Ukraine in securing and eliminating its 

inherited strategic rocket army and heavy bomber forces. It 

aided Kazakhstan in sealing its nuclear testing tunnels, in 

packaging, transporting and transferring the highly enriched 

uranium, and in eliminating residual strategic nuclear forces 

and abandoned biological weapons production facilities. 

The cooperative programs lasted many years, involving U.S. 

program managers and officials living in the new nations or 

in making frequent visits. Year after year, the CTR program 

involved hundreds of American officials. 

When Russian leaders engaged the United States, they 

concentrated on assistance to eliminate excess nuclear 

ICBMs, strategic bombers, and nuclear submarines and 

missiles. Collapse of the Russian ruble in 1998 increased 

Russian requests for assistance. Then, following the terrorist 

attacks of the United States in September 2001, Russian 

general officers requested assistance in transporting via rail 

hundreds of nuclear warheads from operational strategic 

rocket armies and naval ports to national nuclear weapons 

storage facilities. They requested additional equipment to 

improve the storage sites’ safety and security systems. Finally, 

the Russian government reorganized and developed a new 

international program to assist in the elimination of its 

massive arsenal of chemical weapons.

INTRODUCTION
viii

In recent years, the leaders of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative 

Threat Reduction program examined how to provide 

assistance to many nations with insecure national biological 

laboratories. New equipment, training, and new facilities 

transformed national biological laboratories in Georgia, 

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. Throughout all 

these new and continuing assistance programs, Senators 

Nunn and Lugar provided their support and guidance. They 

traveled to the region frequently, visiting strategic rocket 

regiments, missile elimination sites, bomber elimination 

bases, submarine destruction sites, military storage depots, 

weapons production facilities, fissile missile storage areas, 

and new chemical weapons destruction facilities and 

biological laboratories. Their support was invaluable.

In researching this book I examined U.S. government 

documents, program and project briefings, project manager’s 

reports, annual reports to Congress, financial documents, 

Congressional testimony, and CTR reports from Senator 

Richard G. Lugar’s office. I traveled to capital cities and 

project sites in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. I interviewed 

civilian leaders, military officers, national contractors, U.S. 

ambassadors, and project managers in these nations. In the 

United States, I interviewed key people in the CTR program: 

Jim Reid, General Kuenning, General Lajoie, Laura Holgate, 

Susan Koch, Andrew Weber, John Connell, Paul Boren, John 

Booker, Mary Ann Miles, Mark Foster, Don Parman, Gene 

Hicks, Barrett Haver, Colonel Richard Green, Lt. Colonel Ray 

Freeland, Bob Dickey, Luke Kluchko, Hunter Lutinski, Bill 

Moon, Tom Rutherford, and S. Elizabeth George. I appreciate 

their time and insights.

Agency support for the research and writing of this 

history came from several individuals. Brigadier General 

Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., USAF (Retired) led the CTR 

Directorate from 1998 to 2004. He encouraged the 

project’s initiation. Colonel Mark F. Foster, chief of staff 

for the directorate supported several key trips to Ukraine 

and Russia. Early in the research, General Kuenning 

recommended traveling to Ukraine and working with Lt. 

General Mikhtyuk, Commander, 43rd Rocket Army. That 

collaboration produced a valuable report. As the project 

continued, David J. Rigby, Chief, Public Affairs at the 

agency offered protection and advice from the sharp knives 

of those hostile to long-term projects. During the effort, I 

spent a year as a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson 

Center of International Center for Scholars in Washington, 

D.C. It stimulated the writing of several chapters. Early and 

continuously Harold Smith, Jr. encouraged and assisted 

me in the research and in contacting key Russian officials. 

Finally, Ken Myers, Director, DTRA supported the final 

effort to edit, illustrate, and publish this history.

Bianka J. Adams, an excellent historian and colleague, 

edited the manuscript. In that task, Emily A. Masiello 

assisted. Richard Spearman read and added comments on 

several chapters. When it came time for assembling the final 

manuscript into all of its parts --- the tables, photographs, 

maps, bibliography, glossary, and index – I am indebted 

to Christopher Kwan. His organizational skills and 

intelligence made it a better history. Rey Ovalle steered the 

finished design through the government bureaucracies to 

final publishing. Everyone knows that researching, writing, 

editing, illustrating and publishing is both an individual 

and collective work. The author is credited on the cover and 

title pages. The contributions of others are mentioned only 

here. This fact obscures the appreciation I hold for their 

work and contributions. This history could not have been 

published without them.

Joseph P. Harahan

February 4, 2014
ix

Author

Joseph P. Harahan was the senior historian at the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He retired in 2010. He 

received a doctorate in American History from Michigan 

State University. During his career, he was the historian 

at the On-Site Inspection Agency, special assistant to the 

Historian of the Air Force, and a staff historian at the Air 

Force’s Strategic Air Command. Early in his career, he was an 

assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond, 

Virginia. He is the author of the following books: Responding 

to War, Terrorism, and WMD Proliferation: History of DTRA, 

1998-2008 (2009) On-Site Inspections under the CFE Treaty

(1997), and On-Site Inspections under the INF Treaty (1993). 

He researched, wrote and published multiple articles and 

lecturers. He is the coeditor on a multi-volume (12 books) 

Air Force history series.

1

CHAPTER 1

Collapse, Independence, Nuclear Inheritance, 

New Alliances, and New Initiatives

43rd Strategic Rocket Army’s new 

commander

When Colonel General Vladimir Alexeyevich Mikhtyuk 

arrived in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, USSR in January 1991, he 

assumed command of the 43rd Rocket Army, the largest 

army in the Soviet Union’s Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF). 

With 35,000 men, the 43rd Rocket Army consisted of eight 

divisions: the 19th, 46th, and 50th Missile Divisions; and 

the 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 43rd and 49th Guards Missile Divisions. 

Widely scattered over thousands of square kilometers, the 

rocket army’s missiles and launchers were deployed on the 

territory of two Soviet republics: Ukraine and Belarus. The 

army had five types of intercontinental ballistic missiles: SS19s, SS-24s, SS-25s, SS-20s and SS-4s. Equipped with more 

than 1,300 nuclear warheads, the 43rd Rocket Army had a 

larger arsenal than the combined strategic nuclear forces 

of Great Britain, France and China. According to General 

Mikhtyuk, the rocket army’s mission in the USSR’s military 

order of battle was to prepare and maintain its strategic 

forces in a state of high combat readiness with the ability to 

launch a nuclear missile attack in two directions, west and 

east (United States and China) under any conditions, with a 

high degree of accuracy and secrecy.1

 It was by any measure, 

a formidable rocket army.

While the order of battle determined the mission, 

General Mikhtyuk, the rocket army’s division commanders, 

and its officers determined the military standards necessary 

for sustained, continuous combat operations. During the 

Cold War, the Soviet Union’s ICBM missile forces were on 

continuous alert status. Mikhtyuk recalled that “it was not 

easy to be on missile guard duty near missile-launching 

control centers and at battle stations in special facilities, often 

deep underground, in enclosed spaces and with difficult 

living conditions.”2

 It was, in his opinion, “hard, intense” 

work. Like many officers in the Strategic Rocket Forces, the 

commanding general’s career, while exceptional, illustrated 

the experiences of Soviet missile officers during the Cold War.

A Russian native, Mikhtyuk joined the Soviet Armed 

Forces in 1955 when he enrolled in the P.S. Nakhimov 

Black Sea Naval Academy. Following graduation in 1960, 

he was inspired by the space missions of Colonel Yuri 

Gagarin, Hero of the Soviet Union, to join the nation’s 

new Strategic Rocket Forces. During the next 20 years, 

Mikhtyuk rose through the ranks of junior and mid-level 

missile officers to command a missile regiment and serve 

as chief of staff, deputy commander and commander of a 

missile division. In 1979 he attended the prestigious F. E. 

Dzerzhinsky Missile Forces Academy in Moscow. Shortly 

thereafter, General Mikhtyuk assumed command of a 

missile division stationed in Barnaul. In 1983 he became 

chief of staff and then deputy commander of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, headquartered in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Subsequently, 

he was promoted and served as commander of the 50th

Rocket Army, with five missile divisions. In 1990, due to 

force reductions and missile eliminations mandated by 

international arms control treaties, the SRF consolidated 

many rocket divisions and disbanded one army, the 50th

Rocket Army. General Mikhtyuk returned to professional 

military school, attending the Voroshilov Military Academy, 
2

With Courage and Persistence

the Soviet Union’s Armed Forces General Staff Academy. In 

January 1991, he took the oath as commander of the 43rd

Rocket Army, the largest missile army in the Soviet Union.3

Yet, after 36 years of service in the SRF, there was nothing 

in the general’s education, experiences or career that could 

prepare him for the changes he was about to encounter.

There was nothing to indicate that in less than a year, 

the 43rd Rocket Army’s missile forces would be based, not 

in two republics, but in two separate nations: Ukraine and 

Belarus. Additionally there was nothing to tell him that 

the command center for all of the rocket army’s combat 

operations would one day be located in a third nation: Russia. 

There was nothing to foretell the pressure from thousands 

of missile officers, men and their families requesting 

voluntary transfers out of the rocket army to military units 

in their native countries. Moreover there was no reason 

to envision the separation of the SRF’s nuclear safety and 

surety systems, a disruption that would cause hundreds of 

warheads to accumulate at the rocket army’s nuclear storage 

areas and depots. There was no expectation that the entire 

43rd Rocket Army would be disbanded, especially since it 

had three of the Soviet Union’s most advanced strategic 

missiles: SS-24s, SS-25s and SS-19s. There was nothing 

that would have allowed him to see a reason for removing 

every one of the rocket army’s missiles from its silo and for 

destroying every missile silo, underground command post, 

all support structures, weapons depots, missile cabling, 

and related buildings and infrastructure. Nor could the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

General Vladimir A. Mikhtyuk with President Stanislav S. Shushkevich (r.) in Belarus, February 1992
3

general have seen the furious infighting in the new nations, 

especially Ukraine, over the control and ownership of the 

rocket army, its missiles and forces. Further, there was no 

crystal ball foretelling that the general would be selected in 

1996 as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defense, responsible 

for planning, scheduling and directing the rocket army’s 

liquidation. Above all, there was nothing remotely in the 

general’s education, experiences or long career that would 

allow him to foresee that he would be engaged in a massive 

multi-year cooperative program with the United States 

government to safely dismantle and liquidate the entire 

rocket army. These events were simply incomprehensible.

Yet in January 1991 there were indications, drawn from 

the recent past that the 43rd Rocket Army would be involved 

with U.S. military arms control treaty inspectors in the future. 

During these years intense, sustained diplomatic and military 

negotiations between the United States, the Soviet Union 

and European nations led to a series of major arms control 

treaties: Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987), 

Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (1990), and 

the soon-to-be completed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 

July 1991. Each of these treaties mandated the elimination of 

weapons; each required extensive and continuously updated 

data on weapons, forces and locations; and each authorized 

the parties to send inspection teams to certify “on-site” 

compliance with the treaty. In the 40-year history of the 

Cold War, these arms control treaties were unprecedented in 

requiring specific arms reductions, continuous force data and 

on-site inspections. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces 

Treaty (INF) Treaty, signed in December 1987, entered into 

force seven months later in July 1988. Over the next three 

years the Soviet Union dismantled and eliminated 1,846 

intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and the United States 

dismantled and eliminated 846 INF missiles. The Soviet 

Union sent on-site inspection teams to U.S. missile bases, 

depots, training sites and missile manufacturing facilities to 

verify compliance. The United States exercised its full INF 

Treaty rights, sending more than 1,200 on-site inspectors 

from 1988 to 1991 to monitor Soviet missile eliminations 

and certify compliance with the treaty’s protocols.4

43rd Rocket Army’s divisions and regiments, February 1992

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
4

With Courage and Persistence

In 1988, as a consequence of the missile reductions 

required by the INF Treaty, General Mikhtyuk, then 

commanding the 50th Rocket Army, was directed by 

Headquarters, Strategic Rocket Forces to deactivate the 

army and eliminate all INF missiles, launchers and 

facilities in three missile divisions. The higher command 

also ordered missile reductions in the 43rd Rocket Army, 

directing its commander to deactivate and eliminate more 

than 20 missile regiments, equipped with SS-20 and SS-4 

missiles.5

 Consequently, when General Mikhtyuk assumed 

command of the 43rd Rocket Army in January 1991, the 

general officers commanding its missile divisions and 

their planning staffs had been directly involved in the dayto-day work of deactivating the missile regiments. They 

planned and coordinated the work of weapons specialists 

who separated warheads from the missiles as well as 

supervised the regimental commanders who directed 

missile maintenance specialists to separate and remove 

SS-4 and SS-20 missiles from the launchers. Then, the 

regimental commanders decommissioned all the large, 

specially-designed military vehicles that transported, 

erected and launched the missiles. Once deactivated, the 

SS-20 and SS-4 missiles and launchers were sent, via rail, 

to one of five Soviet missile elimination sites: Kasputin 

Yar, Sarny, Jelgava, Kansk or Chita. After the missiles and 

vehicles left the 43rd Rocket Army’s operational bases, the 

officers and men, as required by the treaty, dismantled each 

regiment’s missile combat facilities, specifically launcher 

vehicle garages, communications cabling and missile 

support structures.6

Throughout this process, U.S. treaty inspection teams 

traveled to the 43rd Rocket Army’s missile bases and launch sites 

and conducted on-site inspections and ascertained compliance 

with the treaty and its protocols. The American teams, 

consisting of 10 U.S. military officers, non-commissioned 

officers and civilian specialists, recorded “on-site” the number, 

type and location of every missile and launcher slated for 

elimination. Additional American inspection teams traveled to 

Soviet elimination sites at Kasputin Yar, Sarny, Jelgava, Kansk 

or Chita and watched as each missile and launcher was either 

dismantled, cut, severed, detonated or test launched. While 

these eliminations were underway, other American teams 

conducted a small number of no-notice, surprise inspections 

at any of the 114 INF Treaty sites located in the Soviet Union. 

Finally, U.S. inspectors returned to the 43rd Rocket Army’s 

missile bases and sites to ascertain that all buildings, cables, 

support structures, and missile garages had been destroyed in 

accordance with the treaty’s protocols.7

In all, several thousand U.S. military officers and civilians 

went to the Soviet Union and participated in these INF Treaty 

arms control inspection teams. They traveled under escort, 

to the Strategic Rocket Forces’ armies, divisions, regiments, 

missile sites, launch areas, weapons depots, training schools 

and missile manufacturing plants. They examined treatyspecific items “on-site.” General Mikhtyuk recalled the 

impact of the treaty and the American inspectors on the 43rd

Rocket Army. “Inspection procedures,” he said, “stipulated by 

the treaty demanded unusual requirements: organization of 

inspector escorts by specially trained personnel, preparation 

for the inspector’s rest, including beds, in case they wanted to 

stay overnight on the territory of the unit, and even provision 

of a telephone connection with the American Embassy in 

Moscow.”8

 All these requirements, unusual for a Soviet 

Rocket Army, were required by the INF Treaty.

Yet, it was widely acknowledged by national and military 

leaders in both the Soviet Union and the United States that 

the next arms control treaty, START, would be even more 

demanding. In both nations, senior military commanders 

received frequent briefings on final negotiations involving the 

START Treaty’s complex protocols and annexes. There would 

be new treaty requirements to provide, through detailed 

messages, specific and continuously updated information on 

the nation’s strategic missile, bomber and submarine forces. 

Under the START Treaty, both nations would be required to 

deactivate and eliminate approximately half their strategic 

offensive systems within seven years. Both nations would 

INF Treaty inspection team in Ukraine in early 1990s

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
5

be able to verify compliance by sending on-site inspection 

teams to operational sites and by monitoring the sites and 

weapons systems using national surveillance technologies. 

By January 1991, every military general or admiral who 

commanded one of the Soviet Union’s rocket armies, 

missile wings, bomber divisions or submarine fleets would 

have had his planning staffs working on the impact of the 

START Treaty on day-to-day operations of his command. In 

the same vein, virtually all the political leaders in the USSR, 

Europe and the U.S. were keenly aware that domestic and 

international public opinion supported these major arms 

control treaties, especially with their detailed provisions for 

sequenced, structured, multi-year strategic arms reductions.9

As a result, when Colonel General Mikhtyuk looked 

into the 43rd Rocket Army’s future in January 1991, he saw 

two command requirements. First, the rocket army had 

to be certified by Headquarters, Strategic Rocket Forces in 

Moscow that when ordered it could complete its mission: 

resolving all the complex, technical and secret operational 

military tasks necessary to strike at their assigned targets in 

accordance with the national war plan. The Soviet Union 

relied on these rocket armies, long-range bombers and 

nuclear submarines equipped with ballistic missiles, for its 

national security and its credibility as a super power. Combat 

readiness dominated every aspect of the work and life of 

the army’s commander, general officers, staff officers and 

men.10 Second, and to a far lesser degree, the general and 

his senior officers had to anticipate what would happen to 

the rocket army when the START Treaty entered into force 

in future years. Like the rocket army’s experience under the 

INF Treaty, there would be major changes required to meet 

all of the complex provisions in the START Treaty. Clearly, 

the commander’s first requirement took priority: to prepare 

and carry out the operational mission. However, the second 

requirement, anticipating the impact of the new arms control 

treaties, would become significant during the 1990s.

START Treaty, coup d’état, nationalism, 

and new arms control initiatives

Anticipation became reality on July 31, 1991 when George 

H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START Treaty in 

Moscow. Their signatures resolved negotiations that had lasted 

more than nine years. The treaty codified in international law 

specific obligations that the United States and the Soviet Union 

had to carry out in reducing their strategic nuclear forces and 

weapons – the intercontinental bombers, land-based ballistic 

missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). At 

the end of the treaty’s seven-year reduction period, each nation’s 

strategic nuclear forces would be reduced from approximately 

2,500 to 1,600 missile delivery systems and from approximately 

10,200 to 6,000 nuclear warheads. All future strategic systems 

were subject to the treaty, which, once ratified and implemented 

would be in effect for 15 years.11 “The central idea at the heart of 

this treaty,” President Bush said at the treaty signing ceremony 

in the Kremlin, “can be put simply: stabilizing reductions in 

our nuclear forces reduce the risks of war.”12 Soviet President 

Gorbachev responded: “This completes many years of effort 

that required hard work and patience on the part of government 

leaders, diplomats and military officials. They required will, 

courage and the rejection of outdated perceptions of each other. 

They required trust.”13 Then, turning his attention to the future, 

Gorbachev concluded, “This is also a beginning; the beginning 

of voluntary reductions of the nuclear arsenals of the USSR 

and the United States, a process with unprecedented scope and 

objectives.”14

Along with high presidential rhetoric, there was irrefutable 

evidence that the START Treaty did, in fact, establish a 

comprehensive, legally binding structure for achieving 

reciprocal and verifiable reductions in U.S. and USSR’s 

strategic offensive nuclear forces. Coming at the end of the 

Cold War, START was the third major arms reduction treaty 

in four years. During the 1980s and early 1990s a strong 

international consensus had developed among political, 

diplomatic and military leaders in the Soviet Union, United 

States and Europe. The objective was to reduce, under 

verifiable arms control treaties, the strategic and conventional 

military arsenals amassed during the Cold War.15 When 

U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker testified to the U.S. 

Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on the START Treaty, 

he explained that the United States had sent its diplomats 

to Geneva for nine years, conducted special ministerial 

sessions in Geneva, Washington, Houston, and Moscow, and 

participated in summit meetings in Geneva (1985), Reykjavik 

(1986), Washington (1987), Moscow (1988), Malta (1989), 

and Washington (1990).16 While not all of these high-level 

meetings or summits were devoted exclusively to nuclear arms 

reduction issues, they were a major agenda item at each one.

Consequently, when Bush and Gorbachev signed 

the START Treaty in the Kremlin in late July 1991, it was 
6

With Courage and Persistence

reasonable to conclude that most of the strategic and 

conventional arms control agenda, with the exception 

of the soon-to-be completed United Nations’ Chemical 

Weapons Treaty, had been fulfilled. This conclusion, 

however, was totally inaccurate. Unbeknownst to both 

leaders, revolutionary events would cause them to announce 

dramatic new strategic and tactical arms reductions in less 

than eight weeks. The triggering event was the sudden coup 

d’état against Gorbachev’s government in mid-August 1991. 

While Gorbachev, his wife and daughter were vacationing in 

the Crimea, they were arrested and detained.17 In Moscow, 

coup leaders drawn from the KGB, the General Staff and 

Communist Party elites moved to establish power. As they 

did so, sending tanks and armored vehicles into the cities 

to maintain order, a spontaneous counterrevolution erupted 

in the streets of Moscow and Leningrad. In Moscow the 

resistance was led by the Russian Republic’s popular president 

Boris Yeltsin. Supported from Leningrad by Mayor Anatoly 

Sobchak, resistance in the streets and society grew quickly 

against the new government. Suddenly on August 21, the 

coup collapsed.18 Returning to Moscow, President Gorbachev 

was a weakened and badly damaged leader. Nevertheless, he 

acted quickly. Driven by public outrage and the reformers’ 

demands, Gorbachev shut down the Communist Party, 

purged the KGB and ousted senior Soviet military leaders 

implicated in the plot.19 However, Yeltsin and the reformers, 

because of their courageous resistance during the coup, held 

higher moral and political prominence on most national 

issues. Still Gorbachev, as president of the Soviet Union, 

retained substantial international influence, especially 

regarding the nation’s nuclear arsenal.20

President Bush reacted cautiously to the August coup 

attempt, announcing that the United States government 

would not support or give any signal aiding coup leaders. 

Privately, the president encouraged resistance, telephoning 

Yeltsin in Moscow at a critical juncture and offering support 

and encouragement.21 Following Gorbachev’s return to 

Moscow, Bush called and offered support and assurances 

of continuity. However, once it was clear the coup had 

failed, President Bush and his senior advisors reassessed 

the situation in Moscow and the Soviet Union. It was clear 

that across Russia, the Baltic States and the other Soviet 

republics, nationalism had emerged as the driving political 

force. It was also apparent that many of the Soviet Union’s 

key institutions had lost their authority: the Communist 

Party had supported the abortive coup, Soviet marshals and 

generals had joined the coup and the corrupt bureaucracy 

stood by ineptly. Historic forces were splintering the Soviet 

Union apart, yet in late August 1991 few imagined how far 

and fast those revolutionary forces would develop. As the 

world focused on Moscow, events were unfolding in Kiev, 

Ukraine.

U.S. President George H.W. Bush and First Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Soviet Union sign the START I Treaty, July 31, 1991

George Bush Presidential Library
7

Leonid Kravchuk, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, 

the parliamentary body of the Ukraine Republic, called 

for a vote on a declaration of independence.22 Within the 

Soviet Union, Ukraine was a major economic, military 

and political component. The republic’s 52 million people 

provided the USSR with 40 percent of its manufacturing 

output and 30 percent of its agricultural products. Ukraine’s 

military design bureaus and military production facilities 

produced some of the Soviet Union’s most advanced 

strategic weapons. Across Ukraine nationalism was rising, 

but few knew its extent. Apparently, the abortive coup in 

Moscow served as the tipping event. In late August 1991, 

just three days after the coup had failed in Moscow and 

Leningrad, Kravchuk called for a parliamentary vote on 

independence. The parliamentarians voted overwhelmingly 

for Ukraine’s independence, 321 to 2.23 Further, they voted 

to hold a national referendum and presidential elections 

throughout Ukraine on December 1, 1991. Continuing their 

revolutionary votes that August day, the parliament passed a 

bill establishing a legal and administrative structure for the 

new nation. In a special resolution “On Military Formations 

in Ukraine,” it established Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.24

At that moment, all the military forces stationed on the 

territory of Ukraine – all 750,000 officers, soldiers, sailors, 

aviators and defense workers – were serving in the Soviet 

Military Forces.25 Consequently, when Kravchuk convened 

a late August meeting in Kiev of senior military officers, he 

invited the senior generals commanding the three Soviet 

military districts in Ukraine, the admiral in charge of the Black 

Sea Fleet and the Soviet generals commanding the strategic 

rocket army, air armies, civil defense forces and railroad 

troops.26 General Vladimir Lobov, Chief of the General Staff 

of the USSR, flew to Kiev from Moscow to participate in 

the meeting. Kravchuk explained to the assembled generals 

and admiral that the Ukrainian parliament’s declaration 

of independence, its scheduling of the December national 

referendum and its vote to establish a Ukraine MOD, meant 

that as Chairman, he wanted to meet with them and discuss 

the role of the military in a new, independent Ukraine. 

12 generals spoke; all but one rejected the concept of 

independence, citing the centralized Soviet military system as 

evidence of the impossibility of dissolving the Soviet Union. 

When General Mikhtyuk, Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, 

spoke, he took the position that the rocket army, with its 

ICBMs, was part of the Soviet Union’s Strategic Rocket Forces 

and “could not be included in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” 

At the time, Kravchuk agreed. Only one general, Kostiantyn 

P. Morozov, Commander of the 17th Air Army, supported 

independence. Morozov spoke out about the need for a new 

constitution to ensure civilian control over the military.27

As the session ended, Kravchuk reaffirmed the Ukrainian 

parliament’s commitment to democracy and independence, 

asking the general officers to continue consultations in future 

months.28

Ukraine was not the only Soviet republic voting on 

declarations of independence from the Soviet Union. Three 

days after the Ukrainian parliament acted, the Belarusian 

and Moldovan parliaments also voted to declare their 

independence from the Soviet Union. Then just three 

days afterward, Azerbaijan’s parliament, meeting in Baku, 

voted for independence. The following day, parliaments in 

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan voted to declare independence, 

each authorizing a popular referendum on the question 

later in the fall. Parliamentary votes for independence in 

Tajikistan and Armenia followed in September. Even before 

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk

RIA Novosti
8

With Courage and Persistence

Ukraine acted, the four Baltic republics, Lithuania, Latvia, 

Georgia and Estonia, had declared “full” independence from 

the Soviet Union.29

These revolutionary events influenced the policy debate 

in the United States. In early September, only two weeks after 

the coup had failed in Moscow, President Bush convened a 

meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to discuss 

future relations with the Soviet Union and the possibility 

of further reductions in strategic and tactical forces and 

their weapons.30 The president went over the new situation 

with Secretaries of Defense and State, Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of the CIA and the National 

Security Advisor. The overriding issue was the possibility 

that amidst the rise of revolutionary nationalist sentiments 

across the Soviet republics, the Soviet Union would dissolve 

as a nation. Virtually everyone, including Bush, thought 

dissolution would occur. Secretary of Defense Richard B. 

Cheney advocated an “aggressive” approach in engaging the 

new republics and Russia in future relations. The center was 

failing, he declared, the United States had to shape its policies 

around new realities.31 Brent Scowcroft, National Security 

Advisor, and Secretary of State James A. Baker advocated that 

the president and administration should adopt a series of 

general principles that would guide U.S. policy through the 

likely forthcoming crises in the Soviet Union.

What were those principles? Scowcroft and Baker 

thought the U.S. should insist on self-determination through 

democratic methods, adherence to existing borders, respect 

for democracy, rule of law and basic human rights. These 

five principles had worked well in guiding U.S. policy during 

the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 and 

1990. Now, they added two points that focused on the 

Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal: advocating “adherence to 

international law and the USSR’s existing treaty obligations,” 

and “central control over nuclear weapons and safeguards 

against internal or external proliferation.”32 When this NSC 

meeting ended, President Bush told his senior advisors that 

he wanted the United States to take the lead in all future 

arms control reduction proposals. He asked them to work 

with their senior staffs and military service chiefs over the 

next several weeks to develop specific proposals for further 

reductions in U.S. tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. The 

president said he wanted to reduce the number of nuclear 

weapons well below levels in the START and INF treaties. 

When they returned to the Pentagon, Secretary Cheney and 

General Colin L. Powell, Chairman of the JCS, and their 

staffs developed “sweeping” proposals for eliminating U.S. 

tactical nuclear weapons, and for reducing strategic nuclear 

forces and their nuclear weapons.33

Three weeks later, on September 27, 1991, President Bush 

addressed the nation via television from the White House, 

declaring the United States would unilaterally eliminate 

2,150 land-based tactical nuclear weapons deployed in shortrange missiles and artillery shells. It would withdraw 700 

air-launched tactical nuclear weapons and 2,175 sea-based 

nuclear cruise missiles. In its strategic nuclear forces, the U.S. 

would remove from alert status all of its 280 heavy long-range 

bombers, 450 Minuteman II missiles, and 160 Poseidon 

SLBMs. At the same time, Bush cancelled U.S. plans for the 

rail-mobile Peacekeeper system, the road-mobile Midgetman 

missile and the advanced version of the short-range attack 

missile.34 After he left office, Bush wrote that these declarations 

signaled “the broadest and most comprehensive change in 

U.S. nuclear strategy since the early 1950s.”35

As was customary, President Bush telephoned Gorbachev 

a few days prior to the public announcement. Gorbachev 

indicated he would make a reciprocal declaration within a 

few days. In early October, he spoke to the Soviet public and 

the world announcing the Soviet Union would unilaterally 

eliminate up to 10,000 tactical nuclear warheads deployed 

on short-range missiles and long-range artillery shells. 

Furthermore, the Soviet Navy would withdraw all of 

its 2,000 sea-based tactical nuclear weapons; and the 

Brent Scowcroft, Richard B. Cheney and George H.W. Bush (l.-r.)

George Bush Presidential Library
9

Strategic Rocket Forces would immediately stand down 

503 ICBMs. The Soviet Air Force would ground all of 

its heavy bombers.36 In addition, he declared the SRF 

would restrict to its garrison all of its SS-24 rail mobile 

missiles. It would also cancel programs for all new SS-24 

and SS-25 missiles, and the Soviet design bureaus would 

terminate programs for new short-range attack missiles 

and new heavy bombers. Moreover, he decreed a unilateral 

cessation of all underground nuclear testing, and he agreed 

to continue discussions with American officials on the 

Strategic Defense Initiative. Finally, he ordered a reduction 

in Soviet troop strength from 3.7 to 3 million.37

By all accounts in any year, or even any decade, during 

the Cold War these presidential declarations represented 

significant unilateral strategic and tactical arms reductions.38

They exerted a powerful influence on the emerging nations 

of the fragmenting Soviet Union. These nations would 

almost certainly inherit some strategic nuclear forces, 

given the location of the USSR’s fixed ICBM missile silos, 

long-range bomber air fields and nuclear submarine bases. 

Just days before President Bush’s announcement, Leonid 

Kravchuk visited Washington to meet with the president in 

the White House. Kravchuk reiterated Ukraine’s drive for 

total independence. Bush, ever cautious, responded that 

the United States still had formal relations with the Soviet 

Union and could not recognize Ukraine as a nation. In the 

other emerging states, Kazakhstan and Belarus, national 

leaders were discussing in their national parliaments the 

future of these strategic forces. Even in the U.S. Congress, 

then considering military appropriations bills for 1992, 

key legislators began debating if they should set aside any 

funds to assist the new nations in meeting their treaty 

obligations and reducing weapons systems.39 An underlying 

assumption in the two presidents’ dramatic declarations in 

the fall of 1991 was that further arms reductions would be 

forthcoming, provided the process continued peacefully. 

Since one presidential announcement was countered within 

a week by a similar announcement, the process became 

reciprocal and it created a climate for further reductions. The 

temper of the times was running powerfully toward strategic 

and tactical nuclear arms reductions.40 Few missed it.

Ukraine became one of the first Soviet republics to state 

its position on nuclear weapons. In late October 1991 the 

Ukrainian parliament adopted a declaration “On the Nuclear 

Status of Ukraine,” which stated that nuclear weapons based 

on its territory were temporary and that Ukraine intended 

to pursue a course toward complete elimination of nuclear 

weapons and components from its territory.41 It insisted 

on adequate guarantees for ecological security. Further, the 

Ukrainian parliamentarians pledged to follow the terms 

of the 1991 START Treaty, and to sign and ratify the NonProliferation (NPT) Treaty as a non-nuclear state. Ukraine 

was ready, the Rada declared, to begin negotiations with 

Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation on the 

proper command structures needed for eliminating nuclear 

weapons under the START Treaty. In an important clause, the 

parliamentarians stated that “Ukraine insists on the right of 

control over the non-use of nuclear weapons located on its 

territory.”42 In subsequent years this policy declaration on 

nuclear weapons, which was taken before Ukraine became 

a nation, would become an important benchmark for the 

Ukrainian government and its parliament.

Collapse, national inheritance, and the 

future of the nuclear forces 

The forces propelling Ukraine and the other nations 

towards independence moved swiftly in October and 

November toward the December 1 referendum.43 In 

Ukraine, every major party favored independence. All of 

Ukraine’s national politicians, regional leaders and minority 

groups, except one, supported independence. In the actual 

referendum vote, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians 

chose independence. The same day, voters elected Leonid 

Kravchuk as Ukraine’s first president. It was a revolutionary 

President George H.W. Bush

George Bush Presidential Library
10

With Courage and Persistence

time and Kravchuk moved swiftly to ensure Ukraine’s 

independence, traveling to Minsk to meet with Boris Yeltsin, 

president of Russia and Stanislav Shushkevich, president of 

Belarus. There, after a weekend of secret meetings, the three 

presidents announced in a joint declaration that the Union 

Treaty of 1922, which established the Soviet Union, had 

been abolished and that they were forming a new federation, 

the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This joint 

declaration, the Minsk Agreement of December 1991 sealed 

the fate of Gorbachev and the Soviet Union.44

Disregarding the fact that the three presidents had no 

authority to dissolve the Soviet Union, the leaders of five 

other new nations confirmed their actions one week later. 

Meeting in Ashkhabad, the presidents of Kazakhstan, 

Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan declared their 

support for dissolution and stated they would participate 

in the new Commonwealth of Independent States. They 

insisted on being designated as co-founders with Russia, 

Ukraine and Belarus of the new commonwealth. The 

following week, the presidents of the 15 new nations formed 

from the collapsing Soviet Union, except for Estonia, Latvia, 

Lithuania and Georgia, traveled to Almaty, Kazakhstan. 

There in late December, they unanimously established the 

Commonwealth of Independent States and declared that the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would cease to exist at 

midnight, January 1, 1992.45

These decisions and declarations came so quickly that 

few realized their profound consequences. The Soviet Union 

had been a highly centralized state, with its administrative 

bureaus, foreign ministry, state planning agencies, economic 

bureaus, military headquarters and general staffs all based 

in Moscow.46 Over its 70-year existence, the Soviet Union 

had signed more than 1,000 treaties and international 

agreements.47 The nation’s nuclear arsenal was the world’s 

largest, with an estimated 12,000 strategic nuclear weapons 

and 15,000 tactical nuclear weapons. It retained the 

world’s most substantial stockpile of chemical weapons, 

an estimated 44,000 tons, along with a secret complex of 

biological weapons laboratories and manufacturing plants. 

It had one of the world’s most extensive armed forces, with 

nearly 3.7 million men under arms.48 Soviet ground forces, 

with more than 200 divisions, were deployed in every 

one of the former Soviet republics. Its military industrial 

system was exceptionally centralized, with planning, 

programs and production based on directives from military 

design bureaus in Moscow and Leningrad. The military’s 

command and control system, especially for the Strategic 

Rocket Forces, was centralized in the Soviet capital. The 

rocket forces command structure was stable, but the 

Soviet General Staff was in turmoil. Its senior leaders had 

been disgraced during the failed August coup and were 

subsequently replaced. Then in the fall months of 1991, 

the new military leaders had equivocated in supporting 

Gorbachev over Yeltsin and in favoring a Soviet versus a 

new Russian state. The General Staff’s commanders and 

senior planning staff had been involved for more than three 

years in the decommissioning and relocation of more than 

650,000 military forces, officers, men and their families, 

formerly stationed in Eastern Europe.49 Now in December 

1991 the Soviet marshals and generals had to deal with the 

sudden, actual dissolution of their nation and the prospect 

of dividing its centralized, unitary military commands and 

forces across fifteen separate states.

Political leaders guiding the dissolution took up the 

most pressing question; who would control the new 

nations’ “inherited” strategic nuclear forces. In Minsk, 

Yeltsin of Russia, Kravchuk of Ukraine and Shushkevich of 

Belarus had declared “member states of the community will 

preserve and maintain under a united command a common 

military – strategic space, including unified control over 

nuclear weapons...” Jointly, the three presidents stated 

they would provide the necessary conditions, specifically 

funding, for the stationing and functioning (operations) of 

strategic armed forces located on their national territories. 

Finally, the three presidents concluded they would 

develop a “harmonized” policy on questions of social 

protection and pension provisions for the servicemen 

and their families.50 Following the Minsk meeting and 

agreement, Yeltsin asserted that Russia would become 

the Soviet Union’s successor state in international law. It 

would inherit three-fourths of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal. 

Consequently, Russia would have control of the Strategic 

Rocket Forces’ command structure, custody of most of the 

nuclear weapons and control of the nuclear infrastructure 

ministries that provided basic research, science and 

development of the weapons. Specifically, Russia would 

inherit more than 1,000 ICBMs, 101 long-range bombers, 

and 940 SLBMs. The new Russian state would possess more 

than 7,450 strategic nuclear warheads and approximately 

15-20,000 non-strategic nuclear warheads.51
11

Within its borders, Ukraine had the 43rd Rocket Army, 

with 130 SS-19 ICBMs (6 warheads per missile) and 46 SS-24 

ICBMs (10 warheads per missile). The 43rd Rocket Army had 

a nuclear weapons storage depot, located at Pervomaysk. Also 

on Ukrainian territory was the 106th Heavy Bomber Division, 

with 25 Bear H-16 long-range strategic bombers, each 

equipped with 16 warheads mounted on air-launched cruise 

missiles and, and 19 Blackjack bombers, each equipped with 

12 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The combined rocket and 

air armies based in Ukrainian territory had more than 1,300 

strategic nuclear warheads.52 In addition, Soviet military 

divisions in Ukraine had approximately 4,200 non-strategic or 

tactical nuclear weapons.53 Kazakhstan inherited four missile 

bases, sites for 104 SS-18 ICBMs, each capable of launching 10 

nuclear warheads. Kazakhstan also had bases for 40 nuclearcapable long-range bombers. All in all, the new nation had 

inherited from the Soviet Union, strategic offensive forces 

equipped with more than 1,400 nuclear warheads.54 Belarus 

Inherited Weapons of Mass Destruction sites, 1992

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Table 1-1. Former Soviet Union Strategic Nuclear 

Forces56

Country Weapons Warheads

Russia

ICBMs - 1,064 

Bombers - 101 

SLBMs - 940

 4,278

 367

 2,804

Ukraine ICBMs - 176

Bombers - 44

 1,240

 628

Kazakhstan ICBMs - 104

Bombers - 40

 1,040

 320

Belarus ICBMs - 81 81

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, January 

1992
12

With Courage and Persistence

had a much smaller force, three regiments of single-warhead 

SS-25 ICBMs, with 81 nuclear weapons.55

The term “inherited” was a critical one. In December 

1991, the old Soviet territorial definitions of federations, 

republics, and oblasts had been discarded and replaced by 

that of independent nations and states. This change had 

enormous consequences. In international law, independent, 

internationally recognized nations “possessed” everything 

within their territorial borders. Except for the former Soviet 

Union’s nuclear forces and weapons, the classical legal 

definition applied to the new nation’s “inherited” military 

forces, and its industrial complexes, peoples, places and 

lands. However, in December 1991, this international legal 

principle was not clear, so two weeks after the Minsk meeting, 

the three national leaders along with nine presidents of the 

other emerging states met in Almaty, Kazakhstan to negotiate 

and sign a new declaration clarifying the Commonwealth of 

Independent States. This Almaty Declaration was far more 

explicit in defining the new commonwealth and more specific 

in outlining the command and control system for nuclear 

weapons.57 Two concepts in international law emerged as 

prominent principles. First, there would be international 

recognition in law for those emerging states choosing to 

renounce their inherited nuclear weapons. Second, the states 

that had signed ratified and implemented existing arms control 

treaties and agreements would be recognized as contributing 

to international stability. International recognition and 

support, especially from the United States and European 

nations, were closely associated with these principles.

The presidents of four new states, Russia, Belarus, 

Kazakhstan and Ukraine, which had inherited nuclear 

weapons – Boris Yeltsin, Stanislav Shushkevich, Nursultan 

Nazarbayev and Leonid Kravchuk, signed a new declaration 

in Almaty: “An Agreement on Joint Measures on Nuclear 

Weapons.”58 In brief, they agreed that:

n Nuclear weapons and the strategic armed forces 

existed for the collective security of the CIS

n There would be “No First Use” of nuclear 

weapons

n The President of Russia would have operational 

control, i.e. control of the “launch button” for the 

CIS’s strategic armed forces, but this control had 

to be carried out with “agreement” by the heads 

of the member states

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Speaker of Belarusian Supreme Soviet Parliament Stanislav Shushkevich (l.-r.)

RIA Novosti
13

n Belarus and Ukraine would join the NPT as nonnuclear states and abide by all of the treaty’s 

terms

n Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan could transfer 

nuclear weapons to Russia for the purpose of 

destroying them

n By July 1, 1992, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan 

would ensure withdrawal of tactical nuclear 

weapons to “central factory premises” (in Russia) 

for dismantling under “joint supervision”

n The presidents of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and 

Ukraine would sign and submit the START Treaty 

to the legislatures for ratification

For international observers of the dissolving Soviet Union, 

here was a clear, concise, collective declaratory policy. For the 

new Commonwealth of Independent States, it stated directly 

the purpose for maintaining operational strategic nuclear 

forces, lines of authority for establishing command and 

control, future intentions of two of the four states inheriting 

nuclear weapons, and the collective decision to endorse the 

dominant strategic arms control treaty, the START Treaty. 

Specifically, Yeltsin, Kravchuk, Shushkevich and Nazarbayev, 

declared that their strategic nuclear forces -- ICBMs, SLBMs, 

and heavy bombers, would constitute “collective security” for 

the new Commonwealth. Yeltsin, with consultation, would 

have control over the “button.” Excess tactical and strategic 

nuclear weapons would be sent to Russia for elimination.

U.S. response: strategic diplomacy in 

revolutionary times

Ever since the failed August 1991 coup against Gorbachev, 

President Bush and his senior advisors had reshaped U.S. 

policies toward the changing situation in the waning Soviet 

Union.59 In early September, Secretary Baker announced the 

principles that would guide U.S. policy: the right to peaceful 

self-determination, respect for national boundaries, support 

for democratic government and the rule of law, support for 

constitutional guarantees for human rights, and adherence 

to international law and treaty obligations.60 Then in late 

September, President Bush announced to a world audience 

via television that he had ordered U.S. military services to 

eliminate thousands of tactical nuclear weapons and cancel 

dozens of strategic nuclear modernization programs. Within 

days, President Gorbachev announced an initiative to cut 

and curtail Soviet nuclear weapons systems and thousands 

of nuclear weapons. In the Soviet Union the twin forces of 

nationalism and internal dissolution moved forward rapidly 

in October and November. During these weeks and months, 

President Bush insisted that the U.S. policy would be one of 

non-interference in the internal affairs on the Soviet Union.61

For this policy to succeed, the USSR would have to remain 

intact. If it collapsed, U.S. interests, principles and leadership 

in the region would be forced to change dramatically.

As the Soviet Union continued to unravel in the days 

following the Minsk Declaration in mid-December, Secretary 

of State James Baker and a small cadre of senior diplomats 

flew to Moscow for a series of meetings. When they landed 

on December 15, they found the city in a state of crisis: no 

gas, intermittent electricity, hoarding of food, rampant 

inflation, an absence of governmental authority and a sense 

of revolution in the air. Baker had many questions: Just what 

was this new Commonwealth of Independent States? Had the 

emerging states clarified the nuclear command and control 

issue? What about non-proliferation? Would the new leaders 

of Russia sign and ratify the START Treaty? Would they accept 

a multinational U.S.-led humanitarian aid effort that winter? 

Some officials in Baker’s party were uncertain if Russia and 

the new states would be successful in dissolving the rigid, 

centralized Soviet state. In his meeting with Baker and the 

American diplomats, Yeltsin changed their impressions 

immediately. He told Baker that the CIS, in its next meeting 

scheduled for the following week in Almaty, would be 

expanding from three to eight states, with incorporation 

of five new Central Asian nations. He declared the Russian 

government would assume in the next few weeks the USSR’s 

Foreign Ministry, foreign embassies, United Nations’ seat on 

the Security Council, Interior Ministry and parts of the KGB. 

Baker was stunned. This meant that the United States would 

have to recognize Russia as the Soviet Union’s successor state.62

On the spot, Baker sought Yeltsin’s assurance on a series 

of issues vital to the United States. Specifically, he asked 

the Russian president to declare publicly that he would 

work with the presidents of the other republics on five key 

issues: command and control of nuclear forces and weapons, 

safe storage of nuclear weapons, safe dismantlement and 

transport of nuclear weapons, limiting nuclear proliferation, 

and securing quick ratification of the START and CFE arms 

control treaties. “I wanted to establish a standard,” Baker 
14

With Courage and Persistence

recalled in his memoirs, “to which we could hold them 

in the future.”63 Yeltsin discussed each issue, beginning 

with command and control of nuclear weapons. Then, he 

introduced General Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, Soviet Minister 

of Defense, who would be commanding the Commonwealth 

of Independent States’ nuclear forces. General Shaposhnikov 

explained the existing system’s command and control 

and how it would be modified to the new CIS command 

structure. He told Baker they expected the new organization 

to be a “defensive alliance,” like the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization, where aggression against one would be 

aggression against all.

Addressing Baker’s other questions, Yeltsin declared that 

Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan would each sign 

and ratify the NPT Treaty. He expected that Ukraine, Belarus 

and Kazakhstan would give up the nuclear weapons on their 

territory and become non-nuclear states. Yeltsin then stated 

the Russian government would implement strict export 

controls for nuclear weapons and nuclear technologies. 

For the American Secretary of State, these explanations and 

answers fit closely with U.S. policy objectives. “I personally 

felt very reassured,” Baker recalled, “I have heard nothing 

that causes me any concern.”64

From Moscow, Baker flew to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, 

Belarus and Ukraine. At each stop, he met with the new 

nations’ presidents, discussing U.S. recognition, cooperation, 

humanitarian aid and technical assistance. He was welcomed 

eagerly, in large part to the United States’ excellent reputation 

in the region – morally, economically, politically and 

militarily. When he arrived in Kazakhstan in mid-December, 

Baker met with President Nazarbayev who told him his 

nation would join the NPT Treaty. “If the international 

community recognizes and accepts Kazakhstan,” Nazarbayev 

said,”we will declare as a non-nuclear state. This is the best 

way our territorial integrity will be assured. That’s what 

we require.”65 The next day in Minsk, Belarus, Baker met 

with President Shushkevich who assured him that having 

experienced the trauma of Chernobyl, his country wanted 

to get rid of every nuclear weapon stationed on its territory. 

He said Belarus would sign and ratify the NPT Treaty. Then 

Shushkevich asked Baker for U.S. expertise in disabling and 

dismantling nuclear weapons within Belarus.66

That evening Baker flew to Kiev. Over dinner, President 

Kravchuk confirmed his support for the new CIS command 

structure. He said Ukraine was not only prepared to join the 

NPT Treaty, but that the government had already invited 

United Nations inspectors and the International Atomic 

Energy Agency to meet and discuss compliance agreements. 

Kravchuk told Baker that Ukraine would abide by all nuclear 

agreements and treaties and that it would welcome U.S. 

expertise to assist in the safe, secure, storage, transfer and 

liquidation of nuclear forces and weapons on its territory. 

Baker later wrote in his memoirs, “Following my evening in 

Kiev, I was more confident than I had been earlier in the week 

(in Moscow) that political disputes could be contained.”67

Baker’s confidence was borne out the following week in 

Almaty, Kazakhstan. There the four presidents of the nuclear 

states – Yeltsin, Shushkevich, Nazarbayev and Kravchuk, 

met in late December and signed the “Agreement on Joint 

Measures on Nuclear Weapons.” In Washington, Secretary 

Baker and President Bush followed events closely to see if 

declaratory policy fit with diplomatic statements and private 

discussions. They did. As a direct consequence, the United 

States government began formal procedures to recognize these 

new nations and their governments. Baker announced in early 

January 1992 that the United States would have ambassadors, 

staffs and embassies established in each capital quickly.68

Following the announcement, Baker sent a message to 

each president inviting foreign ministers of the 15 newly 

independent states to a major conference, the North American 

Cooperative Council, to be held at NATO Headquarters in 

early January 1992. All accepted. Sitting in a hall normally 

reserved for NATO senior representatives, the new nations’ 

foreign ministers were welcomed by Secretary Baker, foreign 

ministers of the NATO nations and representatives of the new 

U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker and Russian President 

Boris Yeltsin

RIA Novosti
15

Central European nations. This symbolic meeting also had a 

serious agenda. Alliance leaders wanted the foreign ministers 

of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ nations 

to sign, ratify and implement the CFE Treaty. Originally 

signed in October 1990 by the leaders of NATO and Warsaw 

Pact nations, the CFE Treaty would now be expanded by 

incorporating the 15 new independent states. To do so would 

mean that the Soviet Union’s huge conventional military 

forces, with 200 army divisions, air divisions, naval fleets and 

more than 3.7 million men would have to be apportioned 

among the 15 new nations. If and when they ratified the CFE 

Treaty, new states would be required to meet all the former 

Soviet Union’s quotas for reducing conventional weapons as 

specified in the treaty. Division of these massive conventional 

forces was a huge task for the new states; it took months of 

negotiations to develop a formula acceptable to all.69

In a third diplomatic initiative in January 1992, Secretary 

Baker invited the leaders of the new states and other nations 

to send representatives to Washington, D.C. to participate 

in a large multinational humanitarian aid conference. News 

reports told of a breakdown of food distribution, threats of 

famine and civic unrest in the cities and towns across the 

former Soviet Union. Recalling the famine-like situation 

in Europe following the end of World War II, the American 

Secretary of State hosted the large multi-national conference 

at the U.S. State Department. There, Baker announced to 

the 600 delegates from 54 nations that the United States 

would organize and lead a large humanitarian airlift, 

called Provide Hope, to deliver aid directly to the people 

of the emerging states in their need for food, medicine, and 

emergency supplies.70

All this diplomatic activity evidenced a dramatic turn in 

American response to the revolutions sweeping across the 

former Soviet Union. In less than six weeks, Baker had forged 

an extraordinarily active American foreign policy with the 

new, emerging states. At its very center lay U.S. recognition 

for the new nation states. Next, the U.S. advocated strongly 

for the new states’ incorporation into the international 

system of treaties, agreements and organizations. Finally, the 

United States led the world in organizing the multinational 

humanitarian aid program, known in the winter of 1991-

1992 as Provide Hope. Always present throughout all of 

these initiatives, were the Bush Administration’s geostrategic 

concerns about the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons 

– their command, control, security, safety, dismantlement 

and liquidization. Yet there was more to the nuclear question 

Presidents and Foreign Ministers of NATO nations, Central European nations and CIS nations meet at NATO headquarters, March 

1992

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
16

With Courage and Persistence

than weapons. The Bush Administration had to consider 

the thousands of nuclear scientists, secret nuclear cities and 

laboratories, nuclear production facilities, missile assembly 

factories, nuclear submarine yards, bomber plants and 

the hundreds, if not thousands, of ancillary factories and 

firms. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had created 

and sustained a nuclear arms complex that was so vast that 

few realized its scope and complexity. Senators Sam Nunn 

of Georgia, a Democrat, and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, 

a Republican, sought to address this issue. In the fall 1991, 

they studied the issue extensively, held hearings and drafted 

legislation that gave the United States the legal and financial 

framework needed to develop a cooperative program to 

provide assistance in dealing with the many issues associated 

with “inherited” nuclear weapons.

A new strategic initiative: Nunn-Lugar 

legislation

The Nunn-Lugar legislation of 1991 established a major 

new U.S. government assistance program for the newly 

independent states. The initial legislation provided $400 

million for the safe transportation, storage, accounting, 

and destruction of nuclear and other weapons in the Soviet 

Union. Adopted by the U.S. Senate 84 to 6, and by the House 

of Representatives on a voice vote, the legislation was signed 

into law by President Bush on December 12, 1991.71 Two 

weeks later the Soviet Union dissolved. Four of the successor 

states, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited 

all of the USSR’s nuclear forces, weapons and warheads. 

The Nunn-Lugar legislation was prescient, especially since 

in the decade that followed, the U.S. Congress reaffirmed, 

expanded, modified and reenacted the program annually. 

Known initially as the Nunn-Lugar legislation, and then after 

1995 as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), the program 

continued beyond the 1990s into subsequent decades.

What caused Nunn and Lugar to propose this U.S. 

assistance, even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union? 

Senator Nunn answered this question on numerous 

occasions.72 Serving as Chairman of the Senate Armed 

Services Committee, Nunn had followed the revolutionary 

events of the summer of 1991 closely: the abortive coup in 

August, parliamentary declarations for independence across 

the length and breadth of the Soviet Union in August and 

September, and intense preparations within the military 

services and defense agencies preceding President Bush’s 

Senators Sam Nunn (l.) and Richard G. Lugar (r.) leaving the White House

Office of Senator Richard Lugar
17

dramatic unilateral announcement to withdraw, cancel 

and dismantle thousands of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons 

and systems. In this context, Nunn recalled that he and 

Lugar invited 20 key senators to a breakfast meeting in late 

November. The topic was the Soviet Union and safety of its 

nuclear weapons. Nunn introduced Ashton Carter, co-author 

of a new study at Harvard University, Soviet Nuclear Fission: 

Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union.

73

Carter, a theoretical nuclear physicist and international 

security analyst, briefed the senators, beginning with the 

study group’s analysis of the Soviet Union’s vast nuclear 

weapons arsenal. One must, he explained, look beyond 

the nuclear weapons themselves and examine the USSR’s 

entire complex of systems: nuclear weapons laboratories 

and the scientists working in the “closed” cities, specialized 

military transportation systems for moving the warheads 

from operational sites to special storage depots, complex 

maintenance systems for insuring the safety of nuclear 

warheads, the structure of the weapons manufacturing 

system and the complex centralized command and control 

system for monitoring, accounting for and launching the 

weapons. There were an estimated 27,000 strategic and 

tactical nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union. If the Soviet 

Union broke apart, Carter concluded, it would pose the 

greatest nonproliferation problem since the beginning of the 

atomic age. He and his team of analysts suggested that the 

Senators examine a set of key policy recommendations.74

Two assumptions underlay these recommendations. First, 

if and when the Soviet Union dissolved, they assumed that 

Russia would be the only successor state that possessed within 

its borders the “technical means” required to carry out fullcycle security, maintenance, safety and monitoring operations 

of the nuclear weapons complex to current world safety 

and security standards. None of the other potential nuclear 

states, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, had that technical 

capacity. Second, the United States and the Soviet Union 

had developed during the Cold War a special relationship 

as nuclear superpowers. That relationship, particularly in 

the 1970s and 1980s, had led to major stabilizing bilateral 

nuclear arms control treaties and agreements that, when 

implemented, would provide an important international 

structure for carrying out arms reductions in future years. This 

long-term bilateral, superpower relationship, Carter stressed, 

was one that no other nation had with the Soviet Union.

Combining the two assumptions – the possibility of 

serious disruptions in the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons 

systems for safeguarding and securing the vast nuclear 

weapons complexes, with the reality of the United States’ 

long-standing special relationship – Carter recommended 

that the U.S. Senate consider funding technical assistance to 

the Soviet Union. Specifically, he recommended assistance 

for the rapid and safe transport of warheads, for disassembly 

and elimination of weapons, and for the safe and secure 

storage of weapons and special nuclear materials.75

Later, Senator Nunn recalled that this important briefing 

“outlined in an analytical, scholarly format the dangers 

of nuclear command, control and safety in an unstable 

Soviet Union.”76 Nunn credited it as the major conceptual 

foundation for the Nunn-Lugar legislation.

Following that Senate breakfast meeting in early 

November, world events continued to favor the forces of 

nationalism in the splintering Soviet empire. One week 

later, Senators Nunn and Lugar, along with 24 co-sponsors, 

succeeded in persuading both houses of Congress to pass 

a specific bill: the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 

1991.77 It authorized the Department of Defense to transfer, 

through reprogramming, up to $400 million annually 

from other accounts in the department’s operating budget 

Ashton B. Carter

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
18

With Courage and Persistence

to implement the act. The authority was discretionary, not 

obligatory. The act began by stating that “The Congress 

finds that Soviet President Gorbachev has requested 

Western help in dismantling nuclear weapons, and (that) 

President Bush has proposed United States cooperation on 

the storage, transportation, dismantling and destruction of 

Soviet nuclear weapons.”78 It further stated that “profound” 

changes were underway in the Soviet Union, and that there 

were three types of dangers to nuclear safety and stability. 

First, the distribution of nuclear weapons to the new states 

had created a new international danger if these states could 

not safely maintain and store the weapons at the rigorous 

technical standards needed for international stability. 

Second, there was a danger of seizure, theft, sale or use of 

nuclear weapons or components. Third, there was a danger 

of proliferation if the weapons, weapons components or 

knowledge were transferred outside of the Soviet Union or 

its successor states. Finally, congressional findings concluded 

with the declaration, “that it is the interests of the United 

States (A) to facilitate on a priority basis the transportation, 

storage, safeguarding and destruction of nuclear and other 

weapons in the Soviet Union, its republics and any successor 

entities, and (B) to assist in the prevention of weapons 

proliferation.”79

In defining the program, Congress directed the President 

to establish within the Department of Defense a program 

based on the principle of “cooperation.” It limited the 

program to three specific areas of assistance: destruction of 

nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and other weapons; 

the transport, storage, disablement and safeguarding of 

these weapons in connection with their destruction; and 

establishment of verifiable safeguards against proliferation 

of such weapons. Further, Congress told the President that 

cooperation “may” involve assistance in planning and 

in resolving technical problems with destruction of the 

weapons or their proliferation. Finally, it directed that to the 

“extent feasible” the program should use U.S. technology 

and technicians. This clause emphasized the “Buy American” 

aspect of the law.80

From the beginning, cooperation with the Soviet Union 

and its successor was a key legislative objective. At the time, 

few realized how important this objective of “cooperation” 

would become between the governments of the United States 

and the newly independent states. As events unfolded in 

the 1990s, the dominant U.S. national security and foreign 

policy objective for the region became nonproliferation. U.S. 

assistance, in the form of the Nunn-Lugar program, became 

the most significant instrument in the U.S. foreign and 

defense policies for achieving this objective. Cooperation 

between governments and bureaucracies became a means 

to an end. The end, however, was far from certain in early 

1992. Just as American officials in the NSC and DOD began 

to define the program, there were huge uncertainties in the 

missile fields.

Reality

One uncertainty concerned the new Commonwealth of 

Independent States’ Armed Forces, itself. Established only 

weeks earlier, this joint nuclear force had no commander, 

no staff, no command and control center, and no plans for 

partitioning the former USSR’s forces and weapons. These 

CIS Armed Forces existed as declaratory policy only. At the 

43rd Rocket Army Headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, General 

Mikhtyuk recalled that these declarations changed none of 

the “routine, day-to-day work” of the 35,000 men assigned 

to the rocket army.81 In Kazakhstan, commanders of the 31st

Missile Army, headquartered at Derzhavinsk, and the 33rd

Guards Missile Army, at Zhangiztobe, retained their allegiance 

to the Strategic Rocket Forces in Moscow. In Ukraine, another 

uncertainty emerged as some ultranationalist members in the 

Ukrainian parliament began advocating that the new nation 

retain all of its “inherited” nuclear weapons and strategic 

forces.82 Even before independence, Ukraine’s parliament had 

asserted its sovereignty rights to “control over the non-use of 

nuclear weapons on its territory.”83

Then in January 1992 General Morozov, Ukraine’s first 

Minister of Defense took over the headquarters of the Soviet 

Kiev Military District, shutting down the communication 

lines linking Kiev to Moscow and dismissing the commanders 

of the three Soviet Military districts in Ukraine. The following 

week, Morozov began administering the oath of loyalty to 

the Ukraine nation to the first of 750,000 military officers 

and men.84 As a result, for many Ukrainians, reality did not 

lay in grand policy declarations promulgated in Washington, 

Moscow, Minsk or Almaty, but in the direct actions of the 

nation’s new political and military leaders. In the midst of 

creating a new nation and dismantling an old empire, reality 

was shifting constantly.
19

Endnotes

1

 Report, General-Colonel Volodomir Alexeyevich Mikhtyuk, 

Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, Strategic Rocket Forces, “Status 

of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 2003. See also, Report, 

Headquarters, 43rd Rocket Army, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 2000. The 

estimated size of the nuclear arsenals of the three nations in 

1991 were: Great Britain (96), France (436), and China (324). 

See also, Richard Fieldhouse, Robert S. Norris, and William M. 

Arkin, “Nuclear Weapons Developments and Unilateral Reduction 

Initiatives,” in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 

Yearbook 1992: World Armaments and Disarmament, (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 82.

2

 Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” pp. 25-26.

3

 Biography, General-Colonel V.O. Mikhtyuk, Commander, 43rd

Rocket Army, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, and Member 

of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Collegiums, published in 

Ukrainian Military Development Through the 20th Century, (Kiev, 

Ukraine, 2001), p. 426. Interview, Colonel General V.O. Mikhtyuk, 

Commander 43rd Rocket Army, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 25 February 2002. 

4

 For a reference volume on these treaties see, David B. 

Thomson, A Guide to Nuclear Arms Control Treaties, (Los Alamos: 

Los Alamos Historical Society, 2001). George L. Rueckert, On-Site 

Inspections in Theory and Practice: A Primer on Modern Arms Control 

Regimes, (Westport: Praeger, 1998). For specific treaties see, Joseph 

P. Harahan, On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty: A History of the 

On-Site Inspection Agency and INF Treaty Implementation, 1988-1991, 

(Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of 

Defense, 1993). Also, Joseph P. Harahan and John C. Kuhn, On-Site 

Inspections Under the CFE Treaty: A History of the On-Site Inspection 

Agency and CFE Treaty Implementation, 1990-1996, (Washington, 

D.C.: On-Site Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 

1996).

5

 Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” pp. 14-15.

6

 Ibid., pp. 14-16. For an explanation of the INF Treaty’s 

elimination requirements see, Harahan, On-Site Inspections Under 

the INF Treaty, pp. 99-118.

7

 Harahan, On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty, pp. 99-

116, 117-150. Rueckert, On-Site Inspections in Theory and Practice, 

pp. 43-55. Julie Dahlitz, ed., “The Use of On-Site Inspections 

in the Avoidance and Settlement of Arms Control Disputes,” in 

Avoidance and Settlement of Arms Control Disputes: Arms Control 

and Disarmament Law, vol. 2, (New York: Stationary Office Books, 

1994).

8

 Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” p. 15.

9

 For analyses and commentary on the significance of the START 

Treaty see, Dunbar Lockwood, “START: An Essential Step in a New 

Era,” Arms Control Today, (November 1991), Special Supplement, 

pp. 2-24. Allan S. Krass, et al, “What Does START Stop?,” Bulletin of 

Atomic Scientists, (November 1991), pp. 12-40. Regina C. Karp, “The 

START Treaty and the Future of Arms Control,” in SIPRI Yearbook 

1992, pp. 13-37. 

10 Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” pp. 25-29. See also, William E. Odom, The Collapse of the 

Soviet Military, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 66-71. 

Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of 

Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000, (Washington, D.C.: 

Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), pp. 60-100.

11 U.S. Senate, 102nd Congress, 1st Session. Treaty Document 

102-20. Message of the President of the United States Transmitting the 

Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Socialist 

Soviet Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive 

Arms (The START Treaty), Signed at Moscow on 31 July 1991 including 

Annexes on Agreed Statements and Definitions; Protocols on Conversion 

and Elimination, Inspection, Notification, Throw-weight, Telemetry, 

and Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission; and Memorandum 

of Understanding; All Integral Parts of the START Treaty, Washington, 

D.C., 1991. The best brief analysis is, Lockwood, “START,” Arms 

Control Today, pp. 2-24.

12 For quote see, George Bush, transcript of remarks, Washington 

Post, 1 August 1991.

13 For quote see, Mikhail Gorbachev, transcript of remarks, 

Washington Post, 1 August 1991.

14 Ibid. 

15 These years were the high water mark for negotiated arms 

control treaties and agreements. Commentary was ubiquitous 

across Europe, North America, and the Soviet Union. For a 

comprehensive survey of these treaties and their objectives in 

historical context see, Richard Dean Burns, ed., Encyclopedia of Arms 

Control and Disarmament, 3 volumes, (New York: Macmillan Library 

Reference, 1993). 

16 Letter of Transmittal by Secretary of State James A. Baker, 

20 November 1991, published in U.S. Senate, 102nd Congress, 1st 

Session, Treaty Document 102-20, pp. viii-ix.

17 Francis X. Clines, “The Soviet Crisis; K.G.B.-Military Rulers 

Tighten Grip; Gorbachev Absent, Yeltsin Defiant; West Voices Anger 

and Warns On Aid,” New York Times, 20 August 1991. Martin Sieff, 

“Gorbachev Out, Hard Liner Yanayev In,” Washington Times, 19 

August 1991, pp. 1, 14. “Tanks Enter Moscow Streets,” Associated 

Press, 19 August 1991. “Gorbachev Replaced,” Reuters, 19 August 

1991.

18 Michael Dobbs, “Gorbachev Reclaims Control; Replacements 

Named for Leaders of Coup,” Washington Post, 23 August 1991. 

David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, 

(New York: Vintage Books, 1994), pp. 431-491.

19 Francis X. Clines, “After the Coup: Yeltsin is Routing 

Communist Party from Key Roles throughout Russia; He Forces 

Vast Gorbachev Shake-Up; Soviet President is Heckled by the 

Republic’s Parliament,” New York Times, 24 August 1991. Fred Hiatt, 

“Gorbachev Says U.S.S.R. on Verge of Collapse; 7th Republic Vote 

to Secede; Europe Recognize Baltics,” Washington Post, 28 August 
20

With Courage and Persistence

1991. For commentary on these events see, Martin Malia, “The 

August Revolution,” New York Review of Books, 26 September 1991, 

pp. 22-28. Also see, Jamey Gambrell, “Seven Days That Shook the 

World,” New York Review of Books, 26 September 1991, pp. 56-63.

20 For historical perspective on these events see articles by Malia 

and Gambrell, and especially Remnick.

21 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, (New 

York: Knopf, 1998), p. 527.

22 Paul D’Anieri, Robert S. Kravchuk, and Taras Kuzio, Politics 

and Society in Ukraine: Westview Series on the Post-Soviet Republics, 

(Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 24-25. For a survey of the 

roots of the Ukrainian independence movement see, Taras Kuzio 

and Andrew Wilson, Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence, (Canada: 

Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1994), Chapters 6-9.

23 D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine,

p. 25.

24 Andrea Chandler, “Statebuilding and Political Priorities 

in Post-Soviet Ukraine: The Role of the Military,” Armed Forces 

and Society, vol. 22, no. 4 (Summer 1996), pp. 580-581. For a 

discussion of the transformation of the military forces see, D’Anieri, 

Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 233-246.

25 Paul D’Anieri, “Ukraine’s Defense Policy and the 

Transformation of the Armed Forces,” in D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and 

Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 233-234.

26 For an account of the meeting from two of the participants 

see, Kostiantyn P. Morozov, Above and Beyond: From Soviet General 

to Ukrainian State Builder, (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2000), 

pp. 141-146. Report, Mikhtyuk “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” p. 4.

27 Morozov, Above and Beyond, p. 144.

28 Ibid., pp. 145-146. 

29 Odom, Collapse of the Soviet Military, p. 351.

30 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, pp. 541-544.

31 Ibid., p. 541.

32 Ibid., p. 544.

33 Colin L. Powell, My American Journey: An Autobiography, (New 

York: Random House, 1995), pp. 540-541.

34 Ann Devroy and R. Jeffery Smith, “President Orders Sweeping 

Reductions in Strategic and Tactical Nuclear Arms,” Washington Post, 

28 September 1991. See also, John E. Yang, “Bush Plan Emerged 

After Failed Coup; White House Wanted to Take Advantage of 

Timing, Officials Say,” Washington Post, 28 September 1991. Michael 

R. Gordon, “Bush’s Arm Plan; Trust Without Verifying,” New York 

Times, 29 September 1991. George Bunn and David Holloway, 

“Arms Control Without Treaties? Rethinking U.S.-Russian Strategic 

Negotiations in Light of the Duma-Senate Slowdown in Treaty 

Approval,” CISAC Working Paper, Center for International Security and 

Arms Control, Stanford University, (February 1998).

35 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, p. 546.

36 Serge Schmemann, “Gorbachev Matches U.S. on Nuclear 

Cuts and Goes Further on Strategic Warheads,” New York Times, 6 

October 1991, pp. 1, 12. For President Gorbachev’s remarks see, 

p. 12. Fred Haitt, “Gorbachev Pledges Wide- Ranging Nuclear 

Cuts,” Washington Post, 6 October 1991. For the reciprocal nature of 

these reductions see, R. Jeffery Smith, “Soviet Leader’s Competitive 

Tone Seems to Invite an Arms Race in Reverse,” Washington Post, 6 

October 1991.

37 Smith, “Soviet Leader’s Competitive Tone Seems to Invite 

Arms Race in Reverse.”

38 Bunn and Holloway, “Arms Control Without Treaties?,” 

CISAC Working Paper. 

39 In the fall 1991, Congressman Les Aspin (DemocratWisconsin) was serving as the chairman of the U.S. House of 

Representatives Armed Services Committee and Senator Sam Nunn 

(Democrat- Georgia) was chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed 

Services Committee. Together they cosponsored an initiative to 

provide the Soviet Union with emergency food, medical supplies, 

and technical assistance to safely transport, store, and then 

dismantle that nation’s nuclear and chemical weapons. Nunn 

had just returned from Moscow, where he met with President 

Gorbachev in late August. The initiative failed in committee in 

the fall 1991. See, Richard Combs, “U.S. Domestic Politics and 

the Nunn-Lugar Program,” in John M. Shield and William C. 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on 

the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 44-45. See also, Senator Sam 

Nunn, “Foreword: Changing Threats in the Post-Cold War World,” 

in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. xvi.

40 See, John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet 

Empire, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 256-270. 

Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb, pp. 451-491. James A. Baker III and Thomas 

M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 

1989-1992, (New York: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 514-545. 

James M. Goldgeiger and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: 

U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War, (Washington, D.C.: 

Brookings Institution Press, 2003), pp. 18-50.

41 “Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 

Yearbook 1992: World Armaments and Disarmament,” Third World 

Quarterly, vol. 14, issue 1, (March 1993), p. 640. Report, Mikhtyuk, 

“Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” pp. 4-5. 

42 Kuzio and Wilson, Ukrain, Chapter 6. See also, D’Anieri, 

Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 206-232.

43 D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine,

pp. 25-31.

44 These historic events have been well recorded and chronicled. 

See, Dunlop, Rise of Russia, pp. 256-284. Odom, The Collapse of the 

Soviet Military, pp. 375-388. D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics 

and Society in Ukraine, pp. 34-35. Signe Landgren, “Post Soviet 

Threats to Security,” in SIPRI Yearbook 1992, pp. 531-557. For a 

copy of the founding document of the CIS see, “Text of the Minsk 

Agreement Establishing a Commonwealth of Independent States,” 

in SIPRI Yearbook 1992, pp. 558-559.

45 See, Dunlop, Rise of Russia, pp. 271-273. Odom, Collapse of 

the Soviet Military, pp. 375-388. D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio,

Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 34-39.

46 Robert W. Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: 

Understanding Historical Change, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 
21

1998), pp. 174-196,198-206. Landgren, “Post-Soviet Threats to 

Security,” pp. 531-557.

47 New York Times, 14 March 1992, p. A1.

48 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military 

Balance 1991-1992, (London: Brassey’s, 1992), pp. 30-46. Odom, 

Collapse of the Soviet Military, pp. 272-283, 298-301.

49 Odom, Collapse of the Soviet Military, pp. 272-283, 298-301, 

371-374.

50 “Text of the Minsk Agreement, 8 December, 1991,” in SIPRI 

Yearbook 1992, pp. 558-559.

51 Russia’s strategic warheads were known due to the figures 

submitted in the September 1990 START I Memorandum of 

Understanding on Data. This START Treaty data was updated by 

the five signatory parties when the treaty entered into force in 

December 1994. See, Rodney W. Jones and Mark G. McDonough, 

Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998, 

(Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, 1998), pp. 42-44.

52 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, pp. 89-

100. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword, pp. 215-220.

53 “Nuclear Weapons Deactivations Continue in FSU,” Arms 

Control Today, November 1994. “Short Range Nuclear Forces,” Arms 

Control Reporter, 1992. Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear 

Proliferation, p. 89.

54 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, pp.

79-87.

55 Ibid., pp. 71-74.

56 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military 

Balance, 1991-1992, pp. 30-46.

57 “Text of Alma Ata Declaration, 21 December 1991,” in SIPRI 

Yearbook 1992, pp. 561-562.

58 “Agreement on Joint Measures on Nuclear Weapons, Alma 

Ata, 21 December 1991,” in SIPRI Yearbook 1992, p. 562.

59 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, pp. 536-548.

60 Baker and DeFrank, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 524-525. Bush 

and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, pp. 543-544.

61 Goldgeiger and McFaul, Power and Purpose, pp. 45-47. 

Baker and DeFrank, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 562-563. Michael R. 

Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story 

of the End of the Cold War, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 

1993), pp. 449-456. 

62 Baker and DeFrank, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 570.

63 Ibid., p. 571.

64 Secretary Baker’s quote, cited in, Goldgeiger and McFaul, 

Power and Purpose, p. 49.

65 Baker and DeFrank, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 581.

66 Ibid., p. 582.

67 Ibid., p. 583.

68 Ibid., pp. 583-584.

69 Harahan and Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty, 

pp. 85-88. 

70 Washington Post, 22 January 1992, p. AI.

71 Title II, Public Law 102-228, “The Soviet Nuclear Threat 

Reduction Act of 1991.” For the legislative context on the law see, 

Richard Combs, “U.S. Domestic Politics and the Nunn-Lugar 

Program,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

41-60. See also, Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means, The Politics of 

US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, (Westport: 

Praeger, 2001), pp. 25-48.

72 The most incisive account is found in Senator Sam Nunn’s 

remarks at a conference, “The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program: Donor and Recipient Country Perspectives,” 

held at the Monterey Institute for International Studies, Monterey, 

California, 20-22 August 1995. Nunn’s speech was published in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. ix-xx. Other 

accounts of these events are found in: Ashton B. Carter and William 

J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America, 

(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), pp. 71-72. 

See also, Richard Combs, “U.S. Domestic Politics and the NunnLugar Program,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold 

War, pp.41-60. Also, Richard G. Lugar, “Perspectives on Congress’s 

role in foreign policy,” speech delivered in Washington, D.C. at the 

Library of Congress, 15 September 2005.

73 Kurt M. Campbell, et al., Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of 

the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union, (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1991). This report was in draft form when 

Carter briefed the U.S. Senators in September 1991.

74 Ibid., pp. 5-34. For Carter’s account of the briefing see, Carter 

and Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 71-72.

75 Campbell, Soviet Nuclear Fission, pp. 117-129.

76 For Senator Nunn’s quote see, Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, p. xvii.

77 Title II, Public Law 102-228, “The Soviet Nuclear Threat 

Reduction Act of 1991.” See, Combs, “U.S. Domestic Politics and 

the Nunn-Lugar Program,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 41-60.

78 Title II, Public Law 102-228, “The Soviet Nuclear Threat 

Reduction Act of 1991.”

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid.

81 Report, General-Colonel V.O. Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd

Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” p. 8.

82 D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, 

pp. 208-210. Essentially, Ukrainian nationalists sought to maximize 

the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, while Russian leaders 

sought to minimize it. They two sets of leaders clashed repeatedly.

83 Ibid., p. 217.

84 Morozov, Above and Beyond, pp. 172-181.

23

CHAPTER 2

U.S. Strategy for the New States’ 

Nuclear Inheritance

For the emerging nations, the reality of inheriting 

strategic nuclear forces and weapons shifted constantly 

throughout 1992-1993. In Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan 

and Russia, new governments were constructing their 

international relations and foreign policies, restructuring 

national economic systems, setting up critical administrative 

bureaus, and establishing their national military services and 

defense ministries. On the issue of strategic nuclear forces, 

national leaders – Yeltsin of Russia, Kravchuk of Ukraine, 

Shushkevich of Belarus, and Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, 

developed sharp policy differences. Although they agreed 

on organization and structure of the Commonwealth of 

Independent States (CIS) Armed Forces, they soon differed 

over the meaning of operational and administrative controls 

over the rocket armies and air divisions. They differed on 

who owned the military bases, missile silos, test ranges and 

strategic weapons. They differed over which safety standards 

were needed for nuclear warheads in storage. Then, as the 

situation grew more acute, they clashed over the proper level 

of financial compensation for relocating nuclear weapons 

and warheads, and on the level of international assistance, 

if any, for dismantling the fixed weapon systems. It was a 

tumultuous time, especially since the Russian military 

and political leaders suddenly changed course in mid1992, demanding that the other nations return all nuclear 

armaments to Russia immediately. As the region’s largest 

and most influential new state, Russian leaders forced the 

issue of nuclear inheritance with the leaders of Belarus, 

Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Into this complex, changing and 

combustible crucible U.S. diplomatic and national security 

leaders stepped. They used traditional diplomacy, with its 

personal contacts, and the Nunn-Lugar appropriations, with 

funding for new bilateral cooperative projects as the means 

to achieve the administration’s principal policy objective: the 

emergence of new states without nuclear weapons.

In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, the rocket armies, 

missile divisions and bomber commands were led by Russian 

generals, operated and maintained by Russian officers 

and men. They were controlled from higher headquarters 

in the Russian capital for their personnel, funding, 

communications, nuclear safety standards, security systems, 

even their operational targets. Their professional loyalty was 

to Russia, but their armies and commands were located in 

another nation’s territory. Consequently, the commanders of 

the air divisions and rocket armies stationed in Kazakhstan 

and Belarus faced conflicting pressures, just like Colonel 

General Mikhtyuk and general officers in the 43rd Rocket 

Army in Ukraine. In every one of the new nations, the rush 

of nationalism clashed repeatedly with the reality of the 

Soviet/Russian armies, navies and air forces in place. As the 

pivotal years 1992-1993 evolved, the most pressing question 

was not whether a nation or supra command “controlled” 

the inherited strategic nuclear forces, but would these 

new emerging nations assert their “sovereignty” over the 

ownership of the nuclear forces on their national territory.

For General Mikhtyuk, commander of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, and for the commanders of the other strategic rocket 

and bomber armies, and there was far more confusion than 

clarity. General Mikhtyuk still commanded a strategic army 

of 35,000 men. The rocket army’s intercontinental ballistic 
24

With Courage and Persistence

missiles and weapons were still located on missile bases 

in two nations – Belarus and Ukraine. As commander, he 

still reported to a higher headquarters in a third nation – 

Russia. The general knew, of course, that when the Soviet 

Union collapsed in December 1991 the presidents of the 

new states had established the new supranational command 

structure, the Armed Forces of the CIS. He knew the chain of 

command, but he was unsure what the new structure meant 

for the officers, men and weapons of the 43rd Rocket Army. 

At his headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, he and the missile 

division’s generals discussed the new command structure and 

its consequences for the army. General Mikhtyuk recalled:

“The signing of the CIS agreement created the 

following situation: Russia regulated the control 

and communication systems of strategic forces on 

the territory of four independent states, but it was 

not able to relocate, reduce, increase, eliminate or 

store the resources that were outside of the Russian 

Federation. The other three republics did not 

control the usage and exploitation (operation) of 

the strategic armaments, located on their territory. 

They wanted to share the ownership over the 

armaments, and not to let others do anything to 

the armaments without their agreement.”1

He and the senior commanders were uncertain “how 

the Russian president’s control over the ’button’ correlated 

with the fact that joint command of the strategic forces 

and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the CIS 

were subordinated, not to Russia, but to the heads of the 

CIS.”2

 Who was in charge? As a senior military commander 

responsible for operational nuclear forces, Mikhtyuk found 

the situation confusing and uncertain. He and the general 

officers commanding the strategic rocket divisions knew 

that uncertainty could create questions within the rocket 

Stanislav Shushkevich, President of Belarus, visits 43rd Rocket Army ICBM base, February 1992

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
25

army’s ranks about its mission and future. If not clarified, the 

uncertain situation could influence troop morale, training, 

operations, and possibly, nuclear safety.3

Ukrainian nationalism

However in January 1992, General Mikhtyuk, the 

generals, and the 35,000-man rocket army had to face a more 

immediate, pressing issue: whether to accept or reject an oath 

of allegiance to the nation of Ukraine. On January 9, General 

Kostiantyn P. Morozov, Ukraine’s first Minister of Defense, 

invited the military commanders of the former-Soviet rocket 

army, conventional armies, air force divisions and naval fleets 

stationed on Ukrainian national territory to Kiev to meet 

with the nation’s Supreme Council.4

 There, President Leonid 

Kravchuk and General Morozov asked all the commanders 

and their men to take the new oath of allegiance to Ukraine: 

“I, ________, upon entering military service, solemnly swear to 

the people of Ukraine always to be faithful and devoted to them, 

to conscientiously and honestly execute my military duties and 

the orders of my superiors, to steadfastly uphold the Constitution 

and laws of Ukraine, and to safeguard state and military secrets. 

I swear to defend the Ukrainian state and to firmly stand for its 

freedom and independence. I swear never to betray the people 

of Ukraine.”5 A few general officers took the oath that day; 

others declined. They were dismissed. Ukraine had inherited 

a combined military force of 750,000; during the first 

full year of independence, 1992, approximately 310,000 

military officers, personnel, and conscripts took the oath of 

allegiance.6

But General Mikhtyuk did not, nor did most of the rocket 

army’s officers and men. At that January 1992 meeting, 

the 43rd Rocket Army commander explained his dilemma 

to Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Morozov and President 

Kravchuk. As commanding general of a strategic rocket army, 

subordinated to the CIS Armed Forces, he could not split 

his army’s allegiance. He asked the Ukrainian president to 

intervene with the CIS leaders and devise a new oath for 

the CIS Armed Forces.7

 Kravchuk agreed; and a week later 

the Ukrainian president persuaded the other CIS leaders to 

issue a new agreement, “Concerning the Military Oath in the 

Strategic Forces.” It affirmed that the 43rd Rocket Army and 

the other strategic forces would owe their allegiance to the 

CIS Commander-in-Chief, and not to the national defense 

ministers or the president.8

 This CIS agreement clarified the 

situation legally, but it did not still public speculation. Within 

a matter of months Ukrainian ultranationalists in public and 

the parliament, began questioning the loyalty of the 43rd

Rocket Army, its commander, general officers and men. In 

resolving the questions surrounding inherited nuclear forces 

and territorial nationalism, two larger nations, United States 

and Russia, developed new diplomatic strategies. They used 

their power and influence, actively.

Initial United States’ strategy

U.S. leaders had a clear set of policy objectives in 1992-

1993. From the outset, President Bush and Secretary Baker 

established a policy that stressed diplomatic engagement, 

support for nonproliferation policies, ratification and 

adherence to existing arms control agreements and treaties, 

and continuation of strategic arms reductions through 

unilateral presidential decrees. These policies began 

with U.S. engagement with the new states: immediate 

diplomatic recognition, with new ambassadors selected, 

confirmed and in-place within 60 days. The United 

States then sponsored the new states into existing North 

Atlantic multilateral treaty and security organizations. 

They negotiated with Russia’s president, foreign minister 

and senior defense generals on continuing all aspects of 

Ukrainian General Kostiantyn P. Morozov, Minister of Defense

RIA Novosti
26

With Courage and Persistence

existing and negotiated strategic and conventional arms 

reduction treaties. Baker traveled throughout the region, 

meeting with the presidents of the four nuclear states 

and explaining to them the prospect of U.S. financial and 

direct assistance for the safe and secure dismantlement 

of nuclear weapons and forces.9

 In his January 1992 State 

of the Union address, President Bush announced that the 

United States would cancel its advanced strategic missile 

programs, stop production of W-88 nuclear warheads and 

MX2 test missiles, terminate the B-2 strategic bomber 

program at 20 aircraft and end production of new warheads 

for advanced sea-launched cruise missiles.10 Within a week, 

President Yeltsin spoke before the Russian Duma outlining 

further weapons reductions, production cancellations and 

operational cessations in Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. 

He declared that Russia would meet its required weapon 

eliminations under the START Treaty, within three years 

instead of the seven years permitted by the treaty. Further, 

he signaled his government’s interest in reducing strategic 

nuclear warheads from 6,000 to 2,500 in a new treaty.11

By mid-February 1992, the Bush Administration’s 

nonproliferation policy was clear. First, they declared that 

Russia would be the Soviet Union’s successor state for the 

START I Treaty. Second, they decided the Russian president 

should take the lead in persuading the leaders of the three 

new states - Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, to sign, ratify 

and implement the START I Treaty. Next, they decided to 

continue the diplomatic momentum toward lower and 

lower levels of nuclear arms by instituting negotiations 

on achieving agreement on new, lower strategic warhead 

numbers with Russia in a new bilateral START II Treaty. 

Fourth, they would use military and economic assistance 

to aid the new nations in safe and secure dismantlement 

of their excess weapons. And finally, they committed the 

administration, and subsequent ones, to carrying out all 

the president’s announced eliminations, cancellations and 

cessations of tactical and strategic weapons systems.12

Secretary Baker was extremely active in carrying out 

this policy, initiating an array of policies and programs that 

engaged the new states. On January 10, Baker and Western 

European leaders hosted the foreign ministers of the new 

CIS nations at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. There, U.S., 

Canadian, and Western European leaders welcomed them 

as member-states into the North Atlantic Cooperation 

Council, a new multinational council set up in the fall 

1991. They invited them to become signatory states to 

the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, a 

1990 arms control treaty designed to reduce conventional 

weapons and forces stationed in 22 European nations, 

including the Soviet Union.

At that meeting, Russian representative, Ambassador 

Vladimir Petrovskiy, rose and asserted that Russia would 

ratify the CFE Treaty for all the other nations as it alone 

was the successor state to the Soviet Union. Immediately, 

the ministers of the other nations rejected this Russian 

interpretation, insisting that as sovereign states they would 

decide to join the treaty or not. U.S., Canadian, and Western 

European foreign ministers endorsed their stand. Then, all 

the ministers adopted a resolution that if any of the new 

states chose to sign and ratify the CFE Treaty, they would 

become original parties to the treaty. Further, they decided 

the treaty obligations of the former Soviet Union should be 

wholly accounted for by the newly independent states and 

should be apportioned among them in a manner acceptable 

to all parties. This was a significant decision since it meant 

that the Soviet Union’s 3.7-million man conventional land, 

sea and air forces would be partitioned among the 15 new 

nations and subject to the treaty. It also meant there would 

be no supranational military command, like the CIS Armed 

Forces, for the new state’s conventional military forces.13 President George H.W. Bush George Bush Presidential Library
27

Baker’s solution for the failed Soviet Union’s strategic 

nuclear forces began with the assumption that the United 

States and Russia would ratify and implement the START

Treaty quickly, within months. For this treaty, the United 

States regarded Russia as the successor state to the USSR. 

In early 1992, Baker thought Yeltsin would be able to 

persuade the leaders of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to 

approve the START Treaty in their parliamentary bodies and 

simultaneously renounce their nuclear weapons and return 

the warheads and operational strategic forces to Russia. 

Then these nations would be free to sign and ratify the NonProliferation Treaty. To confirm these assumptions, Baker 

sent his deputy, Reginald Bartholomew, Undersecretary of 

State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, to 

each capital for discussions with senior government officials 

in late January and early February. When he returned, 

Bartholomew testified before the U.S. Senate’s Committee 

on Foreign Relations. “The four states,” Bartholomew 

explained,” are considering among themselves a solution in 

which Russia would ratify START and exchange ratification 

instruments with us. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 

would ... conclude a quadripartite agreement with Russia 

that would provide for implementation.”14 At that point 

they would return the warheads, and sign and ratify the NPT 

Treaty. Bartholomew reported to the senators that there were 

encouraging signs of continuity in arms control with the new 

leaders of the Russian Federation.

START I Treaty exhibition inspections

In the first months following the collapse, issues of arms 

control and nonproliferation, not economics, dominated 

U.S., Russian and regional relations. For instance, the 

START I Treaty contained an innovative protocol permitting 

early on-site exhibition inspections. Following Bush and 

Gorbachev’s signature of the treaty on July 31, 1991, the two 

nations’ inspection agencies began a series of exhibition 

inspections that tested the treaty’s inspection protocols, 

articles and agreements. These inspections occurred after 

the two presidents signed the treaty, but before ratification 

by the respective parliaments. Starting in mid-September, 

just six weeks after the treaty was signed, U.S. inspectors 

arrived at Uzim Air Base in USSR, for the first of 19 START 

I Treaty exhibition inspections. These inspections, held 

in both nations at bomber, missile and submarines bases 

were designed to test the treaty’s inspection procedures, 

communications systems, accessing the data and the display 

of strategic weapons. These exhibitions were 75 percent 

completed when the Soviet Union collapsed.15

Remarkably in mid-January 1992, the exhibition 

inspections continued, with an American START Treaty 

inspection team arriving in Moscow and then traveling for 

the exhibition inspection to Khrizolitovyy ICBM Base in 

Russia. Two days later, on January 17, another American 

team flew to the Urals for an inspection of road-mobile 

missiles at Nizhniy Tagil ICBM Base. U.S. arms control 

experts concluded that the Russian Federation’s acceptance 

and furtherance of these inspections was an important sign 

of continuity on the major arms reduction treaties. They were 

correct. Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs signed the Open 

Skies Treaty, a 24-nation multilateral arms control agreement 

in Helsinki, Finland in March 1992. U.S. and Russian 

diplomats also began discussing terms of negotiations for 

a subsequent strategic arms reduction treaty. As a result, 

when the START I treaty exhibition inspections concluded in 

March 1992, the Defense Department directed the On-Site 

Inspection Agency (OSIA) to conduct a new series of fullscale practice inspections on every U.S. inspection site. The 

agency projected a $26 million budget for this new series 

of practice inspections during 1992. The Air Force and Navy 

projected they would need $190 million during the year to 

prepare for implementing all aspects of the START Treaty.16

In June, Major General Robert W. Parker, OSIA’s director, 

testified to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 

“Our preparations for carrying out the 

operational aspects of START have been intense and 

comprehensive. Implementing the START Treaty’s 

inspection and monitoring regimes ... will form a 

solid foundation upon which to build future arms 

control efforts. When START enters into force, OSIA 

will be prepared to implement all the inspection 

and monitoring provisions.”17

Ratification of the START treaty, however, went more 

slowly that anyone anticipated. Consequently, Secretary 

Baker and the Bush administration abandoned in April the 

objective of achieving ratification of the U.S.-Russia bilateral 

START I Treaty. Baker acknowledged that Russia and the other 

nuclear states, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, had failed to 
28

With Courage and Persistence

agree on any arrangement for the treaty, the nuclear weapons 

or the new nations’ non-proliferation status.18 Two recent 

CIS summit meetings had failed. Russian ministers had set 

up the meetings, announced the agenda and controlled the 

discussions. When other nations objected, they argued and 

disagreed. No issues were resolved. Adding to this evidence of 

regional disarray, Nunn and Lugar led a small delegation to 

the region in March; and they reported to President Bush that 

confusion and disagreement existed among the CIS states, 

especially over the issues of nuclear forces and weapons.19

They believed that United States’ capacity to influence events 

was quite limited. As evidence, Senator Nunn said he found 

at the new U.S. Embassy in Kiev only one foreign service 

officer trying to handle all the complex, multifaceted issues 

with the new Ukrainian government.20 These developments 

and the Senators Nunn and Lugar’s report led Secretary Baker 

to initiate a new round of diplomacy. Baker’s solution was to 

draft and negotiate a new treaty protocol, one that made all 

five nations a signatory party to the START Treaty, but with 

assurances that the three non-Russian nations would give up 

their nuclear weapons and accede to the Non-Proliferation 

Treaty. U.S. diplomats took drafts of the new treaty protocol 

to each capital. Secretary Baker telephoned senior ministers 

in Kiev, Almaty, Minsk and Moscow, repeatedly. President 

Bush invited presidents Kravchuk of Ukraine and Nazarbayev 

of Kazakhstan to Washington for discussions at the White 

House.21

U.S. solution: Lisbon Protocols

Ukraine emerged as the key nation since it refused to cede 

to Russia’s authority to be the Soviet Union’s successor state 

for the START Treaty. Following their White House meeting 

in May, Bush and Kravchuk issued a joint statement in which 

the Ukrainian president declared his nation would renounce 

its nuclear weapons, join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a 

non-nuclear weapons state, and sign and ratify the START 

Treaty. Further, Kravchuk pledged to remove all his nation’s 

strategic nuclear weapons within seven years following 

parliament’s ratification of the treaty. President Bush stated 

the United States would recognize Ukraine as a treaty 

signatory state, equal with all other signatory nations.22 One 

START I Inspection Team at Russian military base

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
29

legal interpretation of this international recognition held that 

Ukraine, and by implications the other signatory nations, 

“owned” the nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers, and 

infrastructure located physically on their territory. If that 

were true, then returning these military forces and nuclear 

warheads to another nation (Russia), or eliminating them 

on-site in compliance with START, could raise a series of new 

issues between the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and 

Kazakhstan.

Using this U.S.-Ukraine joint statement as leverage, 

Baker secured commitments from the other presidents 

in May 1992. Their nations would be designated in a new 

treaty protocol as “successor” states to the Soviet Union 

for the START I Treaty. As such, they would have rights, 

responsibilities and expenses under the treaty. They could 

send their national on-site inspectors to verify elimination 

of weapons systems in other nations; they were entitled to 

a seat on a special treaty verification committee; and they 

had to eliminate all the treaty-identified weapons located 

on their territory within seven years following ratification. 

All these rights and responsibilities were spelled out in the 

new treaty protocol. Following intense negotiations with 

the foreign ministers and presidents, Baker secured their 

agreement to meet in Lisbon, Portugal on May 23, 1992 to 

sign the new treaty protocol. As they did so, all five nations 

became signatory states, turning the treaty from a bilateral 

to a multilateral arms reduction agreement. The three nonRussian nations committed to accede to the NPT Treaty “in 

the shortest possible time” as non-nuclear states.23

As part of the negotiations, Baker insisted that Ukraine, 

Kazakhstan and Belarus provide a letter signed by their 

presidents stating explicitly that their government would 

sign and ratify the NPT Treaty and would declare themselves 

as non-nuclear states. These presidential letters, the Lisbon 

Protocol, and the START Treaty became the basis for the U.S. 

Senate’s 93-6 ratification of the treaty in October 1992.24

When the Russian Duma ratified the START Treaty 157-1 in 

early November, it added explicit reservations that the three 

non-Russian nations had to sign and ratify the NPT Treaty 

before implementation would begin in Russia.25

Secretary of State James A. Baker and President George H.W. Bush

George Bush Presidential Library
30

With Courage and Persistence

Nunn-Lugar legislation intersected with START at the 

junction of the U.S. commitment to provide assistance that 

would facilitate “transportation, storage, safeguarding and 

destruction of Soviet nuclear, chemical and other weapons 

to help prevent proliferation.” While the legislative intent 

was always broader than providing assistance to the new 

nations to meet their START I Treaty ceilings, those ceilings 

provided a specific, targeted rationale for subsequent 

legislation. In late 1991, as the original Nunn-Lugar bill was 

being debated in committee, the senators acknowledged that 

implementing START would result in relocation of hundreds, 

if not thousands, of warheads from the operational forces to 

nuclear storage depots. The senators recognized that Bush and 

Gorbachev’s presidential nuclear initiatives, announced in 

September and October, would cause their national military 

services to withdraw thousands of tactical nuclear weapons. 

These withdrawals would be in addition to the approximately 

3,000 tactical nuclear warheads the Soviet military had already 

removed from Soviet bases in central Europe and the Baltic 

republics. Then in October 1991, the Soviet High Command 

ordered removal of approximately 5,600 tactical-range 

nuclear warheads from military units located in Central Asian 

nations, and Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. This military 

decision and the continuing dissolution of the Soviet Union 

served as context for Gorbachev when he asked Bush in late 

October for a meeting of U.S.-USSR experts to discuss technical 

issues in transporting and eliminating nuclear weapons. Bush 

agreed quickly, asking Secretary Baker to initiate the effort 

immediately. The State Department designated these expert 

meetings as the Safe, Secure Dismantlement (SSD) Talks.26

Safe, Secure Dismantlement negotiations

Led by Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew, 

these SSD Talks were essentially meetings of nuclear 

weapons experts, treaty technical specialists, senior military 

officers and diplomats from both nations. Following a 

large initial meeting in Washington in November 1991, 

a smaller, more intense meeting took place in Moscow 

in December.27 Shortly thereafter, everything changed. 

The Soviet Union collapsed as a nation-state, and with its 

demise the world’s largest nuclear arsenal devolved to four 

new nations. In the same month, Congress passed and the 

president signed the Nunn-Lugar Act, authorizing up to 

$400 million in assistance. To turn legislative intent into a 

specific, defined program, Assistant Secretary Bartholomew 

and a small team flew to Moscow in late January 1992 for 

another round of SSD negotiations with Victor Mikhailov, 

Director of the Ministry of Atomic Energy and other senior 

Russian officials. They discussed U.S. assistance for the 

dismantlement of tactical nuclear weapons, transport 

of strategic and tactical nuclear warheads, elimination 

of strategic offensive weapon systems and prospects for 

future nuclear arms control measures.28 At this meeting 

the chief engineer of the 12th Main Directorate, Russian 

General Staff, explained that the principal bottleneck in 

the Russian process of dismantling warheads was lack of a 

storage facility for fissile materials.29 From that moment on, 

design and construction of a modern fissile missile facility 

became part of all subsequent U.S. Russian dismantlement 

discussions.

Gradually, during these meetings certain assumptions 

emerged. U.S. negotiators assumed that all American 

assistance for projects in Russia would be financed using 

Nunn-Lugar funds. Russian Federation negotiators assumed 

their military forces and nuclear technicians would carry 

out decommissioning, transporting and destruction of the 

strategic offensive weapons systems. Beyond these major 

Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew (c.)

George Bush Presidential Library
31

assumptions, the delegations found common ground in 

three areas: providing American specialized equipment 

to safeguard and secure the transport of nuclear weapons; 

committing U.S. technical assistance for the design of a 

new storage facility for fissile materials; and discussing 

Russian requirements for new American equipment that 

could be used to account for and control nuclear materials. 

By mid-February, these negotiations had produced a formal 

proposal from Secretary of State Baker to Russian Foreign 

Minister Andrey Kozyerev. Baker outlined specific areas 

where the United States’ assistance could, if accepted, 

accelerate the process of safeguarding, securing and 

dismantling the Russian Federation’s nuclear weapons. The 

seven areas of U.S. assistance would be to provide:

n Armored blankets

n Emergency response equipment

n Safe, secure railcars

n Fissile materials containers

n Nuclear materials storage

n National system of accounting and material 

controls for nuclear materials

n Disposition facility for highly enriched uranium 

and plutonium30

These specific areas, which had been coordinated with 

senior Russian nuclear and military officials, became the 

conceptual basis for subsequent negotiations in MarchApril-May. In March, Secretary Baker selected Major 

General William F. Burns, a retired U.S. Army officer 

with experience in arms control negotiations, to be the 

department’s special envoy on the safety, security, and 

dismantlement of nuclear weapons. Other key officials 

on the American negotiating team were Robert B. Barker, 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy; James 

Turner, Associate Director for Weapons Safety, Department 

of Energy; and Thomas Graham Jr., Acting General 

Counsel, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Victor 

Mikhailov, Director, Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom) 

led the Russian Federation’s negotiating team.31

General Burns conducted the negotiations in the classical 

diplomatic style of recent arms control treaty negotiations. 

Within the Bush administration, the National Security 

Council developed the U.S. government’s positions, sent 

them to the chief of the delegation, who then negotiated 

the specific agreements with his Russian counterpart. In 

the spring months of 1992, General Burns and his small 

team traveled to Moscow, Kiev, Almaty and the other capital 

cities and held discussions on the seven proposed areas 

Emergency response equipment - Armored Blankets

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
32

With Courage and Persistence

of U.S. assistance. From the beginning, Dr. Mikhailov and 

the Russian defense officials were wary of the American 

team’s offers, asserting that they did not need assistance.32

They insisted that if any assistance were provided, no 

U.S. officials would be allowed access to nuclear weapons 

storage facilities or weapons complexes. Nevertheless, Burns 

pressed on, seeking some areas of agreement where the U.S. 

government might provide dismantlement equipment or 

security assistance. The objective was to achieve agreement 

on a series of bilateral proposals that could be approved and 

signed at the forthcoming Yeltsin-Bush summit, scheduled 

for mid-June 1992 in Washington, D.C.

As negotiations became more specific, the role of the 

Department of Defense became more prominent. The 

draft of the first U.S.-Russian SSD “umbrella” agreement 

designated DOD as the executive agent for the United 

States for implementation.33 Senators Nunn and Lugar 

and Congress had designated the Defense Department 

for this specific role. Accordingly in their role as executive 

agent, Department of Defense officials would sign the 

bilateral implementing agreements for specific projects and 

programs. As early as February 1992, Secretary of Defense 

Cheney decided that the Undersecretary of Defense for 

Acquisition would administer the $400 million NunnLugar funds.34 Then in March, Cheney named John H. 

Birely, Acting Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for 

Atomic Energy, as executive agent for the program’s 

implementation. Birely was instructed to carry out the 

Nunn-Lugar Act in coordination with DOD’s General 

Counsel and Comptroller.35 The latter had to reprogram 

funds from the department’s operations and manpower 

accounts, while the former had to ensure that the negotiated 

umbrella agreements conformed to U.S. laws and policies.

To do the actual work of contracting for equipment 

and services, delivering materials and project management, 

Dr. Birely selected the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), an 

organization that reported directly to him and had technical 

expertise in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, federal 

contracting procedures and program management.36 By June 

1992, the U.S. government had most of the organizational 

Bush/Yeltsin Summit held in Washington, D.C., June 1992

George Bush Presidential Library
33

pieces in place and functioning. Saying that, however, 

obscured the fact that the Nunn-Lugar program was a small, 

almost miniscule effort within the massive department. Birely 

had 23 people working SSD policy issues, while the Defense 

Nuclear Agency had three or four people assigned to an arms 

control office. Not one person was assigned specifically to 

implement the Nunn-Lugar program.37

Nunn-Lugar program’s first Umbrella and 

Implementing Agreements

In June 1992, Yeltsin traveled to Washington to meet 

Bush for their first summit meeting. The Burns-Mikhailov 

SSD Talks had concentrated on producing a set of specific 

agreements that would be signed at the Bush-Yeltsin summit 

in June. At that meeting, the two presidents signed an 

agreement establishing terms for negotiating the START II 

Treaty, and they initialed 25-30 other bilateral documents, 

including the first four SSD agreements.38 For Nunn-Lugar, 

these were precedent setting documents. The first, known 

colloquially as the U.S.-Russia “umbrella” agreement, 

established the international legal framework for the United 

States providing assistance to the Russian nation in three 

critical areas: destruction of nuclear, chemical, and biological 

weapons, safe and secure transportation and storage of 

those weapons in connection with their destruction, and 

establishment of additional verifiable measures against 

proliferation of these weapons.39

This first umbrella agreement identified as the executive 

agents the Department of Defense for the United States and 

the Ministry of Atomic Energy for the Russian Federation. 

Specific sections, drafted by the department’s legal office, 

stated the U.S. government would be protected by the 

Russian government against collection of customs fees, taxes 

or payments for damages from the assistance delivered by 

U.S. government officials or contractors. Anticipating the 

delivery of U.S.-purchased dismantling and deconstruction 

equipment, spare parts, and even the building of new 

facilities, the umbrella agreement prohibited the Russian 

government from transferring title or possession unless 

it obtained written agreement from the U.S. government. 

In addition, the U.S. inserted a formal request that its 

representatives would have the right to “examine” the use 

of any materials, training programs or services provided to 

Russia, and “if possible” to travel to the sites – and once 

there, inspect any and all records and documents. Finally, 

the bilateral agreement stipulated it would enter into force 

immediately upon signature and would be in effect for seven 

years, until June 1999.40

Three other SSD bilateral agreements set the terms for the 

U.S. providing assistance for armored blankets, emergency 

response equipment and fissile materials containers. In 

the armored blankets agreement, the Defense Department 

committed to deliver 200 sets of protective blankets 

(2,000 blankets) to the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy 

immediately. In addition, the Defense Department declared 

it would acquire and deliver another 250 sets of blankets 

to Russia within a year.41 In the agreement on emergency 

response equipment, the department pledged to provide 

MinAtom with nuclear accident response equipment, 

including communications systems; protective clothing; 

high-energy radiography equipment and systems for 

stabilizing and packaging damaged weapons. Training and 

maintenance were also included, along with a commitment 

to deliver all the equipment and services to Russia by 

December 1993.42 The third document, the fissile materials 

container agreement, stipulated that DOD would provide 

MinAtom with up to 10,000 containers that would be used 

as protection for transporting and storage of fissile materials 

that had been extracted from dismantled nuclear weapons. 

Contracted for and manufactured in the United States, these 

fissile materials containers would be delivered to MinAtom 

by December 1993.43

Fissile materials containers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
34

With Courage and Persistence

In subsequent months, July, August and October 1992, 

U.S. and Russian officials signed other implementing 

agreements providing assistance for chemical weapons 

destruction, conversion of special transport railcars and design 

of a new fissile materials storage facility.44 Dr. Birely and his 

small staff estimated the level of funding for each project and 

then reported what funds had been “obligated” against which 

project. 

In May 1992, Birely reported to Congress that the 

Department of Defense proposed to obligate $145 million to 

the SSD program.45 By October, with the new implementing 

agreements signed, he wrote to Congress that the department 

was proposing to raise the obligation figure to $211 million.46

The Nunn-Lugar authorization required the department to 

notify Congress of a proposed obligation, not less than 15 days 

before committing any funds to weapons destruction projects 

or to programs for preventing weapons proliferation in the 

nations of the former Soviet Union. This legal requirement 

brought senior professional managers in the Pentagon, the 

Comptroller and the General Counsel, into the management 

of this small $400 million international assistance fund. 

Senior administration officials became involved as well; the 

Director of the Office of Management and Budget received 

and transmitted the Defense Department’s requests for new 

obligations to Congress. Since Nunn-Lugar funds were taken 

out of the department’s budget, a gap developed between the 

announced “obligations” to Congress and “actual” program 

spending by the department. In 1992-1993, this gap became 

a serious issue within and outside of Defense Department.47

First Nunn-Lugar deliveries: operations 

and evaluation

Delivery of armored blankets to Russia in July 

1992 illustrates the point that promises far outpaced 

performance. William M. Moon, a low-level Defense 

Nuclear Agency civil servant, was tapped to plan and 

deliver 75 sets of protective blankets to Moscow in the 

weeks following the Bush-Yeltsin summit. The blankets 

were located in U.S. Army storage depots in Europe. They 

would be trucked to Frankfurt, Germany for loading onto 

a U.S. Air Force C-141 aircraft scheduled to fly to Moscow 

with a U.S. INF Treaty inspection team aboard. Moon 

would meet the flight in Moscow at Sheremetyevo airport 

and then turn over the armored blanket shipment to G.A. 

Smirnov, a Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy official. As 

project officer, Moon made all the necessary arrangements. 

First, he drove to the Russian Embassy in Washington to get 

an entry visa. Then he went to the U.S. State Department 

for an official diplomatic passport. Telephoning longdistance, he made hotel reservations in Moscow, booked 

a commercial flight and then flew to Russia alone. Once 

there, he persuaded someone in the U.S. Embassy who 

was willing to serve as a translator to accompany him to 

the airport. Meeting the Russian MinAtom official on the 

tarmac, beside the American aircraft, Moon delivered the 

armored blankets for the U.S. government.48 This delivery, 

plus one earlier shipment, represented the total NunnLugar assistance that actually went to Russia in 1992.

By contrast, another U.S. assistance program to the 

region had a far more robust record. Within weeks of the 

Soviet Union’s collapse, Secretary Baker organized a large 

international relief conference in Washington, D.C. There, 

Baker proposed an extensive multinational humanitarian 

assistance program to the emerging states. Called Provide 

Hope, this assistance effort delivered in one month (February 

1992) 2,500 metric tons of food and medicines to more 

than 500 institutions -- schools, hospitals, clinics and aid 

centers were located in cities and towns in 11 of the 15 new 

William M. Moon

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
35

independent states.49 The humanitarian relief operation was 

organized in less than three weeks. The Defense Department 

assigned this mission to the On-Site Inspection Agency 

who identified, trained and deployed special teams, each 

consisting of experienced Russian speaking arms control 

treaty inspectors, linguists and foreign aid specialists. Flying 

to Frankfurt and then to Moscow, the teams deployed to 

25 cities: 13 in Russia, three in Ukraine, and the capitals 

of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, 

Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. 

Working with national and local government officials, these 

teams coordinated the arrival of airlifted humanitarian 

assistance flown to cities and airbases all across the newly 

emerging states. By the end of February, Project Provide Hope 

had delivered 2,500 metric tons of food and medicines to 

the region. In mid-April, U.S. Defense and State departments 

initiated a second, larger assistance effort called Provide 

Hope II. In just five months, that program delivered 25,000 

metric tons of food and medical supplies to hundreds of 

institutions across the Eurasian region.50

The contrast in the amount of assistance delivered to the 

new states in 1992 by the two programs, Nunn-Lugar and 

Provide Hope, raised important questions about assessing 

effectiveness. It also provided perspective on the sharp 

differences in these assistance programs. Throughout the 

20th century, U.S. foreign aid programs were advanced with 

one or more of three broad policy objectives: to rehabilitate 

societies and economies of war-devastated nations; to 

strengthen military defenses of allied and friendly-nations; 

and to promote economic growth in underdeveloped 

nations and regions.51 Using this century-long pattern, 

Provide Hope was designed as a humanitarian program that 

delivered food and medicines to a postwar impoverished 

region. In fact President Bush, as he opened the large 

international conference, referred indirectly to the Marshall 

Plan, which had provided aid to postwar Europe. Speaking to 

654 delegates from 47 nations and seven major international 

aid organizations, Bush declared, “For over 40 years, we have 

led in the reconstruction and defense of the free world. Now 

that the torch of liberty has sparked freedom among our 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Secretary of State James A. Baker (c.) meets Provide Hope team
36

With Courage and Persistence

former adversaries ...I am proposing that the U.S. Congress 

approve over $600 million for new technical assistance and 

humanitarian efforts.”52 For Bush and Baker, Provide Hope 

was a traditional humanitarian assistance program, one with 

a clear set of operational concepts from depot to delivery.

Nunn-Lugar aid, by contrast, dealt in complex 

technological issues associated with other nations’ national 

security forces and their nuclear, chemical, and to an unknown 

degree, biological weapons. These weapon systems had always 

been closely controlled by the national government; they 

were encumbered in secrecy, and encased in sophisticated 

technologies. Planning and carrying out an international 

assistance program for dismantling, transporting, storing, 

securing and eliminating these modern military weapons 

and their infrastructure was not traditional foreign or military 

assistance. It was radical. There were few if any modern 

precedents for U.S. assistance programs to actually eliminate 

weapons with another nation, or with several nations, 

simultaneously. In addition, Congress had mandated that 

the Bush administration had to implement the program 

cooperatively with national security ministries that until 

recently had been adversaries. That requirement assumed 

a degree of trust, understanding and common interest that 

was not present in 1992-1993.53 Fears and memories of the 

Cold War were too recent. Across the entire region, politics 

were in flux as new governments were restructuring their 

economies, fighting inflation, defining relations between 

states and trying to administer basic services. Negotiating the 

nation-to-nation umbrella and implementing agreements 

for the Nunn-Lugar assistance programs to proceed was 

difficult and exceedingly slow. So, given these differences 

to use a single measure to assess one program, Nunn-Lugar, 

against the other, Provide Hope, would not be accurate or 

meaningful. Across the U.S. government, senior leaders in 

the administration and Congress recognized the differences, 

and they assessed Nunn-Lugar assistance in different terms.

President Bush, Secretary Baker, General Burns, and 

others in the administration saw it as one part of U.S. 

foreign policy engagement with the new states in the region 

throughout 1992-1993.54 The cornerstone, they believed, was 

obtaining the signature, ratification and implementation of 

international arms control treaties for strategic, conventional 

and chemical weapons. They had developed, negotiated 

and signed the Lisbon Protocol, recognizing four nations 

as successor states to the USSR for the START Treaty. In 

nonproliferation, in conjunction with many other nations, 

they had succeeded in persuading the presidents of Belarus, 

Ukraine and Kazakhstan to declare in separate letters that 

they would sign and ratify the Nonproliferation Treaty. Then, 

they had initiated negotiations for a START II Treaty at the 

Yeltsin-Bush summit meeting in Washington. In July 1992, 

American diplomats led a successful effort to implement 

the CFE Treaty provisionally. Finally in the final months 

of 1992, the Bush Administration agreed to a series of key 

compromises that enabled the multinational United Nations 

Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty to be completed and 

signed in Paris in January 1993.55 Nunn-Lugar assistance 

was but one part of this array of treaties, agreements and 

programs. “It was just enormously exciting,” recalled Susan 

J. Koch, a senior official in the National Security Council 

who traveled to the region frequently. There was “a feeling of 

enormous promise.” The new CIS states were “really excited 

about being able to deal directly with the United States. At the 

same time they really didn’t quite know what to do next.”56

Senator Richard Lugar stressed this very point in his 

assessment. “Regardless of the amount of resources already 

expended, or programs in place, the real importance of the 

Senator Richard G. Lugar

Office of Senator Richard Lugar
37

Nunn-Lugar Act lies in the fact that it has served to focus 

attention of officials in the newly independent states on 

U.S. goals and objectives, particularly with regard to nuclear 

weapons, defense conversion and nonproliferation.”57

For Senators Lugar and Nunn the Cold War had ended; 

consequently officials in the United States, Russia and 

the other nuclear states had to consider a new agenda: 

compliance with international arms control treaties, meeting 

nonproliferation goals, maintaining nuclear safety and 

security standards, and developing new programs for defense 

conversion. The logic of this policy, in addition to powerful 

bipartisan support for American assistance to the region, 

persuaded U.S. senators and representatives in Congress 

to approve $400 million for Nunn-Lugar in 1993. Senior 

Bush Administration officials in the State Department and 

National Security Council supported the new appropriation. 

Defense Department officials were less enamored; they did 

not include the program in their annual budget request to 

Congress. Consequently, when the Nunn-Lugar legislation 

passed, it directed the Defense Department to reprogram 

$400 million from the operational budget. This legislation 

contained all the previous requirements of presidential 

certifications, congressional notifications and the “Buy 

American” provisions.58

Nevertheless, Senator Lugar was correct that the act did 

represent a clear, visible statement of the American agenda: 

U.S. assistance would be available to the new states for 

nuclear, chemical and other weapons reductions; for assisting 

them with the compliance requirements in the arms control 

treaties and nonproliferation agreements; for meeting 

international nuclear safety and security standards, and for 

defense conversion. At this point the question arose: would 

Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine accept this agenda? 

Certainly, throughout 1992 and 1993 the Russian Federation 

had far more influence with the three bordering states than 

did the United States. Russia had a different agenda and its 

own solutions for the issues associated with the “inherited” 

nuclear forces of the newly emerging states.

Endnotes

1

 Mikhtyuk, V.A., General-Lieutenant, Commander, “Status of 

43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” located in DTRA, Vinnetisa, Ukraine, 

2002, p. 8.

2

 Ibid.

3

 Ibid.

4

 Morozov, Konstantyn P., Above and Beyond: From Soviet General 

to Ukrainian State Builder (Harvard University Press, 2000), pp.193-

195.

5

 Ibid. p 189.

6

 Morozov, Above and Beyond, appendix 11, pp.256-257.

7

 Mykhtyuk, V.A., “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, 

p. 19.

8

 Serge Landgren, “Post-Soviet Threats to Security,” in SIPRI 

1992: World Armaments and Disarmaments, p 531-562; and Shannon 

Kile, Chronology of Conflict Developments in former USSR,” in 

SIPRI 1992: World Armaments and Disarmaments, pp 159-170; and 

FBIS-SOV 1992, “Minsk Summit Agreements,” 18 February 1992, 

pp 18-27.

9

 James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp 5558-586, 588-

613, 614-636; James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and 

Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War, pp.18-40, 

41-59.

10 R. Jeffery Smith, “Bush Plan Would Cut the Most Modern, 

Potent Weapons, Washington Post, January 29, 1992, p A12. For a 

complete text of President Bush’s State of the Union Address, see 

Washington Post, 29 January 1992, A14. 

11 Serge Schmemann, “Yeltsin Tells Russians of Arms Cutbacks,” 

New York Times, January 30, 1992, A8.

12 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp 665-669.; Goldgeier and 

McFaul, Power and Purpose, pp.54-58.

13 Joseph P. Harahan and Jack C. Kuhn, III, On-Site Inspections 

Under the CFE Treaty, (Washington, 1996), pp 85-89; See also “CFE 

Participants Reassured on Arms Treaties,” FBIS- SOV, 17 January 

1992; and Arms Control Reporter 1992, p 407. B-465.

14 Statement of Reginald Bartholomew, Under Secretary of State 

for International Security, Department of State, to the U.S. Senate, 

Foreign Relations Committee, SH 102-510, February 5, 1992, In his 

testimony, Bartholomew explained that he had held discussions in 

Moscow, Minsk, Kiev, and Alma Ata on the topics of command and 

control of the nuclear forces, disabling of tactical nuclear weapons, 

and consolidation and dismantling of the strategic nuclear forces. 

Secretary Baker testified that he discussed with the national foreign 

ministers the probability of signing and ratifying the START, CFE, 

and NPT treaties. 

15 Thomas Korosee, “Soviet Review of Weaponry A First,” Fort 

Worth Star Telegram, Ft. Worth, Texas, September 18, 1991, pp 

1-2; News Release, USAF 7th Bomb Wing, Carswell AFB, Texas, 

September 13, 1991. Interview, Colonel Robert Yablonski, Chief 

START/INF Division, OSIA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

OSIA, November 3, 1998; Interview Michael Pecotte, Chief START/
38

With Courage and Persistence

INF Branch, Inspection Support Staff, OSIA European Operations, 

with .Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, OSIA, February 11, 1998.

16 Letter, Brigadier General B.L. Mitchell, USAF, DCS/P&O, 

“Program Management Directive” July 10, 1991, with attachments; 

102d Congress, 2d session, U.S. Senate, Executive Report 102-58, 

“The START Treaty,” pp 159-166.

17 Testimony of Major General Robert W. Parker, USAF, Director 

OSIA, to 102d Congress, 2d session, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee Hearings, June 30, 1992. 

18 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp 658-662.

19 Don Oberdorfer, “Senators Push for Aid on “Priority Basis” 

to Ex-Soviet States,” Washington Post, 13 March 1992, A21.; John E. 

Yang, “Senators Lobby Bush on Aid to Former Soviet Republics,” 

Washington Post, 24 March 1992, A20; Terry Atlas, “ Bush Ready to 

Help Ex-Soviets, Lawmakers to Urge Cooperation to Speed Funding 

Plan, ” Chicago Tribune, 23 March 1992, p1.

20 Oberdorfer, “Senators Push for Aid on “Priority Basis” to ExSoviet States,” Washington Post, 13 March 1992, A21.

21 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp 662-664; Goldgeier and 

McFaul, Power and Purpose, pp 54-56.

22 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 664-665; Presidential Papers of 

George Bush, 1992-1993, Book I, January 1 to July 31,1992, “Joint 

Declaration with President Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, May 6, 

1992,” pp 703-704.

23 Dunbar Lockwood, “Nuclear Arms Control,” in SIPRI, 1993: 

World Armaments and Disarmaments, pp 549-557. 

24 See Congressional Record, S15955-15957, 1 October 1992; 

John N. Cushman, “Nuclear-Arms Pact Endorsed in Senate,” New 

York Times, October 2, 1992, p.A1-A14. 

25 Mark D. Skootsky, “An Annotated Chronology of PostSoviet Nuclear Disarmament, 1991-1994,” in The Nonproliferation 

Review (Spring-Summer 1995), p 71; See also, Dunbar Lockwood, 

“Nuclear Arms Control,” in SIPRI, 1994: World Armaments and 

Disarmaments, pp 639-644. 

26 Graham Allison, Ashton B. Carter, Steven E. Miller, and 

Philip Zelikow, eds., Cooperative Denuclearization , CSIA Studies, 

No. 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1993). Pp 26-58, 87-106, 146-162, 242-

252. For the situation with tactical nuclear weapons see, Gunnar 

O. Arbman and Charles L. Thornton, “Russia’s Tactical Nuclear 

Weapons,” Report, Part I, (Stockholm. Sweden, 2003), pp 18-19. 

On the SSD Talks see, Dunbar Lockwood, “Nuclear Arms Control,” 

in SIPRI, 1994, World Armaments and Disarmaments, pp 665-669.

27 See Statement, Under Secretary Reginald Bartholomew, U.S. 

State Department, to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 

SH 102-510, February 5, 1992. See also, Interview, Ambassador 

William Courtney with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, August 28, 2002. During the fall and 

winter of 1991-1992, Courtney worked with the U.S.-Soviet-Russian 

delegations in a series of technical meetings.

28 Statement, Bartholomew, U.S. Senate, Foreign Relations 

Committee, SH 102-510, February 5, 1992. For the first two 

years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. State 

Department led the effort to discuss, define, negotiate, and draft 

the areas of assistance and the diplomatic agreements between the 

United States and the four nations – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and 

Kazakhstan. In February, 1992, Under Secretary Bartholomew led a 

large American delegation to Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, and Alma Ata. 

Following the high-level meetings, technical experts remained and 

held discussions with their counterparts.

29 Interview, Dr. Susan Koch, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Threat Reduction Policy with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, D.C., June 

7, 2000. From December 1991 to February 1993, Dr. Koch worked at 

the National Security Council in the White House where she was the 

deputy chief of Defense Policy and Arms Control Directorate.

30 Statement, Bartholomew to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee, SH 102-510, February 5, 1992. 

31 Statement, Major General William F. Burns, U.S. Army 

(retired), Special Envoy on the Safety, Security, and Dismantlement 

of Nuclear Weapons, Department of State, to U.S. Senate, 

Committee on Foreign Relations, SH 102-872, 27 July 1992.

32 Interview, Dr. Victor Nikolai Mikhaylov, Minister of Atomic 

Energy, (1992-1998 ), Russian Federation and Scientific Director 

of the Sarov Nuclear Center, 1999 - 2005, Russian Federation, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

U.S. Department of Defense, Moscow, January 19, 2005. See 

Statement, Major General William F. Burns, U.S. Army (retired), 

Special Envoy on the Safety, Security, and Dismantlement of 

Nuclear Weapons, Department of State, to U.S. Senate, Committee 

on Foreign Relations, SH 102-872, 27 July 1992.

33 See Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means: The Politics of 

US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, pp 117-

118. While State Department officials negotiated these foundation 

agreements, the Defense Department’s senior managers intended to 

become, from the beginning, the chief implementing agents for the 

program. Both U.S. Senators Nunn and Lugar indicated that they 

wanted the Defense Department to implement the program. For an 

account of these roles and missions issues, see Statement, Dr. John 

H. Birely, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy, 

U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, S.H. 102-872.

34 Ibid. In his statement, Dr. Birely explained the Defense 

Department’s organizational structure for implementing the NunnLugar program.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief Program Integration Division, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, 26 May 2000, and Interview, 

William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons Division, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, 20 July 2004.

38 Michael Wines, “Accord at Summit,” New York Times, 17 June 

1992, p A1-A10.

39 “Agreement Between the United States of America and the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, 

Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of 
39

Weapons Proliferation,” Washington, 17 June,1992. The agreement 

was signed by George Bush and Boris Yeltsin.

40 Ibid.

41 “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation and Storage of 

Nuclear Weapons Through the Provision of Armored Blankets,” 

Washington, 17 June 1992.

42 “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation and Storage of 

Nuclear Weapons Through the Provision of Emergency Response 

Equipment and Related Training,”, Washington, 17 June 1992.

43 “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation and Storage 

of Nuclear Weapons Through the Provision of Fissile Missile 

Containers,” Washington, 17 June 1992.

44 “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the president’s Committee on 

Conventional Problems of Chemical and Biological Weapons 

of the Russian Federation concerning the Safe, Secure, and 

Ecologically Sound Destruction of Chemical Weapons,” 

Washington, 30 July 1992; “Agreement between the Department of 

Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic 

Energy Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation of Nuclear 

Weapons Through the Provision of Cargo and Guard Railcar 

Conversion Kits”, Moscow, 28 August 1992; “Agreement between 

the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the 

Ministry of Atomic Energy Concerning Technical Assistance for the 

Design of a Safe, Secure, and Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for 

Fissile Material Derived from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” 

Washington, 5 October 1992.

45 DOD Report, “Report on Proposed Obligations for 

Facilitating Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation in the 

Former Soviet Union,” May 12, 1992, attached to Letter, Sean 

O’Keefe, Comptroller, DOD to Honorable Dan Quayle, President of 

the Senate, May 16, 1992.

46 Letter, Donald B. Shycoff, Acting Director, Comptroller, DOD, 

to Honorable Dan Quayle, President of the Senate, December 28, 

1992.

47 The Government Accounting Office, an investigative agency 

working for Congress, evaluated the Nunn-Lugar program, 

criticizing its “ad-hoc” nature, judging its capability to define 

and validate specific act-funded projects, and questioning the 

department’s plans for the proposed fissile materials storage facility. 

See Statement, Frank C. Conahan, Assistant Comptroller General, 

U.S. Government Accounting Office, to the Committee of Foreign 

Relations, U.S. Senate, 21 Jul 1992. 

48 Interview, and William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 

July 2004.

49 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 616-619.

50 David Hoffman, “Pentagon to Airlift Aid to Republics; 

Ex-Soviets Will Get Food, Medicine,” Washington Post, 24 January 

1992, A1. See Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 619. For a description of 

the actual operation see report, David M. Willford, A Brief History of 

the On-Site Inspection Agency, Washington, 1997, pp 5-6. 

51 See Walter A. McDougal, Promised Land and Crusader State, 

The American Encounter with the World Since 1776, New York, 1997, 

and Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of 

Western Aid to Eastern Europe, 1989-1998, New York, 1998.

52 President George H.W. Bush, “Coordinating Assistance to the 

Newly Independent States,” speech to the Coordinating Conference 

on Assistance to the Newly Independent States, Department of 

State, Washington, D.C., 22 January 1992. For context see, David 

Hoffman, “U.S. Opens World Conference Today on Assistance to 

Post-Soviet nations,” Washington Post, 22 January 1992, A26. 

53 Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp 10-14. Ellis has an excellent 

discussion of the complex decision process within the U.S. 

government.

54 There were literally dozens of different programs to aid the 

former Soviet Union states that were developed after the collapse 

of the Soviet Union. For a good, chronologically organized survey, 

see Curt Tarnoff, U.S. Assistance to the Soviet Union and its Successor 

States, 1991-1994: A History of Administration and Congressional 

Action, CRS Report 95-914F, August 23, 1995.

55 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, p543-

548; Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp 668-670.; James E. Goodby, 

Europe Undivided, The New Logic of Peace in U.S.- Russian Relations, 

Washington, D.C., 1998.

56 Interview, Dr. Susan Koch, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Threat Reduction Policy with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, D.C., 

June 7, 2000.

57 Statement of U.S. Senator Richard M. Lugar (R.-Indiana) U.S. 

Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, S.H. 102-872, 27 July 

1992, p. 14.

58 Public Law 102-484, 102nd Congress, FY 1993, National 

Defense Authorization Act. See also, Richard Combs, “U.S. 

Domestic Politics and the Nunn-Lugar Program,” in John M. 

Shields and William C. Potter, editors, Dismantling the Cold War, pp 

41-60; Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 77-100.

41

CHAPTER 3

Belarus: From Nuclear Inheritance

to Nuclear Succession

As architects of the Soviet Union’s collapse, President 

Yeltsin, Foreign Minister Kozorev and Defense Minister 

Marshal Shaposhnikov had a clear concept in December 1991 

for all the Soviet Union’s military forces – strategic rocket, 

navy, land and air forces. The Soviet Armed Forces would be 

transformed for a period of time, into the Commonwealth 

of Independent States (CIS) Armed Forces, which would 

become a supranational force. It would be dominated and 

controlled by Russian generals, admirals and directors 

of the military-industrial-scientific complexes. Marshal 

Shaposhnikov would become the supreme commander, with 

all the former Soviet Union’s military forces subordinate to 

him. Furthermore, all the Soviet Union’s centralized military 

systems for logistics, personnel, procurement, training, 

technical support, nuclear surety, and nuclear command 

and control would be retained for the new CIS Armed 

Ü

Ü

Ü

POSTAVY

LIDA

ORSHA

MOZYR’

MINSK

SS-25 Launch

Facility

Destruction

MC&A

Export Control

Gov Comm Links

Emergency Response

Propellant

Elimination

Facility

81 Nuclear

Warheads

Nunn Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction projects in Belarus

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
42

With Courage and Persistence

Forces.1 Shaposhnikov said that breaking apart the Soviet 

Armed Forces into national armies would radically change 

their missions, disrupt personnel and destroy their combat 

effectiveness for many years. Dividing the Soviet Union’s 

nuclear forces was simply unthinkable.2

 If the CIS Armed 

Forces were to retain the former Soviet empire’s military 

power and influence, it had to preserve intact its military 

forces, together with their centralized logistics, personnel 

and support systems. Consequently, Yeltsin, Kozarev and 

Shaposhnikov all supported the CIS and its armed forces in 

the winter and spring months of 1992.

Their support was so strong that they did not establish a 

Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) nor Russian Armed Forces 

until May 1992, six months after the Soviet Union collapsed. 

The reason was that the CIS Armed Forces were essentially 

controlled by a Russian marshal, the Russian General Staff 

and the Russian dominated military-industrial enterprises. 

Under this regional security concept, the newly independent 

states would not control their own army, navy, air force or 

military-industrial complexes. At the CIS summit meeting in 

Minsk in February 1992, leaders of Ukraine, Moldova and 

Azerbaijan declared they would be establishing their own 

national military forces. In fact, Ukraine had already done so 

a month earlier. Ukraine’s Armed Forces would be separate, 

but subordinate to the CIS Armed Forces Command.3

 All the 

other nations would be defended by the CIS Armed Forces. 

They would not have independent national armies, navies or 

air forces.4

 At this summit, Russian Marshal Shaposhnikov 

was formally confirmed as the Commander-in-Chief of the 

CIS Armed Forces. Given the nationalism that forced the 

President Boris Yeltsin and General Pavel S. Grachev (l.-r.)

RIA Novosti
43

Soviet empire’s collapse, this Russian-centric CIS military 

alliance concept was, at best naïve, and at worst imperialistic. 

Within weeks of the Soviet Union’s failure, there were 

new developments, especially in Ukraine, which tested the 

idea of a Russian-dominated CIS Armed Forces. In the first 

week of January 1992, Ukraine’s president and minister of 

defense issued an order that an oath of allegiance be given 

to all military forces, except the strategic rocket and bomber 

forces, stationed in Ukrainian territory. One year later, more 

than 300,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen had declared 

their allegiance to the new nation.5

 Then in April, Ukraine’s 

foreign minister publicly rejected Russia’s statement that it 

alone was the sole legitimate successor state to the START 

Treaty. 6

 That declaration and Ukraine’s adamant position 

forced the United States to reconsider its stance. That same 

month, President Kravchuk declared that Ukraine would 

assume “administrative control” over all military forces, 

including strategic nuclear forces, stationed in its national 

territory. This term was ambiguous, but at a minimum, it 

asserted Ukraine’s sovereignty over the fixed facilities – the 

structures, runways, permanent equipment and military 

bases located in its national territory.7

Ukraine was not the only nation that rejected the concept 

of a Russian-dominated CIS Armed Forces. 14 of the 15 

new states signaled their intention to sign and ratify the 

Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Implicit 

in this act was the demand for partitioning the former Soviet 

Union’s vast 3.7 million man conventional armed forces. 

The new states would inherit those forces stationed in their 

territory, along with the mandatory reductions required by 

the CFE Treaty.8

 As a direct reaction to these developments, 

many senior Russian general officers had concluded by the 

spring of 1992 that the concept of the supranational CIS 

Armed Forces would never work. In every one of the recently 

independent states, the new political economy emphasized 

independence, nationalism and sovereignty.

In March, Yeltsin named General Pavel Gravchev to be 

Deputy Minister of Defense for the Russian Federation. 

Gravchev led a military faction opposed to Shaposhnikov 

and the CIS Armed Forces. All these personalities and issues 

collided at a CIS Summit meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan 

in May 1992. There, Russian officers proposed a formula 

for dividing the Soviet Union’s conventional armed forces 

among the newly independent states. They put forth a 

collective security treaty along the NATO model, with all the 

new states pledging to defend the other nations if attacked. 

Finally, they agreed to accept all the former Soviet Union’s 

treaty reduction quotas as stipulated in the CFE Treaty. 

Following discussions, the defense ministers accepted in 

principle, the Russian plan that partitioned the conventional 

armed forces of the former USSR.9

These Tashkent decisions occurred the same week the 

United States Secretary of State signed the Lisbon Protocols 

to the START I Treaty, recognizing that those states that had 

inherited nuclear weapons – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and 

Kazakhstan, would be legally designated as “successor” 

states. These significant decisions by Russia and the United 

States began a death knell for the CIS Armed Forces. It grew 

louder in June 1992 when General Gravchev became Russia’s 

Minister of Defense. Acting quickly, he reestablished the 

Russian General Staff, and reconstituted the Russian army, 

navy and air force. Only the strategic nuclear forces remained 

in the CIS Armed Forces. In a symbolic gesture, Gravchev 

evicted Marshal Shaposhnikov and his small CIS military 

staff from their offices in central Moscow, relocating them in 

the former Warsaw Pact headquarters in the city’s northern 

suburbs. Clearly, by this time Grachev and the General Staff 

MOSCOW

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

★

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
44

With Courage and Persistence

had moved away from the concept of a regional CIS Armed 

Forces. Instead, they were turning to a new national security 

strategy, one that had Russia as the region’s dominant 

conventional and strategic power. Russian defense leaders 

stressed that Yeltsin and the government must undertake 

negotiations leading to new bilateral agreements that would 

persuade Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to return the 

region’s strategic nuclear forces and weapons to the Russian 

Federation.10

Russia had inherited approximately 75 percent of the 

former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. All the Soviet navy’s 

strategic nuclear submarines had been assigned to the 

Pacific and Northern fleets, and all the nuclear submarines 

were based at ports located in the Russian Federation. 

Consequently, following the collapse the Russian Navy 

took possession of these submarine fleets. The Russian Air 

Force took control of the former Soviet Union’s strategic 

heavy bomber forces, with the exception of two bomber 

commands. Ukraine inherited the 46th Bomber Army, with 

19 Tu-160 bombers based at Priluki air base and 25 Tu-95 

Bear bombers based at Uzin. On Kazakhstan’s territory, the 

79th Heavy Bomber Division had 40 Tu-95 Bear H strategic 

bombers – half of all the bombers of this type in the Soviet 

Air Force’s inventory of long-range aviation. They were 

located at Chagan Air Base. The Russian Air Force controlled 

and operated these strategic air forces. However under the 

CIS charter, Russia could not relocate the bomber forces 

based in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the CIS Armed Forces 

assigned the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) command 

and control over the four nations’ intercontinental rocket 

armies. This command arrangement was consistent with that 

of the Soviet Union. In the post-Soviet era, Russia “owned” 

outright three-fourths of the former empire’s Strategic Rocket 

Forces. The other rocket forces were based in two large 

rocket armies located in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and three 

divisions in Belarus. It was these strategic rocket armies, 

along with the bomber forces, that the Russian leaders 

focused on in negotiations with the three bordering states in 

1992 and 1993. Their strategy was to negotiate new bilateral 

Tu-160 Blackjack bomber

Department of Defense
45

agreements that would grant Russia legal authority to relocate 

all these strategic nuclear forces and nuclear warheads onto 

its territory, quickly and without delay. Russia would then 

carry out all the provisions of START I, and de facto, assume 

the superpower status that the Soviet Union had projected.11

Russia’s new regional strategy: One 

single nuclear successor state

When the CIS nation’s foreign and defense ministers met 

in Moscow in July 1992, Marshal Shaposhnikov and General 

Boris Pyankov, CIS First Deputy Commander, explained that 

the strategic forces on their national territories should be 

under complete command of the CIS Supreme Commander 

and the Russian SRF Commander. They told the defense 

ministers of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan that the 

Russian Federation was the sole nuclear successor state, 

and that they should be prepared for their strategic nuclear 

forces to be decommissioned and eventually transferred 

to Russia. Given the power relationships, the Belarus and 

Kazakhstan ministers concurred, while Ukraine’s defense 

minister refused. Afterwards, General Pyankov told reporters, 

“Today we proposed to decommission the nuclear warheads 

from strategic missiles deployed in Ukraine, or delete the 

flight maps from the onboard computers. This would turn 

the missiles into cans without fuel...and there would be no 

necessity to speak about the nuclear status of Ukraine.”12

When Ukraine’s representatives rejected this ploy, they raised 

the Russian general officers’ ire. Marshal Shaposhnikov was 

explicit in his public criticism: 

“They [Ukrainians] say they will be under our 

operational command, but under their operational 

subordination. Operational subordination means 

a Ukrainian oath, Ukrainian personnel policy and 

appointments and Ukrainian upkeep. It would 

mean that I would be commanding Ukrainian 

servicemen. I do not want that... Either it’s my 

serviceman, subordinated to me, or a Ukrainian 

one. If he’s a Ukrainian, let Ukraine announce that 

it is a nuclear power and let the world community 

discuss this (fact) with it.”13

What the Marshal wanted was total command and control 

over General Mikhtyuk’s 43rd Rocket Army, with its 139 SS-19 

rockets (six warheads each), 46 SS-24 rockets (10 warheads), 

81 SS-25s (one warhead) and an estimated 1,300 nuclear 

warheads. What the Marshal did not want was the national 

government in Kiev to interject itself into the command 

structure in any way. Yet in April 1992, Ukraine’s president 

issued a decree that all military formations, including the 

43rd Rocket Army, Object “C” areas, missile plants and 

the SRF’s nuclear arsenals located on Ukrainian territory 

would be subordinated administratively to the Minister of 

Defense.14 To Marshal Shaposhnikov’s public criticism of 

Ukraine General Ivan Bizhan, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of 

Defense, replied sharply: “Ukraine insists on keeping nuclear 

warheads in assembly with delivery vehicles deployed on 

its territory, largely because it has no confidence in Marshal 

Shaposhnikov’s statements.”15

Testy and acerbic, the Ukrainian-Russian fissure grew 

worse with each passing month. By the first week in October 

1992, when the CIS defense ministers met in Kyrgyzstan, 

Russian Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, Commander of 

CIS Military Forces

RIA Novosti
46

With Courage and Persistence

Russia and Ukraine were at a breaking point. Prior to the 

meeting, Marshal Shaposhnikov stated publicly that he 

believed all nuclear weapons and forces should be transferred 

immediately to Russia’s jurisdiction. At one point he 

declared, “I am prepared to hand over the nuclear briefcase to 

the Russian Defense Minister today or tomorrow...”16 When 

the meeting convened, the defense ministers from Russia, 

Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed on a draft proposal that 

explicitly declared that combat control over the combined 

strategic nuclear forces would be exercised jointly by the 

CIS High Command and the Russian Minister of Defense. 

Belarus, taking it further, indicated its willingness to give 

up legal rights to its strategic nuclear forces. At Ukraine’s 

insistence, however, the proposal was dropped. When the 

meeting ended, Shaposhnikov admitted publicly that it was a 

failure and asked the defense ministers to negotiate bilateral 

agreements that would define the jurisdiction, withdrawal 

and transfer of their strategic nuclear warheads to Russia.17

The next month, Russian leaders stepped up their pressure 

to get legal, and then actual possession of all of the strategic 

nuclear forces. In early November the Russian Duma ratified 

the START I Treaty conditionally. It declared that Russia would 

delay formal exchange of treaty documents until Belarus, 

Kazakhstan and Ukraine ratified the START Treaty, signed 

and ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) Treaty, and 

negotiated and signed bilateral agreements on the return of 

their strategic nuclear weapons to the Russia. The Duma’s 

vote, 157 to 1 in favor, endorsed the government’s policy on 

the “inherited” strategic nuclear forces in the non-Russian 

states.18 Here was another sign that the Russian government, 

for all practical purposes, had abandoned its support for 

the CIS Armed Forces. Among the governments of Ukraine, 

Kazakhstan and Belarus, the real issue was not which nation 

had operational control over the strategic nuclear forces, 

but which entity “owned” the bases, forces, weapons and 

facilities of the strategic forces located in these nations.

National leaders in Ukraine and Kazakhstan insisted that 

the CIS charter, which had been agreed to unanimously in 

December 1991 in Almaty, stated that the new states were 

entitled to all of the property within their borders.19 This, 

however, was a tenuous claim. The CIS agreement specified 

control over the strategic nuclear forces, not ownership. To 

strengthen its position, the government of Ukraine clarified 

its claim on ownership in early November 1992, only a week 

after the Russian Duma had ratified the START Treaty. “The 

property of the armed forces of the former Soviet Union,” 

U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign START II, January 1993

George Bush Presidential Library
47

the Ukrainian government asserted, “which was located 

on the territory of Ukraine at the time of its independence, 

including the entire property of the strategic nuclear forces, 

belongs to Ukraine.”20 Immediately, Russian military leaders 

and diplomats rejected this claim and continued pressing 

governments of the other nations to give up jurisdiction – 

their sovereign legal right of ownership of the weapons and 

forces – to the Russian Federation.

Russian leaders used arms control and nonproliferation 

treaties to achieve their dominant foreign policy objective: 

diplomatic and international recognition for the Russian 

Federation as the Soviet Union’s sole successor nuclear 

state. In January 1993 Boris Yeltsin and George H.W. Bush 

signed a major new strategic arms reduction treaty, known 

as START II. Russia and the United States pledged to reduce 

their nation’s accountable strategic warheads from 6,000 

to a level of between 3,500 and 3,000, with specified 

operational restrictions on deployments. When ratified 

and implemented, there would be substantial reductions 

in their nuclear forces – intercontinental ballistic missiles, 

submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and an outright 

prohibition on missile multiple warheads. At the end of 

the treaty’s 15 year life, both Russia and the United States 

would have cut their strategic nuclear forces by 70 percent 

from 1990 levels.21 As they signed the treaty, Bush and 

Yeltsin issued statements linking START II with both START 

I and the Lisbon Protocols.22 The treaty’s Lisbon protocols 

already signed but not ratified, included statements from the 

foreign ministers of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan that 

their nations would give up their strategic armaments, and 

sign and ratify the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These actions, 

if carried out, would leave the Russian Federation as the sole 

nuclear state in the region.

By January 1993, one year after the former Soviet empire’s 

devolution, all Russian ministers and national security 

officials believed that they had to stop any of the new nations 

in the region from emerging with modern strategic forces 

and nuclear weapons. For Russia’s Ministry of Defense and 

General Staff, the existing and new arms control treaties 

were structural international agreements for the long term. 

However, since treaty ratification could take years, the defense 

ministry and senior military staffs turned to more immediate 

issues. Minister Gravchev’s objective was to consolidate all the 

region’s strategic nuclear forces and the thousands of nuclear 

warheads at bases and depots in the Russian Federation. Put 

more bluntly: General Grachev and the General Staff would 

not allow any new nuclear states to emerge in the region. 

In April 1993, all these national security policy objectives 

merged into a major foreign policy directive issued by 

President Yeltsin, “Basic Provisions of the Russian Federation’s 

Foreign Policy Concept.” Henceforth, the Russian President 

declared that the Russia Federation’s strategic objective would 

be “ensuring Russia’s status as the only nuclear power in the 

Commonwealth of Independent States.”23

Success with Belarus

Across the region, there were signs of success. Belarus was 

the first nation to accede to Russia’s demands. In October 

1992, Stanislav Shushkevich, chairman of the Belarus 

Supreme Soviet, announced that Belarus and Russia had 

President Stanislav S. Shushkevich, Belarus

RIA Novosti
48

With Courage and Persistence

signed an agreement declaring that the strategic nuclear 

forces on its territory – three missile divisions, with 81 SS25 missiles – would be legally placed under jurisdiction 

of the Russian General Staff.24 Shushkevich acknowledged 

that the commander of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces had 

authority over these missiles. Command authority included 

control over arming and launching codes for the SS-25 

missiles. In the new document, the Belarusian parliamentary 

chairman agreed that the Russian Federation would have 

legal jurisdiction over the missile divisions. The Belarusian 

government agreed to negotiate a withdrawal schedule for 

removing the three divisions, including missiles, launchers, 

support equipment and personnel to Russia within two 

years. Not part of this bilateral agreement, but understood, 

was that Russia also legally owned all of the tactical nuclear 

weapons that Belarus inherited in 1991. Those weapons 

were anti-aircraft missile warheads, aerial bombs, nuclear 

landmines and nuclear artillery shells.25 The Russian General 

Staff had already removed these tactical nuclear weapons 

and warheads from Belarus in the spring of 1992.26

Each of the 81 SS-25 missiles located in Belarus was 

capable of launching a single nuclear warhead. Operationally, 

the missiles, each equipped with 750-kiloton warheads, were 

mounted on large military vehicles that were driven deep 

into the forest and parked on prepositioned launching pads. 

When launched, the missiles had an intercontinental range 

of approximately 6,500 miles. The missiles in Belarus were a 

small part of the Soviet Union’s larger SS-25 force, totaling 

354 missiles, which had been deployed from 1985 to 1991.27

Since these missiles were mounted on military vehicles, they 

could be driven or transported via rail to SS-25 bases in 

Russia and incorporated into existing combat units.

Organizationally, the three divisions in Belarus were 

elements of the 43rd Rocket Army, commanded by General 

Mikhtyuk from his headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. At 

this time Mikhtyuk had six missile divisions stationed on 

Belarus territory. Of these, three divisions were paper units 

without missiles or personnel. Following the October 1992 

Belarus-Russian agreement, there was a series of meetings in 

Kiev and Moscow between the Russian SRF commander and 

Ukraine’s Minister of Defense. Only after these meetings did 

General Mikhtyuk order immediate disbanding of the three 

unequipped missile divisions, located at Lutsk, Romney and 

Belokorovichy. The three active missile divisions in Belarus 

located at Lida, Mozyr and Postavy, with 81 SS-25 ICBMs 

and approximately 9,500 men, remained under Mikhtyuk’s 

command for another year.28

President Boris Yeltsin declared early in 1992 that the 

Russian General Staff had transferred all the former Soviet 

Union’s chemical weapons to Russia. Belarus did not have 

any stored chemical weapons or any production capacity, 

and had no plans to establish any.29 According to the U.S. 

Department of Defense, Belarus also had no biological 

warfare program. As a Soviet Republic, Belarus had signed and 

ratified the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention 

and accordingly, did not have any biological weapons on 

its territory in the mid-1990s.30 Thus, the 81 SS-25s, which 

were operational, constituted the new nation’s only strategic 

weapons system. In the fall and winter of 1992-1993, Russian 

and Belarusian defense officials moved quickly to negotiate 

a schedule for removing the nuclear warheads and missiles. 

The Russian SRF planning staff drew up a schedule, with the 

objective of relocating the final SS-25 regiments onto Russian 

missile bases by December 1994. However, a complex array 

of political issues and events within both the Russian and 

Belarusian governments delayed initial and later movements 

of the missile regiments. It was not until December 1996 

that the SRF transported the last regiment of SS-25s and 

launchers out of Belarus and into Russia.31 Throughout the 

two and a half years of the withdrawal operation, Russian 

general officers controlled access to the regiments, missiles, 

facilities and rocket forces. In Belarus, Ministry of Defense 

officials did not command or control these strategic rocket 

forces to any degree.

William F. Burns, U.S. Special Envoy on the Safety, 

Security and Dismantlement (SSD) of Nuclear Weapons, 

and a small team arrived in Minsk, Belarus in fall of 1992. 

Belarus had been an independent nation for 10 months. 

The American diplomats met with Belarusian Ministry 

of Foreign Affairs officials to negotiate an agreement 

defining the conditions for Nunn-Lugar assistance from 

the United States. Andrei Sannikov, Deputy Foreign 

Minister, led the Belarus delegation with assistance from 

Ivan Naidovich, Head of the Department of International 

Treaties, and Alexander Baichov, Head of the Directorate 

of International Security and Disarmament.32 Negotiations 

progressed quickly. On October 22, 1992 American 

and Belarusian officials signed the first U.S.-Belarus 

Cooperative Threat Reduction umbrella agreement.33 This 

agreement would remain in effect for five years. They also 
49

signed two implementing documents; one designated a 

CTR project of up to $5 million that would assist Belarus’ 

military forces in training and using U.S. purchased 

emergency response equipment for responding to a nuclear 

accident. The other designated a project up to $1 million 

for setting up and equipping an export control system for 

identifying and controlling nuclear materials in Belarus.34

During 1993 Belarusian officials negotiated another series 

of implementing agreements with U.S. Ambassador James 

Goodby, who led the State Department’s SSD team, and 

Gloria Duffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and 

Special Coordinator for CTR Programs.35

Belarus was on the road to becoming a non-nuclear 

weapons state; a road being planned and constructed by 

the great powers. In February 1993, Stanislav Shushkevich 

took the next step. He persuaded the Belarus Supreme Soviet 

Council to debate and vote on START I, Lisbon Protocols, and 

the NPT Treaty. The favorable vote, 218 to 1 for ratification, 

confirmed the new nation was both anti-nuclear and proRussian.36 Less than a decade before, the Chernobyl disaster 

had blown radioactive winds directly over the region and 

there were strong sentiments in the Belarusian parliament 

and public against stationing any nuclear weapons on 

Belarusian territory. In addition, pro-Russian sentiments 

were so prevalent in the nation that Belarus’ government 

did not even ask the Russian government for any special 

security guarantees or financial compensation in return for 

signing over their nuclear warheads and strategic weapons. 

Belarusian leaders acknowledged that in security issues their 

small nation of 10 million was overshadowed by Russia with 

150 million people. The two nations, they explained, were 

connected by language, culture, history, economics, politics 

and military systems. Shushkevich and the other members of 

the Supreme Soviet were acutely aware of Russia’s presence, 

and of Belarus’ position, lying between Russia and the 

nations of central Europe.37 In the fall of 1993 as the nuclear 

missiles were being removed, Shushkevich told Moscow 

Radio, “Only Russia has the moral right to possess nuclear 

weapons on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Belarus, 

Ukraine and Kazakhstan, despite their considerable scientific 

SS-25 mobile ICBM

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
50

With Courage and Persistence

and technical potential could not have created them by their 

own effort...it is madness to have a nuclear power cell on the 

main way from Russia to Western countries...”38

American promises and nonproliferation 

policies: Initial contacts

Immediately after the Belarus Supreme Soviet ratified 

START in February 1993, President Clinton called 

Shushkevich to discuss expanding bilateral cooperation, 

including Nunn-Lugar assistance for Belarus.39 In March 

1993, Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced 

a Nunn-Lugar grant of $65 million to assist Belarus’ 

denuclearization efforts.40 Four months later, Secretary of 

Defense Les Aspin hosted Belarusian Defense Minister Pavel 

P. Kozlovsky at the Pentagon and they signed three new 

implementing agreements. Secretary Aspin declared that the 

U.S. would commit $55 million in three areas: $25 million 

for environmental restoration of the former SRF SS-25 

missile sites; $20 million for defense conversion under the 

Industrial Partnering Program; and $10 million for military 

housing and retraining programs for former SRF officers.41

By October 1993, the two nations had signed multiple new 

agreements spelling out military and economic cooperative 

projects and programs. Symbolizing the new U.S.-Belarus 

relationship, in January 1994 President Clinton and Secretary 

of State Christopher flew to Minsk for an official visit. During 

the visit, Clinton promised an additional $25 million in CTR 

funds for Belarus.42 At the same time, Japan pledged $8.37 

million to Belarus for environmental restoration of strategic 

missile bases.43

These American pledges of CTR assistance appeared 

were rewards to Belarus for removing its inherited strategic 

weapons. However, Mitchell Reiss, a scholar who examined 

Belarus’ decision to remove the 81 SS-25 missiles to Russia, 

found that the American pledges of assistance had no real 

influence on that nation’s decision.44 Russia’s influence in 

the region was substantial; the Russian General Staff had 

demanded relocation of the strategic missiles and nuclear 

warheads. Instead, Reiss concluded that the American 

President William J. Clinton and Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher

William J. Clinton Presidential Library
51

CTR pledges had been done for three reasons: rewarding 

Belarus for ratifying the START and NPT treaties, sending a 

signal to the governments of Kazakhstan and Ukraine that 

CTR funds would flow to their nations if they followed 

the same path, and satisfying the U.S. Congress who was 

demanding CTR funds be obligated and spent quickly on 

projects in the emerging new nations.45 Congress, especially 

its investigative office, the Government Accounting Office, 

was extremely critical of how slowly the CTR program was 

being implemented in 1992-1993.46 Consequently, there was 

a sense of urgency when the first U.S. CTR program officers 

arrived in Minsk and began technical discussions to define 

specific programs and projects.

In June 1992, Paul Boren had just finished the Defense 

Department’s advanced management course at the Industrial 

College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C., when 

he returned to the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) and 

became the agency’s first program manager for developing 

and implementing CTR projects.47 At that time, there were 

two other agency people, Bill Moon and Major John Petito, 

working CTR projects for the newly independent states. 

Michael Evenson, a senior manager, was instrumental in 

putting the nuclear agency forward into this new arena.48

Over the next two years, new project officers – John Connell, 

John Booker, Harry Cook, Mary Ann Miles, Captain Robert 

Schultz, Lt. Commander Dan Keller and others would join 

the agency’s CTR section.

However in the early years, policy formation, which 

meant negotiating and signing the diplomatic nation-tonation CTR legal agreements, took precedence over program 

definition and project implementation. Yet even during 

these early months, Boren had a sense that the end of the 

Cold War had presented a tremendous opportunity. “It 

was an opportunity,” he recalled, “to use radical new ways 

to solve problems. And those problems were proliferation 

and weapon systems in possession of countries that were 

breaking up... [they] didn’t have proper command and 

control; they were nuclear countries, and they, at least at that 

time, had the spirit of let’s get rid of these things. That’s an 

enormous opportunity when nations want to get rid of their 

nuclear weapons and their nuclear systems....”49

Before Boren and the other managers could develop 

any CTR projects, the Nunn-Lugar legislation required the 

president to certify that individual successor states to the 

Soviet Union had met six conditions. The recipient nation 

had to make substantial investments of its own resources 

in dismantlement or destruction of the weapons. They 

had to forego military modernization programs exceeding 

their legitimate defense requirements. They had to forego 

using fissionable components taken from the dismantled 

weapons in new weapons. They had to agree to facilitate 

U.S. verification of the destruction. They had to comply with 

all relevant arms control agreements, and pledge to observe 

internationally recognized norms of human rights.50

Since Belarus was the first of the new nations to ratify 

the arms control treaties and accept U.S. assistance, it 

offered a microcosm of the major issues that could arise 

in defining and implementing the CTR program. Other 

nations, especially their defense and foreign ministries, 

observed the unfolding process carefully. All the initial 

U.S.-Belarus government-to-government CTR umbrella 

agreements contained certain basic terms and statements. 

They began with a statement by the recipient nation, 

Belarus, pledging to follow all measures to achieve a status 

of a “non-nuclear” state. Then, the two parties selected and 

Paul Boren

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
52

With Courage and Persistence

named executive agents, in this case the U.S. Department of 

Defense and the Belarus Ministry of Defense, which were 

authorized to negotiate and enter into additional bilateral 

documents, called implementing agreements. In all of these 

implementing agreements, Belarus pledged to facilitate 

U.S. employees and civilian CTR contractors “into and out 

of” its territory. Military and civilian employees of the U.S. 

government would have limited diplomatic privileges and 

immunities, equivalent to those accorded administrative 

and technical personnel assigned to the U.S. Embassy. 

Belarus could not bring legal proceedings against the United 

States, its personnel, contractors or contractor personnel for 

damages or loss of property related to CTR-funded projects. 

Any U.S. government personnel working in connection with 

the CTR program would not be liable for national taxes, fees, 

or other charges in Belarus. When the U.S. Government, its 

employees and contractors imported or exported material, 

equipment, supplies or services, they would not be subject 

to any customs duties or other charges. Finally, if the U.S. 

Government hired contractors in Belarus to perform services, 

those contractors would not be subject to taxes.51

As a result, when Boren and his small technical team 

arrived in Belarus, they came with a heavy bag of tools: U.S. 

legislative intent, U.S. presidential certification requirements, 

U.S. defense policy and U.S. implementation agreement 

rules and regulations. As team chief, Boren did not begin the 

meeting by opening a money bag filled with $400 million in 

Nunn-Lugar funds. Instead, he began with the U.S. Congress’ 

legislative intent. Every year the Congressional Nunn-Lugar/

CTR authorization began with a statement that it was in 

the “national security” interests of the United States to 

appropriate funds to further five specific objectives, which 

were:

n The United States should facilitate the 

transportation, storage, safeguarding, and 

elimination of nuclear and other weapons in the 

newly independent states, including the safe and 

secure storage of fissile materials derived from 

the elimination of nuclear weapons, and the 

dismantlement of ICBMs and their launchers, 

SLBMs and their launchers, the heavy bombers, 

and the elimination of chemical, biological, and 

other weapons’ capabilities. 

n The United States should assist these states in 

preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass 

destruction and destabilizing conventional 

weapons and in establishing verifiable safeguards 

against their proliferation.

n It was in the interest of the United States to 

help prevent the diversion of weapons-related 

scientific expertise to terrorists groups in other 

nations. 

n The U.S. should support the demilitarization of 

the newly independent states’ defense industries 

and equipment, and assist these nations in 

defense conversion to civilian purposes.

n The U.S. military should expand its existing 

military-to-military programs with the military 

forces of the newly independent states.52

Congress went further with the Nunn-Lugar legislation 

for 1993, which articulated eight program areas where the 

Defense Department’s CTR policy officials could negotiate 

and develop specific projects with the new nation’s 

defense ministries. These eight program areas fell into 

three broad areas: destruction and dismantlement, chain 

of custody, and defense conversion and demilitarization. 

In defining the CTR assistance programs in Belarus and 

the other nations, Congress and the Administration held 

two important assumptions that influenced bilateral 

negotiations. First, they assumed that the largest and 

most significant CTR programs would be focused on 

specific projects for transporting, storing, safeguarding 

and eliminating nuclear, chemical and biological weapon 

systems so that these new independent nations would 

be able to meet their obligations under existing arms 

control treaties, specifically START I, NPT, START II and 

the Chemical Weapons Convention. Under START I, for 

instance, the signatory nation’s obligations were quite 

specific as to what, where, when and how many strategic 

missiles, bombers and submarines had to be dismantled 

and destroyed. Under the NPT Treaty the entire nation’s 

civilian nuclear materials were subject to international 

safety standards and inspections.

The second assumption, widely shared in the U.S. 

Government departments – State, Defense, Energy and 

National Security Council – was that none of the new 

nations, except Russia, had the financial resources to carry 

out safe, secure demilitarization of their nuclear, chemical 

and biological weapon systems. When the national 
53

economies of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan collapsed 

in 1993-1994, and simultaneously Russia fell into political 

crisis, Clinton Administration officials agreed with Senators 

Nunn and Lugar and that CTR should become one of the 

major elements in the United States’ regional, cooperative 

nonproliferation and security programs with the newly 

independent states.53 Their arguments were persuasive, 

even more so as the national economic crises deepened. 

For Paul Boren working in Belarus, and for every American 

program manager negotiating the scope and specifics of 

CTR projects, this turn of events meant the United States 

would completely finance every project.

Initial U.S.-Belarus CTR projects

The first CTR project in Belarus was for emergency 

response equipment and training.54 In January 1993, Boren 

and a small team flew to Minsk for a series of technical 

meetings with Anatoly Liplyansky, Chief of Belarus Civil 

Defense, and Ivan Kenik, Minister for Emergency Situations 

and Chernobyl Affairs. Although the possibility of a nuclear 

accident or incident in Belarus was low, the new nation’s 

civil defense officials recognized that operational nuclear 

weapons – the SS-25 missiles and nuclear warheads – were 

being transported across their small nation to Russia. 

They had no control over these movements and, while 

an actual threat was small, they were keenly aware that 

consequences of a nuclear accident would be great. As this 

and other assistance programs were being defined, Belarus’ 

president, in consultation with the cabinet of ministers and 

the nation’s security council, reviewed all major decisions 

requesting, accepting or rejecting U.S. CTR projects.55 For 

this project, the two teams jointly agreed that an emergency 

response system for Belarus would require the following 

items: communications equipment, protective clothing, 

personnel dosimeter equipment, survey instruments, 

computers for dispersal modeling and prediction analysis, 

extensive training classes.

Under the law, equipment would be purchased in the 

United States, using a competitive acquisition process in 

U.S. equipment provided to Belarus

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
54

With Courage and Persistence

accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations. Once 

purchased, the items were to be shipped to Minsk and then 

installed in the appropriate facilities. In June 1993, 400 

sets of protective suits were delivered to the Belarus Civil 

Defense Headquarters. Three months later, Lt. Commander 

Dan Keller, CTR project manager, led a small team to Minsk 

where they delivered an array of equipment: alpha radiation 

detectors, air monitors, dosimeters, and protective boots. 

In September, American technicians flew to Belarus and 

conducted training courses. By December, the “Hot Spot 

Computer Code” equipment had reached Minsk, followed 

by delivery of communications and computer network 

gear in February 1994.56 In this $5 million project, more 

than $4 million was equipment procured from U.S. firms. 

Throughout the year, there were problems with equipment 

delivery, customs, taxes and duties. Ministerial officials 

in Minsk often interjected themselves into the process, 

causing further delays.57 At the same time, everyone in the 

United States associated with the program recognized there 

was enormous pressure to get this and other CTR projects 

underway. Boren, who traveled to Minsk frequently, 

remembered that American influence, especially when 

compared to Russian, was quite limited. “But,” he said, 

“there was the idea that you could count on the United 

States doing something actively to support you. There were 

a variety of things that were rushed to implementation. 

There was this madness that you had to implement faster, 

faster, faster.”58

Under pressure to initiate more new projects, U.S. 

Defense Department policy officials met with Belarus 

and Russian defense officials to discuss assistance for 

transporting the 81 SS-25 missiles out of Belarus. The 

government of Belarus had agreed to the movement of 

SS-25 regiments in October 1992. General I.D. Sergeev, 

Commander of the Russian SRF, had approved a plan to 

decommission, transport and deliver missiles, transporters, 

support equipment and personnel from military bases 

in Belarus to Russia. Colonel General Yevgeny Maslin, 

Commander, 12th Main Directorate, Russian General Staff, 

planned and directed the movement of nuclear warheads, 

via rail, from storage depots in Belarus to nuclear storage 

depots in Russia. In June 1993, movement of the first SS25 regiment began across Belarus. These SS-25 regimental 

movements proceeded slowly over the next three and 

a half years, concluding in November 1996.59 U.S. CTR 

policy officials defined these bilateral U.S. efforts with 

the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy and the Russian 

Ministry of Defense assistance projects as “Chain of 

Custody.” In 1993-1994, American defense officials 

worked with Russian MOD officers to devise cooperative 

projects for acquiring state-of-the art fissile missile storage 

containers, armored blankets, and other safety and 

security equipment. Because of their direct experience, 

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) officials served as 

technical advisors in all meetings and discussions. This 

program developed slowly over many years because of the 

massive size of the Russian Federation’s nuclear arsenal 

and secrecy associated with it.60

Another U.S. CTR project in Belarus was a joint effort 

to develop an institutional structure, along with necessary 

equipment, for a new national export control system.61

Working with Victor Pas’ko, Minister of Foreign Economic 

Relations, and officials from the Belarus Customs 

Committee and the Belarus Frontier Forces, Major Sid 

Chivers, the U.S. CTR project officer, and U.S. Commerce 

Department officials, began defining requirements for this 

$1 million project. The objective was to develop an export 

control system that would identify and prevent proliferation 

of weapons of mass destruction, fissile materials, and 

nuclear and other technologies from crossing Belarus’ 

national borders. In the beginning months, the project 

involved several bilateral and multilateral meetings in 

Minsk on legal and conceptual aspects of the Belarus 

Supreme Soviet developing a new national export control 

system. Under the CTR program, U.S. legal experts went to 

Minsk and provided assistance in drafting new legislation 

and national regulations. U.S. Customs officials went to 

Belarus, traveling out to border posts and crossings, where 

they provided advice on designing and constructing new 

border posts. When the project was amended, adding 

more than $15 million for equipment, Major Chivers and 

the Belarusian project managers held a series of technical 

meetings in Minsk and Washington to identify specific 

equipment for detecting nuclear materials, interdiction 

and communications. Then, these items were acquired 

competitively and delivered to Belarus, with the usual 

delays and difficulties. Further, in August and September 

1993, American Customs Bureau officials traveled to 

Minsk and conducted training for Belarusian enforcement 

officials.62
55

A CTR project directly related to START compliance was 

the effort to provide a continuous communications link 

between the United States and Belarus. Once agreed upon, 

the project would acquire and deliver modern computers, 

work stations, fax machines and printers to the Belarus 

National Agency for Arms Control and Inspections (NAKI).63

Headed by Major General Yevgeny Nikulin, this small 50-

man arms control agency was responsible for escorting U.S. 

and other national inspectors to Belarus military sites. There 

the inspectors would record and verify Belarus’ compliance 

with a series of contemporary arms control treaties: START, 

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, CFE, and the 

Vienna Document.64 General Nikulin also dispatched 

Belarus’ inspection teams to other nations. In the United 

States, Colonel Richard Wright, a Defense Department CTR 

program manager, estimated that $2.3 million would be 

needed to acquire, deliver, maintain and provide training 

for the new communications systems. For this project, the 

basic U.S.-Belarus implementing agreement was signed in 

Minsk in January 1993. Shortly thereafter, Belarusian military 

officers and technicians arrived in Washington to discuss 

computer and other systems, network configuration, delivery 

schedules and a logistics support plan. By August, a set of 

interim communications equipment and modems had been 

shipped and installed in the national arms control agency in 

Minsk, where training followed. However, because delivery of 

the permanent communications system was delayed by U.S. 

officials for more than two years, General Nikulin and MOD 

officials became frustrated at inflated American promises and 

lengthy delays.65

Another CTR project, directly related to the 

Nonproliferation Treaty, was an effort to provide Belarus 

with a new national system of material protection, 

controls, and accounting (MPC&A) for protecting its 

nuclear materials used for peaceful purposes. Belarus’ 

Supreme Soviet parliament had ratified the NPT Treaty in 

February 1993. Under terms of the treaty the nation was 

subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy 

Agency (IAEA). That international inspectorate agency 

required a system of MPC&A procedures in accordance 

with international standards and regulations.66 Even before 

Belarus ratified the NPT Treaty, U.S. diplomats had initiated 

discussions with Belarusian ministers on the system. The 

jointly agreed points were incorporated into the first CTR 

umbrella agreement, signed October 22, 1992.67 There were 

very few civilian nuclear facilities in the nation since Belarus 

had no nuclear power plants, no uranium-enrichment 

facilities nor any spent-fuel reprocessing facilities.68

However, Belarus reported that its Institute of Power 

Engineering Problems at Sosny possessed approximately 

88 pounds of highly enriched uranium, enriched to at least 

90 percent. The same institute reported it had at least 400 

pounds highly enriched uranium, enriched between 20 

and 80 percent.69 These nuclear materials had to be stored, 

protected, controlled and accounted for in accordance with 

IAEA standards. Japan and Sweden also declared they 

would provide similar assistance to Belarus.70

Although this MPC&A project was included in the initial 

bilateral CTR umbrella agreement, U.S. and Belarus officials 

did not reach an accord on terms for an implementing 

agreement until June 1995.71 In that agreement the U.S. 

agreed to fund improvements at the Sosny Institute’s central 

alarm system, upgrades for the entire materials protection 

and control system, nondestructive assays, tamper-indicating 

devices and personnel training in physical protection. As in 

most CTR projects, materials were acquired competitively 

in the United States, then shipped on American carriers to 

Belarus. There were problems with shipping, customs, taxes, 

and duties, and reporting.72 Japanese, Swedish, and American 

project officials formed a joint committee with Belarus to 

coordinate the MCP&A assistance. Japan provided a new 

computer information system to monitor and control storage 

and movement of nuclear material. They also provided 

the Belarus institute with modern telecommunications 

equipment to facilitate data exchanges between the IAEA and 

the new nation. Sweden delivered additional equipment and 

technical assistance to Belarus in the spring of 1996.73 At that 

time, authority for this effort was transferred from the U.S. 

DOD to the Department of Energy.

New communications equipment for the Belarus National

Agency for Arms Control and Inspections (NAKI)

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
56

With Courage and Persistence

Strategic Offensive Arms Eliminations 

projects

In the fall of 1992, Senators Nunn and Lugar steered 

the FY1993 Defense Department authorization legislation 

through Congress. It contained three provisions that 

directly influenced CTR assistance programs for Belarus. For 

the first time, funds were authorized for an environmental 

restoration project in a specific nation. Given the inflated 

title of “Project Peace,” the authorization designated 

$25 million for a CTR project in Belarus specifically for 

environmental restoration of former SRF SS-25 missile 

launch sites and facilities. The CTR legislation also included 

a new provision that supported demilitarization of former 

Soviet defense industries and their conversion to civilian 

purposes. A third area specified the expansion of contacts 

between U.S. military personnel and those national forces 

in the new independent states.74 The new legislation 

opened the way for Ambassador Goodby and Dr. Duffy 

to negotiate several new CTR implementing agreements 

between the U.S. and Belarus. During 1993, they negotiated 

and signed four new agreements: one on the continuous 

communications link for NAKI, another on establishing 

new industrial partnerships, a third on expanding military 

and defense contacts, and a fourth on the environmental 

restoration of the former SRF missile facilities.75

This latter agreement, the one that specified environmental 

restoration of the SS-25 missile facilities and environmental 

restoration, was placed into a single CTR program category: 

Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination (SOAE). Congressional 

supporters and Defense Department officials had always 

insisted that one of the CTR program’s core objectives was 

to develop and implement cooperative security assistance 

projects with the new nations’ defense and military forces 

that would eliminate those strategic weapons systems being 

reduced by the arms control treaties. A U.S. CTR program 

manager, Captain John Petito, developed this program by 

working with Major General Yevgeny Nikulin and Colonel 

M.Y. Malomedev at the Belarus arms control agency. Belarus 

was obligated under START to eliminate the 81 SS-25 fixedsite launch facilities located on three military bases at Postavy, 

Lida and Mozyr. Elimination meant detonation, blowing 

up the missile launching pads and associated facilities. 

Destroying the launch pads was straightforward. However, 

General Nikulin and Ministry of Defense officials explained 

that the launch facilities held highly toxic SS-25 liquid 

propellants that had to be disposed of before launch pads 

could be destroyed. U.S. Defense Department officials agreed 

and in June 1993, Gloria Duffy signed an implementing 

agreement with the Belarus ministry to assist in eliminating 

the SS-25 launch facilities and toxic liquid propellants. In the 

Pentagon, John Birely, the Nunn-Lugar program manager, 

designated $8 million for destroying the SS-25 launch pads, 

and $8 million for the safe, secure and environmentally 

accurate elimination of the residual SS-25 liquid propellant. 

In June 1996, the CTR program office increased that funding 

by $12.9 million, making the total dedicated to Belarus for 

the Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination projects at $29.8 

million.76

Closely associated with this effort was Project Peace, 

the Congressional initiative to provide U.S. equipment and 

expertise to the Belarus government for the environmental 

restoration of the former SS-25 SRF facilities throughout 

the new nation. The project fell under the Nunn-Lugar 

program. Congress directed that $25 million be set aside 

specifically for this project. In defining the project, Defense 

Department officials had two main objectives. First, they 

wanted to encourage Belarus’ Minister of Defense and other 

ministries to initiate technical discussions on environmental 

restoration of the SRF military facilities. Second, they wanted 

to ensure these military facilities would not be used for future 

rocket forces activities.77 For this program, the U.S.-Belarus 

implementing agreement was signed in late July 1993. The 

following month, Captain Robert Shultz and John Booker of 

the DNA arrived in Minsk for meetings to define requirements 

with Major General Nikulin and defense ministry officials. 

Destruction of SS-25 ICBM launch site

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
57

They began by agreeing on the need for initial environmental 

surveys to establish a baseline for all subsequent work. Next, 

they determined the type of technical assistance that would 

be required for planning, designing and engineering this 

restoration work. The technical experts determined the type 

of equipment – graders, bulldozers, trucks, cranes, drills, 

associated equipment, and on-site training courses required 

for the environmental restoration projects. In 1994, the U.S. 

proposed and Belarus accepted a technical recommendation 

for an analytical chemical laboratory in Belarus to process 

the data and support the cleanup projects. In January 1995 

that laboratory became operational.78

Belarus seeks to divert Nunn-Lugar funds 

and projects

Here were two projects – Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination and Project Peace, which directly assisted Belarus 

with its national commitment to comply with the START 

Treaty and restore the environment at the former missile sites. 

They were quite specific and quite limited. The government of 

Belarus had other treaty commitments, which they asserted, 

were more pressing. Under the Conventional Forces in 

Europe (CFE) Treaty, Belarus had to eliminate 3,758 tanks, 

artillery, armored personnel carriers and combat fighters. 

Between 1992 and 1993, the Belarus defense ministry set up 

CFE Treaty weapons elimination sites at Borisov, Lesnaya, 

Baranvichi and Stankovo. The costs to establish, operate 

and maintain these treaty reductions were considerable and 

consumed a significant portion of the Ministry of Defense’s 

budget. When the national economy collapsed in late 1992, 

Belarus petitioned treaty officials to modify the treaty’s 

elimination protocols. In June 1993, Belarus’ Minister of 

Defense stated his nation was under such financial pressure 

that it could not meet its CFE Treaty obligations. In direct talks 

with the United States, Belarus requested that Nunn-Lugar 

funds be redirected for elimination of conventional weapons. 

Here was an interesting request. Belarus was not requesting 

suspension of its CFE Treaty reductions, nor a reduction in 

its treaty quotas, instead it asked for international financial 

and technical assistance. Belarus officials estimated it would 

cost $33 million to eliminate all its CFE Treaty-required 

conventional weapons.79

U.S. officials refused Belarus’ appeal, probably to avoid 

setting a precedent with Russia, Ukraine and other nations 

that had substantially greater CFE Treaty reduction quotas. 

Nevertheless, Belarus officials persisted in their pleas as 

economic conditions worsened. They suggested that the 25 

other signatory nations establish a voluntary CFE Treaty 

Support Fund. When he visited Minsk in March 1994, 

Secretary of Defense Les Aspin acknowledged Belarus’ 

dilemma, but pointed out that the United States had already 

obligated $70 million in Nunn-Lugar assistance funds for 

the nation.80 There were two immediate consequences to 

the Secretary of Defense’s statement. In Belarus, Alexander 

Lukashenko and his conservative supporters turned 

to strengthening ties with Russia’s leaders, initiating 

negotiations on new bilateral trade agreements, border 

and customs treaties and new military agreements. In the 

United States, program managers accelerated efforts in 1994 

and 1995 to kick off the Nunn-Lugar projects in Belarus.

Just at this point, the Defense Department’s CTR program 

management, including U.S.-Belarus programs, came under 

intense scrutiny. The strategic elimination program was in 

great difficulty. The $29.8 million project for Belarus had 

been designed to provide equipment and services to dispose 

of the toxic SS-25 missile’s liquid propellant and destroy 81 

SS-25 launching pads. However, no money had been spent. 

Why? When U.S. CTR program managers asked: What was 

the composition of the liquid propellant, Belarus officials 

admitted that they did not know the answer. Without 

this information work could not begin. When the Belarus 

government requested the data from the Russian Ministry of 

Defense, it refused to share the information, citing national 

secrecy laws and that the SS-25 missiles were still active 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Belarus Minister of Defense Pavel Kozlovskiy (l.) and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leslie Aspin (c.) sign Nunn-Lugar agreement
58

With Courage and Persistence

and operational within the Russian SRF. Belarus and U.S. 

officials requested that the Russian SRF grant them access to 

the abandoned SS-25 sites. Russian commanders rebuffed 

all requests in 1994 and 1995, declaring that they still had 

operational forces located in Belarus.81

As a result, Captain John Petito, the American program 

manager, tried a different tactic. He invited Belarusian military 

officers, with the approval of the Nunn-Lugar Program 

Office, to Washington where they reviewed catalogues of 

heavy equipment – bulldozers, lifting cranes, concrete 

crushers and earth graders. Once an item was selected, the 

American program officer worked with acquisition experts 

to define the performance specifications to purchase it 

competitively. All government purchases had to be done 

in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulations. 

However, before any equipment could be advertised for 

competitive bidding, the law specified that DOD’s general 

counsel had to certify whether the proposed items met all 

the conditions of congressional appropriation, and the 

department’s comptroller had to certify that funds could be 

transferred from departmental operational accounts. This 

lengthy process took time. Then the Defense Department’s 

CTR Office had to notify Congress about the specific project 

before any funds could be spent. This step took time as 

well. Once all these certifications and approvals were in 

hand, the actual process of acquiring equipment under the 

complex federal acquisition system could begin. That also 

took time – months, if not a year or more to complete. 

Once the equipment was acquired, a separate contract had 

to be issued competitively before the equipment could be 

shipped to Belarus. Delay after delay in the United States 

frustrated everyone, and consequently American credibility 

deteriorated.82

Finally, John Connell, a new program manager at the 

Defense Nuclear Agency for SOAE projects in Belarus, 

Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, persuaded the Defense 

Department’s senior Nunn-Lugar policy officials in 1995 

to issue a competitive contract to an American demolition 

firm to do the work in Belarus. In March 1996, Controlled 

Demolition, Inc. won the contract. However, start of the 

work in Belarus was delayed repeatedly by the Belarusian 

Ministry of Defense.83 For more than a year, the American 

firm was denied access to the former SS-25 missile sites.84 By 

that time, President Alexander Lukashenko had negotiated 

and signed a new treaty binding Belarus and Russia into 

a union, both economically and militarily. Authoritarian, 

nationalistic, anti-western and pro-Russian, Lukashenko’s 

government arrested some European and American 

diplomats and citizens and harassed others to the point 

that the United States and European nations suspended 

diplomatic relations.85 Among the many consequences of 

this break was that the Nunn-Lugar programs in Belarus 

completely collapsed.

Before that happened, however, one U.S.-Belarus project 

showed signs of success. Project Peace, the environmental 

restoration program, delivered some equipment, services and 

training specialists to Belarus. It purchased and sent to Minsk 

a modern, analytical chemical laboratory and it awarded a 

contract to Arthur D. Little, Inc. for remediation planning, 

training and technical assistance. Some remediation work by 

Belarusian firms was done in 1996-1997.86 One analyst of the 

various U.S.-Belarus CTR programs and projects, Vyachaslau 

E. Paznyak, Director of the International Institute for 

Policy Studies in Minsk, concluded that the environmental 

site restoration effort was “one of the more successfully 

implemented programs.”87

Belarus President Alexander G. Lukashenko

RIA Novosti
59

New U.S. initiatives: Military housing and 

Defense conversion

In spite of all the setbacks, Belarus was where one of the 

most innovative cooperative programs began. In the FY1993 

Nunn-Lugar appropriation, Congress approved the Industrial 

Partnering Program, with the objective of helping the new 

states convert and privatize their excess military-industrial 

capacity through financial assistance for new joint business 

ventures. Senators Nunn and Lugar included this program in 

the annual appropriation with the strong encouragement of 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and his deputy, William 

J. Perry. This CTR program encouraged American firms and 

investors to work with enterprises and firms in the weapons 

manufacturing industries to assist them in switching to 

producing civilian consumer products. Given Secretary 

Aspin’s attention, the program office in the Pentagon quickly 

allocated $20 million for new programs in Belarus. Paul 

Boren, one of the most experienced program managers, flew 

to Minsk in the fall 1993 to begin negotiations.88

Following policy guidance, Boren broke the $20 million 

program into two parts: $10 million for new U.S.-Belarus 

joint business ventures, and $10 million for constructing 

new housing units and equipping retraining centers for SRF 

officers being forced into retirement. In the housing area, 

Secretary Aspin and his senior policy officials recognized that 

in the former Soviet Union it had been customary for retiring 

or displaced military officers to receive an apartment from 

the state. While the United States had no obligation to keep 

this commitment, Boren explained that “the idea was that 

[in Belarus] we would provide housing to help demobilize 

them.”89 Consequently, Boren and his team along with a 

small cadre of senior Belarusian Ministry of Defense officials, 

traveled from Minsk to Lida, site of the 49th Guards Missile 

Division and 27th Guards Missile Army. There they discussed 

the situation of Belarusian military men who would be left 

without housing for themselves and their families. There was 

little doubt that the Russian government would not provide 

any housing assistance for these rocket forces stranded in 

western Belarus. Ministry officials estimated that the rocket 

division’s displaced officers would need 600 apartments. 

After evaluating the request, however, U.S. contracting 

officials in Washington projected that the $10 million in 

available funds would finance less than 200 units. In July 

1995, the CTR program office granted a contract to the ABB 

SUSA construction company to build apartments in Foulash, 

Belarus. Over the next 18 months, 127 apartments were 

built. In addition, Boren, as the CTR program manager set 

up and equipped two centers for retraining decommissioned 

rocket forces officers in Lida and Minsk.90

The other half of the $20 million Industrial Partnering 

Program was intended to establish joint Belarus-U.S. business 

ventures. This effort began in the fall 1993 when Boren met 

with Ministry of Defense officials in Minsk. After a series of 

briefings and meetings, the ministry selected and nominated 

three Belarusian firms for the joint venture program: Integral, 

a manufacturer of integrated computer circuits; BELOMO, 

a firm that made night vision devices, range finders and 

satellite components for the Soviet military; and Minsk 

Computer, which had designed and manufactured main 

frame computers for the Soviet Ministry of Defense. Within 

the U.S. the CTR program office had allocated $10 million 

for assistance contracts, if the Belarusian firms paired with an 

American investor or a manufacturing company. However, 

it was unclear just how CTR funds could finance these joint 

ventures. Boren recalls discussing the issue with Bill Moon: 

“I said I have an idea. Let’s take the example of Integral, who 

makes computer chips. We can place a contract with them 

for say $2 million... [and they] will produce computer chips 

of commercial value, and we may provide some necessary 

equipment to make sure that they do commercial value chips 

as opposed to military hardened chips. Then, Integral could 

sell them on the open market.”91 However, in 1993 and 1994 

there were no U.S. firms willing to commit to a 50-percent 

joint venture in Belarus, as required by U.S. law. One reason 

for the reluctance was that the national parliament of 

Belarus had not established the legal structures for foreign 

ownership, or partial ownership, of businesses.

To allay concerns in Washington, Boren recommended 

that the Belarusian enterprise directors travel to Washington 

and discuss their plans with American managers and 

investors. In the Pentagon at every level, reaction to the 

concept of the Defense Department financing joint industrial 

ventures using CTR funds was negative. Boren recalls that “at 

that point it was interesting, because nobody knew what to 

do, and [my concept] was so radical that they said: ‘We’ll 

stick Boren out there, he will do it, and he’ll die, then we 

will step in.’”92 That situation changed fundamentally in 

January 1994, when William J. Perry became the Secretary 

of Defense. In the spring Boren briefed the concept to him; 
60

With Courage and Persistence

Secretary Perry approved it and indicated he wanted to go 

farther, suggesting they set up a revolving defense enterprise 

fund to leverage the profits if any of the joint ventures were 

successful. In 1994, Secretary Perry persuaded Congress 

to add into the CTR legislation an authorization of $40 

million for a new Defense Enterprise Fund, which grew 

to $66.67 million over the next four years.93 During 1994, 

three American firms decided to become joint partners 

with local firms in Belarus. In January 1995, KRAS-CorpIntegral began manufacturing integrated computer chips 

for the Eastern European market. In the same month, the 

other two joint venture firms started production: Byelokorp 

Scientific-BELOMO, which manufactured laser pointers, and 

FSG-Minsk Computer Amalgamation, which made radio 

frequency computer modems and battery chargers.94

In spring of 1995, Secretary of Defense Perry considered 

the Industrial Partnering Program and Defense Enterprise 

Fund a great success. He convened a major international 

conference with the motto, “Building Industrial Partnerships 

in the Former Soviet Union,” in Washington in April 1995.95

Cosponsored by the Department of Defense and the U.S. 

Commerce Department, the conference included Michael 

Jordan, Chairman and CEO of Westinghouse Corporation, 

Ruth Harkin, President of the Overseas Development 

Corporation, Oleg Davidov, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister 

and Harold P. Smith, Jr., Assistant to the Secretary of Defense 

for Atomic Energy. By this time, Secretary Perry regarded the 

CTR effort as the United States Government’s most important 

program with the newly independent states. Perry told the 

250 conference delegates that he had just returned from a 

trip to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan where there was an 

unfolding story of “cooperation” in assisting these nations 

to dismantle their nuclear weapon systems, safely and ahead 

of treaty schedules. Defense conversion, Perry reported, was 

working in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. He explained that the 

U.S. Government’s assistance would be in “finding” potential 

defense conversion projects, “facilitating” any governmentto-government investment and marketing issues, and then 

“financing” the joint ventures. Calling it “seed money” in 

the classical terminology of American venture capitalists, 

Secretary Perry concluded: “We cannot control events in the 

former Soviet Union, but we can influence them.”96

Perry was correct; he could not control events. In Belarus, 

not one of the new joint ventures lasted out in 1995. Belarus’ 

national economy was collapsing, and when the government 

turned pro-Russian and anti-western, all business ventures 

with American firms became suspect. Emboldened by these 

political developments, local enterprises insisted on taking 

possession of the new equipment, which had been purchased 

with CTR and private American funding. According to Boren, 

the enterprise directors wanted to show the Lukashenko 

government that they, not American interests, controlled the 

joint business ventures. Shortly thereafter, all the U.S. firms 

and investors backed out, production and sales declined, and 

one firm even fell into bankruptcy. By the time Belarus and 

Russian leaders signed the Treaty of Union in April 1996, 

the defense conversion projects in Belarus had collapsed. A 

year later, all CTR projects ended when the United States and 

Belarus suspended diplomatic relations.

Evaluating the U.S.-Belarus Nunn-Lugar 

CTR effort

When Belarus agreed to return the 81 SS-25 missiles 

and nuclear warheads to the Russian Federation it became 

a non-nuclear weapons state. U.S. leaders promised Belarus 

CTR assistance, more than $70 million by 1996, to carry out 

Secretary of Defense William J. Perry

DefenseImagery.mil
61

an array of nonproliferation and demilitarization projects: 

emergency response, export controls, material protection, 

control and accounting, continuous communications links, 

military housing, site restoration, and propellant elimination. 

The path from promises to projects, however, was beset by 

difficulties. Congress included numerous conditions in the 

basic legislation; Department of Defense officials adhered 

to onerous legal and acquisition requirements; and U.S.-

Belarus CTR policy negotiations were often protracted, with 

layers of bureaucracy requiring approval before assenting to 

the basic implementing agreements. As a result, U.S. CTR 

program managers found they could not define, develop and 

deliver on all the numerous American promises, no matter 

how many trips to Minsk or how many joint meetings in 

Washington.

Viewed from Belarus, American promises had many 

flaws. As a fledgling nation, Belarus had enormous post-Cold 

War economic, industrial and social issues, yet American 

assistance projects seemed to be focused almost exclusively 

on denuclearization and nonproliferation. In the first years 

after independence, Belarusian officials anticipated receiving 

large-scale economic and social welfare aid from the United 

States. Instead, when American CTR policy and program 

managers flew into Minsk they brought with them proposals 

for projects that were quite limited and rather specific. The 

limited nature of U.S. interest became painfully obvious to 

the Belarusian government when in the mid-1990s the U.S. 

was unresponsive to its request for assistance to fulfill its 

obligations under the CFE Treaty.

When Belarusian ministers asked why CTR program 

managers insisted on exclusively using U.S. contractors 

and purchasing U.S. equipment, American officials pointed 

to Congress and its legislative intent. When military 

commanders requested 600 housing units for displaced 

strategic rocket officers, the U.S. CTR program manager 

could only fund and construct one third of the requirement. 

Perhaps the greatest difficulties of all, however, were the 

frequent and incessant delays in the United States as program 

managers worked to identify, acquire, receive and ship the 

American-made equipment and materials to Belarus. Within 

the Belarusian government there were some officials who saw 

that American assistance could be useful in developing their 

nation’s nonproliferation and demilitarization programs. 

However, opponents in Belarus outnumbered proponents of 

these programs.

The 1994 election of Alexander Lukashenko as 

president of Belarus accelerated the downward spiral. The 

Lukashenko government turned away from engagement 

with Western nations and began forging renewed political, 

economic and military ties with Russia and the other 

newly independent states. Authoritarian and pro-Russian, 

the Lukashenko government developed a foreign policy 

hostile toward the United States and Europe. In 1997, 

diplomatic relations ruptured and the United States and 

European nations withdrew their ambassadors. The 

forces compelling this diplomatic estrangement were 

personal, given President Lukashenko’s view of Western 

nations. Domestically, there was a strong desire to return 

to a command economy. Regionally, many wished to 

reestablish pro-Russian relations. These forces were far 

greater than the questions concerning effectiveness of the 

small American CTR nonproliferation, demilitarization 

and defense conversion projects. In consequence, those 

projects were swept up and discarded like numerous other 

western post-Cold War initiatives.

Although it was not recognized at the time due to the 

pressures of developing projects in other nations, Belarus 

was an important testing ground for how Nunn-Lugar 

would work with the newly independent states. As noted 

previously, the nonproliferation and demilitarization 

assistance programs offered to Belarus were quite limited 

and very specific. It became clear that Nunn-Lugar funds 

would not become an American defense assistance program 

supporting the governments of the new states; a fact that 

U.S. program managers learned quickly while discussing, 

defining and defending Nunn-Lugar projects in Minsk with 

the ministers, military commanders and senior officials of 

the Belarus government. Another important outcome of the 

Belarus experience was that virtually all the American officials 

who developed and managed Nunn-Lugar projects there – 

Boren, Moon, Booker, Petito, Connell, and others, would 

in subsequent years manage CTR projects and programs in 

other locations across Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In 

Belarus these managers learned that working with the new 

government, its defense and energy ministries, and its military 

forces required presence, patience and persistence. There was 

an intricate dynamic between the program’s scope, the new 

government’s expectations, the Defense Department’s rules 

and regulations, and the U.S. Congress. That dynamic had to 

be learned in the field.
62

With Courage and Persistence

Endnotes

1

 William E. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Union, (New 

Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 376-377.

2

 Ibid.

3

 Shannon Kile, “Chronology of Conflict Developments in 

Former USSR,” in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 

(SIPRI) Yearbook 1992: World Armaments and Disarmament, (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 160-163. According to 

Paul D’Anieri, “Ukrainian Defense Policy and the Transformation 

of the Armed Forces,” in D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and Kuzio, Politics and 

Society in Ukraine, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 233-261; 

Ukraine’s new leaders sought establish an independent Ukrainian 

military as one of the “essential and undeniable” markers of the 

new Ukrainian state.

4

 Odom, Collapse of the Soviet Military, pp. 383-385. To separate 

out the Soviet Military Forces on Ukrainian territory, Marshal 

Shaposhnikov issued an order on 3 January 1992 transferring the 

authority to command the conventional forces to the Ukrainian 

state. Within a week, President Kravchuk and General Konstantine 

Morozov, Minister of Defense, issued the Ukrainian oath of 

allegiance to the senior officers. When the senior officers in three 

military districts refused to take the oath, Kravchuk fired them.

5

 Kostiantyn P. Morozov, Above and Beyond: From Soviet General 

to Ukrainian State Builder, (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2000), 

Appendix 11, pp. 256-257.

6

 Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko, News Conference, Kiev, 

Ukraine, 14 April 1992, cited in Arms Control Reporter, 611.B.728.

7

 On 5 April 1992, President Kravchuk signed a decree, “About 

Urgent Measures on the Structuring of the Ukrainian Armed 

Forces.” All military formations located on Ukrainian territory 

were subordinated to the Ukraine Ministry of Defense. For the 

strategic nuclear forces, this decree stipulated that the Ukrainian 

MOD would have “administrative” control. See, ITAR-TASS, 6 

April 1992. Cited in chapter, “Ukrainian Defense Policy and the 

Transformation of the Armed Forces,” in D’Anieri, Kravchuk, and 

Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 238-239. Also, Mitchell 

Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear 

Ambitions, (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 

1995), pp. 105-106.

8

 Joseph P. Harahan and John C. Kuhn, On-Site Inspections 

Under the CFE Treaty: A History of the On-Site Inspection Agency and 

CFE Treaty Implementation, 1990-1996, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site 

Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 1996), pp. 85-89. 

Jane M. O. Sharp, “Conventional Armed Forces in Europe” in SIPRI 

Yearbook 1992, pp. 591-634.

9

 Odom, Collapse of the Soviet Military, pp. 384-385. Harahan 

and Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty, pp. 88-90. 

Sharp, “Conventional Armed Forces in Europe,” in SIPRI Yearbook 

1992, pp. 602-634.

10 Odom, Collapse of the Soviet Military, pp. 386-387.

11 For the location and identification of these forces of 

the former-Soviet Union see, Rodney W. Jones and Mark G. 

McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and 

Charts, 1998, (Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, 1998), pp. 25-48, 71-101.

12 Quote from Gen. Pyankov cited in ITAR-TASS, 3 July 1992, in 

FBIS-SOV-1992, 6 July 1992.

13 Interview with Yevgeny Zherebenkov, Moscow Radio Rossi, 

3 July 1992, cited in FBIS-SOV 1992, 7 July 1992. See also, John 

W.R. Lepingwell, “Ukraine, Russia, and the Control of Nuclear 

Weapons,” RFL/RL Research Report, vol. 3, no. 8 (19 February 1994), 

pp. 12-13.

14 Mykhtyuk, V.A., General-Lieutenant, Commander 43rd Rocket 

Army, “Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” located 

at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Chapter 1, p. 20. Reiss, 

Bridled Ambition, pp. 105-106.

15 Interfax, 6 July 1992, in FBIS-SOV 1992, 7 July 1992.

16 Pavel Felgenhauer, Moscow Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 8 October 

1992, cited in FBIS-SOV 1992, 8 October 1992.

17 Quote cited in ITAR-TASS, 16 October 1992, in FBIS-SOV 

1992, 19 October 1992.

18 Interfax, Moscow, 4 November 1992. “Deputy Defense 

Minister Details Costs,” FBIS-SOV 1992, 5 November 1992. Fred 

Hiatt, “Russian Legislature Ratifies START Pact; Further Arms Cuts 

Seen Facing Tougher Road,” Washington Post, 5 November 1992.

19 Lepingwell, “Ukraine, Russia, and the Control of Nuclear 

Weapons,” RFL/RL Research Report, vol. 3, no. 8 (19 February 1994), 

pp. 4-20.

20 Press Release, Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United 

Nations, 12 November 1992.

21 Dunbar Lockwood, “Nuclear Arms Control,” in SIPRI 

Yearbook 1992, pp. 554-560.

22 Douglas L. Clarke, “The Impact of START-2 on the Russian 

Strategic Forces,” RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 2, no. 8 (19 February 

1993), pp. 65-70.

23 Mikhail Alexandrov, Uneasy Alliance: Relations Between 

Russia and Kazakhstan in the Post-Soviet Era, 1992-1997, (Westport: 

Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 204.

24 Agreement published in Interfax, 26 October 1992.

25 Gunnar O. Arbman and Charles L. Thornton, “Russia’s 

Tactical Nuclear Weapons Part I: Background and Policy Issues,” 

FOI Report, Part I, (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency, 

2003), pp. 18-19. See also, Joshua Handler, “The September 1991 

Presidential Nuclear Initiatives and the Elimination, Storing and 

Security Aspects of Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” in Tactical Nuclear 

Weapons: Time for Control, (September 2002).

26 Arbman and Thornton, “Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 

FOI Report, Part I, p. 19.

27 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military 

Balance, 1995-1996, pp. 113-114.

28 Mykhtyuk, V.A., General-Lieutenant, Commander 43rd Rocket 

Army, “Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” located 

at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

29 Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar, 

Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Washington, 

D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), p. 317.
63

30 Ibid, pp. 317-320.

31 “Belarusian Supreme Council Ratified Start and the NPT,” 

in Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B.775. See also, Reiss, Bridled 

Ambition, p. 133.

32 Vyachaslau E. Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment: 

The Case of Belarus,” in John M. Shields and William C. Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the 

Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 152-167.

33 Agreement Between the United States of America and the 

Republic of Belarus Concerning Emergency Response and the 

Prevention of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 22 

October 1992, Washington, D.C.

34 See, Agreement Between the United States of America and 

the Republic of Belarus Concerning Emergency Response and the 

Prevention of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 22 

October 1992. Agreement Between the United States of America 

and the Republic of Belarus Concerning the Provision of Assistance 

Related to the Establishment of Export Control Systems to Prevent 

the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction for the Republic 

of Belarus, 22 October 1992. Agreement Between the United States 

of America and the Republic of Belarus Concerning the Provision 

of Emergency Response Equipment and Related Training in 

Connection with the Removal of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear 

Weapons Delivery Systems from the Republic of Belarus, 22 

October 1992. Agreement Between the United States of America 

and the Republic of Belarus Concerning the Provision of Materials 

and Service for the Establishment of a Continuous Communication 

Link, 15 January 1993.

35 Initially the U.S. State Department used the term, Safe, 

Secure, and Dismantlement (SSD) Talks to convey the diplomatic 

level of the bilateral negotiations with Russia and the other 

nations. In 1993, the Secretary of Defense for Policy began using 

the term Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) to emphasize the 

programming aspects. In the FY1993 appropriation bill, Congress 

adopted the term Cooperative Threat Reduction. Henceforth, CTR 

became the standard term covering all aspects of the Nunn-Lugar 

programs.

36 ITAR TASS, 4 February 1993, in FBIS-SOV, 5 February 1993. 

Also see, Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B775.

37 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 129-138.

38 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B.813.

39 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 136.

40 “Belarus Receives Two Benefits for Ratifying Start and the 

NPT,” Arms Control Reporter 1993, p. 611.B 748.

41 Fact Sheet, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Public Affairs, “Signing of Agreements Between the U.S. 

Department of Defense and the Belarus Ministry of Defense,” 

22 July 1993. The $55 million in assistance was part of the $65 

million announced by Secretary Christopher in March 1993.

42 “Clinton Promised Belarus $25 Million in Additional Aid,” 

15 January 1994 cited in Arms Control Reporter-1994, p. 611.B 196.

43 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, p. 72.

44 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 135.

45 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 136.

46 For analysis and context see, Gloria Duffy, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction in Perspective,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 23-39. To reference the specific 

legislative bill see, U.S. Congress, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Act of 1993,” Section 1202.

47 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000.

48 According to Boren, there was some opposition to taking on 

this new mission.

49 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000.

50 Theodor Galdi, et al., The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program for Soviet Weapons Dismantlement: Background and 

Implementation, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 

1994).

51 For these basic terms see, Agreement Between the United 

States of America and the Republic of Belarus Concerning 

Emergency Response and the Prevention of Proliferation of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction, 22 October 1992, Washington, D.C.

52 Amy F. Woolf, Nuclear Weapons in the Former Soviet Union: 

Location, Command, and Control, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional 

Research Service, 1997).

53 Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means, The Politics of US-NIS 

Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, (Westport: Praeger, 

2001), pp. 77-84.

54 Briefing, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,” Dr. John 

H. Birely, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic 

Energy, 10 November 1993.

55 Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997), pp. 171-172.

56 Briefing, Colonel Bob Dickey, “Nunn-Lugar Program 

Elements: Belarus,” Defense Nuclear Agency, January 1994.

57 Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997) pp. 171-172.

58 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 26 May 

2000.

59 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, pp. 

71-72. Also see, Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997) pp. 167-

192.

60 Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997) pp. 167-175.

61 Briefing, Colonel Bob Dickey, “Nunn-Lugar Program 

Elements: Belarus,” Defense Nuclear Agency, January 1994. 

Interview, Colonel Bob Dickey, Deputy Chief, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

26 May 2000.

62 Briefing, Colonel Bob Dickey, “Nunn-Lugar Program 

Elements: Belarus”, Defense Nuclear Agency, January, 1994. 
64

With Courage and Persistence

Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997) pp. 167-175.

63 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 26 May 

2000.

64 Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” pp. 178-181. 

See also, Woolf, Nuclear Weapons in the Former Soviet Union, pp. 

14-15.

65 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 26 May 

2000. Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War (1997) pp. 188-189.

66 Jessica Eve Stern, “Cooperative Activities to Improve Fissile 

Material production, Control, and Accounting,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 309-343.

67 Agreement Between the United States of America and the 

Republic of Belarus Concerning Emergency Response and the 

Prevention of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 22 

October 1992. (Umbrella Agreement).

68 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, pp. 

71-73.

69 Report, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Nuclear 

Successor States of the Soviet Union, no. 4 (May 1996), pp. 5, 31.

70 Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, pp. 

71-73.

71 See U.S. Department of Defense, “Second Semi-Annual 

Report on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction 

and Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” submitted in 

accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Act, 30 September 1995. The specific implementing agreement 

was “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the United 

States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic 

of Belarus Concerning Control, Accounting, and the Physical 

Protection of Nuclear Material to Promote the Prevention of 

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” 23 June 1995.

72 Stern, “Cooperative Activities to Improve Fissile Material 

Production, Control, and Accounting,” in Shields and Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 309-343. See also the Belarus 

section in the Department of Defense, “Second Semi-Annual 

Report on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction 

and Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” submitted to 

Congress under Section 1207, Cooperative Threat Reduction Act, 30 

September 1995.

73 Stern, “Cooperative Activities to Improve Fissile Material 

Production, Control, and Accounting,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, p. 330. Report, Monterey Institute of 

International Studies, Nuclear Successor States of the Soviet Union, 

no. 4 (May 1996), pp. 5, 31. Also, Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program 

Assessment,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, 

pp. 187-188.

74 Department of Defense, “Quarterly Report on Program 

Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation 

in the Former Soviet Union,” submitted to Congress, 20 September 

1993. This report describes to new and continuing projects for 

environmental restoration, for demilitarization of former Strategic 

Rocket Forces’ bases, and the elimination of fixed structures at SS25 ICBM bases in Belarus.

75 Ibid. See also, Department of Defense, “First FY1995 

Semi-Annual Report on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons 

Destruction and Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” 

submitted in accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Act, 31 March 1995.

76 Briefing, DoD, CTR Program Office, “CTR Agreed Program 

with Belarus, 1992-1997,” 20 May 1997. Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar 

Program Assessment,” pp.178-180.

77 Department of Defense, “First FY1995 Semi-Annual Report 

on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and 

Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” submitted in 

accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Act, 31 March 1995. See also, Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program 

Integration Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 26 May 2000.

78 The details of this project are described in the Department of 

Defense, “First FY1996 Semi-Annual Report on Program Activities 

to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation in the 

Former Soviet Union,” 31 March 1996, submitted in accordance 

with Section 1207 of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act, Section 

V-8.

79 Harahan and Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty, 

pp. 239-240.

80 Arms Control Reporter 1994, pp. 407.B.505-507.

81 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000. Interview with Jim Reid, Director, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, with 

Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 1 May 2000. Interview, 

Ambassador James Goodby, U.S. Ambassador for the Safe, Secure, 

and Dismantlement Talks, 1993-1994, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Department of Defense, 14 March 2005.

82 Interview, Mr. John Connell, Chief, Strategic Nuclear Arms 

Elimination Division, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Department 

of Defense, Washington, D.C., 16 February 2001. See also, 

Department of Defense, “Second-Half FY1996 Semi-Annual Report 

on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and 

Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” 30 September 1996, 

submitted in accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Act, Section V-10-V-11.

83 Ibid.

84 In March 1994, Belarus signed a five year agreement with 

the Russian Federation on planning and coordinating military 

activities. In February 1995, the two governments signed a treaty of 

friendship and cooperation, which specific aspects of the agreement 

devoted to open borders between the nations. See, SIPRI Yearbook 

1995, p. 782.

85 See, Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, 

Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569 -1999, (New Haven: Yale 

University Press, 2003), pp. 278-284.
65

86 See Department of Defense, “First-Half FY1997 Semi-Annual 

Report on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and 

Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” 31 March 1997, 

submitted in accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Act, Section V-10-V-11. The U.S. State Department 

did not recertify Belarus to receive U.S. CTR assistance in early 

1997; consequently there were no new or continuing projects after 

17 February 1997.

87 Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 181.

88 For program description and activity see, Department of 

Defense, “First-Half FY1996 Semi-Annual Report on Program 

Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation 

in the Former Soviet Union,” 31 March 1996, submitted in 

accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Act, Section V-13-V-14.

89 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000.

90 Ibid. Paznyak, “Nunn-Lugar Program Assessment,” p. 181.

91 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000.

92 Ibid.

93 Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 38-39, 182-183.

94 See, Department of Defense, “First-Half FY1996 Semi-Annual 

Report on Program Activities to Facilitate Weapons Destruction and 

Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union,” 31 March 1996, 

submitted in accordance with Section 1207 of the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Act, Section V-13-V-14. See also, Paznyak, “NunnLugar Program Assessment,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 181-183.

95 Proceedings, Building Industrial Partnerships in the Former 

Soviet Union, Conference Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 

Washington, D.C., April 19, 1995

96 Dr. William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense, “Keynote Address,” 

in Proceedings: Building Industrial Partnerships in the Former Soviet 

Union, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, April 19, 1995, pp. 

21-25.

67

CHAPTER 4

Securing Russia’s Nuclear and Chemical 

Weapons Arsenals: Treaties, Agreements, and 

Nunn-Lugar Assistance, 1992-1995

If Belarus was sending out nuclear weapons and 

warheads, Russia was taking them in. The swift collapse of 

the Soviet Union in late 1991 and rapid establishment of 

the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Armed 

Forces obscured what was really going on across the region. 

Independence and the devolution of nuclear forces and 

weapons created an entirely new set of issues for Russian 

leaders and senior military officers. Suddenly, the Russian 

General Staff was forced into a situation that one senior 

general characterized as “massive restructuring” of Russian 

nuclear forces.1

 In fact, the restructuring had begun even 

before independence. Between 1989 and 1991 the Soviet 

General Staff had planned and carried out massive military 

redeployment operations that moved via rail and truck 

thousands of tactical nuclear warheads from Eastern 

European nations and the Soviet republics to central nuclear 

storage depots in Russia. Nuclear weapons specialists from 

the General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate had traveled to all 

the republics and supervised removal and transport of more 

than 5,600 tactical nuclear warheads. These redeployment 

operations were continuing when the Soviet Union collapsed. 

Specifically, Soviet/Russian military officers secured and 

transported 2,345 tactical nuclear warheads from Ukraine, 

1,180 from Belarus, 330 from Kazakhstan, 325 out of 

Lithuania, 185 from Latvia, 200 out of Estonia, 125 from 

Turkmenistan, 105 from Uzbekistan, 90 out of Moldova, 

320 from Georgia, 200 from Armenia, and approximately 75 

warheads each from Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.2

However, the mission of securing, transporting and 

safely storing these nuclear warheads was only one part of 

the Russian Defense Ministry and General Staff’s new set 

of responsibilities in 1992 and 1993. They also organized 

and conducted massive troop movements, returning Soviet/

Russian military forces from Central European, Baltic and 

other nations to the Russian Federation. During 1992, the 

General Staff planned and carried out the movement to 

Russia of 15 army divisions, with 100,000 troops, 2,000 

tanks, 23 artillery, rocket and air defense brigades, and 36 

fighter and helicopter companies.3

 The following year, they 

organized an even larger withdrawal of military forces into 

Russia: 117,900 military officers and men, 52,100 pieces 

of combat equipment and 826,000 tons of supplies.4

 At 

the same time, the General Staff ordered military units 

throughout the Russian army to prepare to implement the 

new 26-nation Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) 

Treaty.5

 Before this major multinational treaty could go into 

effect, the Soviet Union’s 3.7 million conventional military 

forces had to be divided among the 15 newly independent 

states. The Russian General Staff developed a detailed plan 

for partitioning all the stationed forces across the former 

Soviet Union.

In May 1992, Russian Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev 

explained to the new nations’ defense ministers who were 

meeting in Tashkent how the partition of forces would work. 

Quickly, the ministers endorsed Gravchev’ plan, and within 

a matter of weeks CFE Treaty negotiators had established 

national reduction quotas for each of the new nations, 

including Russia. When the CFE Treaty entered into force 

in July 1992, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) and 

General Staff had established elimination centers across 
68

With Courage and Persistence

Russia for liquidating thousands of military tanks, artillery 

pieces, armored carrier vehicles, tactical fighters and attack 

helicopters. At the same time, foreign inspection teams 

started arriving in Russia to carry out inspections of the 

army’s conventional military units.6

Few western observers appreciated that when the Soviet 

Union collapsed in December 1991, there was no prior 

military planning, no negotiations on partitioning military 

forces, no agreements on strategic weapons and warheads, 

and no treaties between the new nations. The intercontinental 

ballistic missiles (ICBM), long-range bombers, submarines, 

conventional, strategic, air defense and interior forces were 

left on the battlefield of the Cold War.7

Post-Cold War generals emerge 

Colonel General Yevgeny Maslin commanded the 

General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate, a large and secret 

directorate with the mission of securing and controlling 

nuclear weapons and munitions, receiving nuclear weapons 

and components from laboratories, testing arming and 

safety mechanisms, and delivering operationally ready 

weapons to military commands in the field. Working closely 

with all branches of the armed services, specifically with the 

Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), nuclear navy, and long-range 

bomber forces, the 12th Main Directorate’s 30,000 officers 

and technical specialists traveled out to the operational 

commands and conducted safety and security inspections of 

the nuclear devices, components and fissile materials. They 

were responsible for storing and guarding excess weapons 

in centralized national nuclear storage facilities. General 

Maslin’s directorate was also responsible for verification and 

accountability of the location, condition and movement of 

every nuclear warhead during its service life.8

 From 1991 to 

1993, the 12th Main Directorate was extraordinarily active. 

General Maslin recalled that “the immediate result of the 

Soviet Union’s disintegration was to place thousands of 

tactical and strategic nuclear weapons in the hands of 

suddenly independent states. Russia immediately undertook 

urgent measures to ensure operational control over formerly 

Soviet tactical nuclear warheads...by transporting the 

weapons back to Russian territory. The return to Russia of 

several thousand tactical nuclear weapons was a central 

measure to prevent possible theft and proliferation, and was 

completed by May 1992.”9

Another Russian General Staff officer who was extremely 

active was Lieutenant General Vladimir I. Medvedev. He 

directed the Russian Federation’s Nuclear Risk Reduction 

Center, the organization responsible for implementing the 

new nation’s arms control treaty commitments. Positioned 

on the General Staff, General Medvedev and the center’s 

arms control officers had worked with hundreds, indeed 

Nunn Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction projects in Russia, 1995

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
69

thousands of U.S. treaty inspectors monitoring compliance 

with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty 

from 1988 to 1991.10 Working in 10-man teams, these 

American inspectors traveled across the former Soviet Union 

to inspect 114 INF nuclear missile sites and to observe the 

dismantlement and destruction of nearly 1,850 Soviet/

Russian intermediate-range missiles.

An American officer, Major General Roland Lajoie, led the 

United States’ inspectorate, the On-Site Inspection Agency 

(OSIA). In the 1980s, Lajoie commanded the U.S. Military 

Liaison Mission in Berlin, and served as the U.S. Army 

Attaché to the Soviet Union and the U.S. Defense Attaché 

to France. He was fluent in Russian and French. As chief 

of the American inspectorate, the general flew to Moscow 

frequently. He met with General Medvedev and together they 

traveled out to remote Soviet missile elimination sites. Later, 

in the mid-1990s, Lajoie would lead the Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program Office.

Before the Soviet Union collapsed, General Medvedev 

and his senior staff officers had traveled to Vienna, Austria 

where they served on diplomatic negotiating teams drafting 

the complex inspection and escort protocols for the CFE 

Treaty. In the 1990s, Medvedev recruited, trained and 

commanded a large cadre of Soviet/Russian inspectors 

and escorts who would monitor this multinational treaty. 

He traveled extensively to the United States and Western 

Europe, inspecting military bases and treaty sites. From 

the beginning of the new nation, Medvedev was a strong 

supporter of the Russian government’s policy of complying 

with multinational arms control treaties. Later, he supported 

accepting Nunn-Lugar assistance within key ministries 

of the Russian government and General Staff.11 Both of 

these generals, Medvedev and Lajoie, had extensive treaty 

inspection experience, language skills and personal contacts 

with many general officers serving in Russia, Europe and 

the United States. That experience would prove invaluable 

in defining and resolving issues in the various Nunn-Lugar 

assistance programs and projects.12

In 1992, Yeltsin’s government embraced all of the arms 

control treaties where arms reductions were reciprocal, 

scheduled and verifiable. Yeltsin and his senior ministers 

signaled in its initial weeks that the Russian Federation 

would remain a party to all existing treaties – INF, CFE and 

START I, and that they would support new treaties, then in 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Major General Roland Lajoie Lieutenant General Vladimir I. Medvedev National Archives - Still Picture Branch
70

With Courage and Persistence

negotiations. Acting quickly, Yeltsin signed the Open Skies 

Treaty (April 1992), the START II negotiating agreement 

(June 1992), and the START II Treaty (January 1993). Then 

in late January 1993, the Russian foreign minister signed 

the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Treaty in Paris. 

Each of these new treaties, except the aerial monitoring 

treaty, required the Russian General Staff to plan for 

and implement the decommissioning, transporting, 

dismantling and elimination of thousands of strategic and 

conventional weapons and thousands of tons of chemical 

weapons.13 These requirements were new ones; they were 

post-Cold War and post-Soviet Union issues for the Russian 

military and government.

In addition, the Russian General Staff worked on 

resolving the issue of “nuclear succession” of the new 

states. In April 1993, Yeltsin declared that the Russian 

government’s principal foreign policy objective was to 

become the sole nuclear weapons successor state to the 

Soviet Union. If diplomatic and military negotiations 

were successful, it meant the General Staff had to be 

ready to secure and transport thousands of strategic 

nuclear warheads from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine 

to Russian military nuclear security depots.14 The man 

responsible for this mission, General Maslin, described the 

new strategic situation as a particularly “vexing” problem 

for military planners. “Arms reduction, nuclear security 

and nonproliferation efforts are,” Maslin concluded, “by 

their nature, closely linked.”...15 Since these three areas fit 

with American Nunn-Lugar initiatives in 1991-1993, they 

became starting points in negotiating specific programs 

and projects.

Russian Ministers and People’s Deputies 

consider U.S. Nunn-Lugar assistance 

In the months immediately following the Soviet Union’s 

collapse, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, his deputy, 

Reginald Bartholomew, and General William Burns, then 

Special Envoy to the Safety, Security and Dismantlement of 

Nuclear Weapons Committee traveled to Moscow frequently. 

They met with President Yeltsin, Foreign Minister Kozyrev, 

Marshal Shaposhnikov and other senior officials to discuss 

Russian independence, nuclear issues and security assistance. 

Empathetic, especially concerning nuclear issues, these senior 

American diplomats and the technical delegation focused on 

defining a series of cooperative and bilateral security projects. 

Throughout the negotiations, it was assumed that NunnLugar funds would finance these programs. In early 1992, 

first Bartholomew, then Burns met with Victor N. Mikhailov, 

Minister of Atomic Energy.16

Mikhailov had close ties to President Yeltsin and he 

led the Russian Federation’s team in negotiating terms for 

accepting and using Nunn-Lugar assistance. Mikhailov held 

a doctorate of technical science and was a member of the 

Russian Academy of Sciences. He had served as the scientific 

director of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of 

Experimental Physics before being selected as director of the 

Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom) in 1992. A powerful 

figure, Professor Mikhailov combined a reputation as a 

leading nuclear physicist with the authority of directing one 

of Moscow’s power ministries and a xenophobic attitude 

toward the United States. A strident Russian nationalist, 

he was both a difficult person and the leading negotiator. 

Serving with him on the Russian Federation’s negotiating 

team were representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs 

and Defense as well as the General Staff.17

Following negotiations in the spring, Mikhailov traveled 

to Washington for the Yeltsin-Bush summit meeting in 

June 1992. There, the two presidents signed the first U.S.-

Russian Federation framework agreement for Nunn-Lugar 

assistance. It authorized assistance programs in three broad 

areas: safe and secure transportation; storage and destruction 

of nuclear, chemical and other weapons; and proliferation 

prevention. 18 This presidential agreement served as the legal 

basis for all the U.S.-Russian Nunn-Lugar/CTR programs for 

the next seven years. At the same summit, senior Russian 

and American officials initialed three new Nunn-Lugar 

Colonel General Yevgeny 

Maslin

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
71

implementing agreements, setting terms and dates for the 

U.S. to purchase and deliver armored blankets, emergency 

response equipment and fissile materials containers to Russia. 

All these agreements were between the U.S. Department of 

Defense and the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Atomic 

Energy. In July, August and October, additional Nunn-Lugar 

technical agreements were signed covering specific terms 

for American assistance in destroying Russia’s chemical 

weapons, providing conversion kits for special nuclear 

weapons railcars and designing a large modern nuclear 

weapons storage facility.19

Immediately after the June summit, parliamentary 

committees in the Congress of People’s Deputies in Moscow 

examined the new U.S.-Russian framework agreements. Since 

negotiations had been conducted in secret, the deputies had 

questions about why the Yeltsin government had excluded 

them. They also questioned what specific American conditions 

the Russian government would be forced to accept to get 

the security assistance. They had questions about the type 

of American equipment being offered. For instance, would 

American officials be given access to Russia’s secret nuclear 

facilities, and what was the status of the Russian government’s 

programs for securing and safeguarding secret technologies 

used in the dismantlement processes?20

As Yeltsin’s chief negotiator, Mikhailov testified before 

the Russian Congress’ Committee on International Affairs. 

He explained that the U.S. Congress had authorized $400 

million in assistance to Russia for the reduction and 

dismantling of nuclear weapons, and asserted that during 

negotiations he had rejected categorically several U.S. 

demands. First, Russia would not allow any monitoring of its 

military and scientific research programs, nor would it allow 

American inspectors to examine any programs that were 

developing modern, prototype weapons. Russia, he asserted, 

would not meet the U.S. Congress’ demands for assurances 

that work was being done strictly for defensive purposes, nor 

would the Russian government allow the U.S. to monitor any 

stage of its nuclear weapons dismantlement. President Bush 

and his administration, Mikhailov declared, were told that 

these conditions were under “no circumstances” acceptable 

to the Russian government. The new agreements, he assured 

the parliamentarians, had been examined by the ministers 

of four Russian government agencies: Ministry of Atomic 

Energy, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 

Ministry of Security. He explained that all issues connected 

with nuclear materials and nuclear weapons technologies 

were kept secret, and that there was no information on this 

issue exchanged from either side.21

The committee chairman, Yevgeny Ambartsumov asked: 

“Is this an act of pure altruism by the United States?” Another, 

Mikhail Astafiev, Deputy for the Dzerzhinsky Electoral 

District in Moscow, questioned American motives in giving 

financial and materiel assistance and then asking for access 

to secret facilities and nuclear technologies.22 Mikhailov, like 

Yeltsin, was a blunt and forceful man. “I have waited for this 

question,” he replied. “Why is it is the interest of the United 

States? After all, it is $400 million...What’s really going 

on here? Why did they make this offer? It’s a reasonable 

question...I’ll tell you: for two reasons.”23 First, he said, 

that under the present conditions in Russia there was a fear 

among senior officials that there could be an accident during 

transport, disassembly and storage of nuclear weapons. 

An accident would be regarded as a “local” event, but he 

thought it could lead to serious consequences throughout 

Russia. Second, the minister explained that Bush and Yeltsin 

signed the new arms reduction treaties and had publicly 

announced unilateral presidential decrees that would further 

reduce their nation’s strategic nuclear weapons systems. 

Mikhailov declared that without a doubt the United States 

would carry through on these new agreements, which meant 

it would deactivate and disassemble its nuclear weapons and 

warheads on schedule, and in accordance with international 

treaties and the presidential declarations.

“We thought,” Mikhailov explained,” that if we don’t 

succeed in providing safe and secure transport and storage 

of nuclear materials, [then] we will be forced to halt 

disassembly.” He determined that dismantling the weapons 

could not proceed “unless you have the necessary conditions 

– both safety and security.”24 As the hearings ended, Foreign 

Affairs Committee chairman Ambartsumov concluded that 

the United States was acting with “reasonable self-interest” in 

putting forth the nonproliferation and cooperative security 

initiatives.25 In those years, Russian governing officials were 

pro-Western, although many skeptics continued to question 

U.S. motives and objectives.

In the fall 1992, the Congress of People’s Deputies Defense 

Committee conducted new hearings. They recommended the 

Russian parliament ratify the START Treaty, but with several 

conditions that would have to be met before the Russian 

government would implement the treaty. Belarus, Ukraine 
72

With Courage and Persistence

and Kazakhstan would have to ratify the START Treaty, Lisbon 

Protocols, and sign and ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 

(NPT) Treaty before Russia would implement the START 

Treaty. In doing so, these nations would have to acknowledge 

that Russia was the sole nuclear successor state to the Soviet 

Union. With these explicit conditions, the Duma debated 

and ratified START treaty 157 to 1.26 The Defense Committee 

also held hearings on the U.S.-Russian framework/umbrella 

agreement and implementing agreements on the NunnLugar security assistance initiatives. Minister of Atomic 

Energy Mikhailov, and Foreign Minister Kozarev reviewed 

the American cooperative security offer and testified on the 

Yeltsin government’s interpretation of the agreements. They 

assured the parliamentarians once again that the Americans 

would not have access to sensitive Russian military sites. 

Further, MinAtom’s technicians and security experts would be 

responsible for inspecting all equipment entering and leaving 

Russia under the agreements. Despite these assurances, some 

of the Congress’ parliamentarians were incredulous that the 

Russian government would accept any security assistance 

from its former enemy. One skeptic remarked that the “only 

place to find free cheese is a mouse trap.”27

Despite this sentiment, Defense Committee members 

and a majority in the Duma recommended the government 

accept this American security assistance program. According 

to Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Defense 

Committee, Russia’s START Treaty elimination requirements 

were not the major factor in considering whether to accept 

or reject the American Nunn-Lugar funds.28 Instead, Arbatov 

thought two other issues were persuasive. First, there was 

the rationale of using the security assistance to ensure 

physical security and nonproliferation of nuclear warheads 

and weapons traversing Russia. Each year, the General Staff 

had to transport thousands of nuclear warheads across the 

nation. Even more important, according to Arbatov, was that 

Senators Nunn and Lugar had publicly declared in 1992 and 

again in 1993 that there would be dismantlement assistance 

for the governments of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan 

if they signed and ratified the arms control treaties. Since 

Russia’s dominant national security goal was to secure the 

return of all nuclear warheads and weapons from these 

nations, Arbatov thought the Russian government would 

support any foreign assistance program, like Nunn-Lugar, 

that would help it achieve its larger strategic objective.29

Congress of People’s Deputies, Russian Federation

FOTOBANK.ER/CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
73

In addition to assisting the government to meet its 

internal nuclear safety and security requirements and foreign 

policy objectives, some Russian ministers thought NunnLugar funds could be used to supplement their budgets. 

Mikhailov had testified in June 1992 that the initial NunnLugar agreements would bring in $100 million, or 40 

billion rubles, which he declared would take a significant 

burden out of an “already stressed” national budget. Now 

in December, the promised level of assistance was larger and 

contained specific projects for delivering modern dismantling 

equipment – steel cutters, guillotines and arc torches – that 

the Ministry of Defense did not possess.30

Finally, as the Duma’s Defense Committee debated the 

question in the fall 1992, the ripples of rising inflation grew 

into a mounting tsunami that gripped the entire Russian 

economy. The government seemed incapable of managing 

the economy, which led to a plunge in Yeltsin’s approval 

ratings. Simultaneously, Ukraine’s government asserted 

publicly that it owned the nuclear weapons and warheads 

located on its national territory. The Russian Duma’s 

response to declining tax revenues was to slash the budgets 

of every government ministry, especially the Atomic Energy 

and Defense Ministries, General Staff and military services. 

General Maslin summed up the situation in Moscow during 

those dark days: “To correctly interpret any event, you must 

have a clear understanding of circumstances in which it 

occurred. In the beginning of the 1990s, these circumstances 

included the collapse of the Soviet empire, wild disorder, 

sharp economic collapse, loss by millions of people of their 

values, the absence of central leadership, and the ambitions 

of the political elites in the newly independent states.” 

Maslin recalled that for well-informed people, like senior 

officers on the General Staff, the situation on nuclear security 

and nonproliferation was simply “alarming.” 31

U.S.-Russian nonproliferation consensus 

develops, amidst confusion and 

bureaucratic differences

For Russia these were tumultuous times, full of confusion 

and conflict. In this atmosphere, Russian Defense and 

Nuclear Energy ministers were particularly concerned 

with nuclear safety and management and control of fissile 

materials. They viewed proliferation of nuclear weapons and 

materials as real threats to the new Russian nation.32 The 

American Nunn-Lugar CTR program offered a promising 

solution. Not only could the assistance be used for safe and 

secure transport of nuclear materials, but it could be used 

to influence the governments of Belarus, Kazakhstan and 

Ukraine into signing, ratifying and implementing arms 

control and nonproliferation treaties, and in the process, 

returning all nuclear weapons to Russia. Within the Russian 

government’s “power” ministries - Defense, Foreign Affairs, 

Security, and Atomic Energy – there was recognition that the 

American assistance initiatives might also provide modern 

technologies for the treaty-required reductions in nuclear 

and chemical weapons. Finally, given the rise of terrorism 

in Russia, any assistance program that strengthened the 

nonproliferation regime for controlling nuclear accidents 

and incidents would be seriously considered.

Looking back, the offer of Nunn-Lugar assistance 

seemed to match perfectly with the Russian government 

and its ministries’ perception of the nation’s post-Cold War 

responsibilities and threats. In reality, however, the match 

was not quite as perfect. U.S. Defense Department program 

directors in Washington would announce multiple projects 

Alexei G. Arbatov

RIA Novosti
74

With Courage and Persistence

to Congress, giving the appearance that the Nunn-Lugar 

program had powerful momentum in providing assistance 

to the new Russian government.33 In Moscow, Russian 

ministers and General Staff military officers would learn of 

these project announcements through the press and would 

demand consultation and coordination, complaining 

publicly that little, if any, actual assistance ever materialized.34

The two governments also had differing ways of reaching 

decisions, different ways of implementing programs, and 

even distinctive ways of measuring success and completion. 

Bureaucratic rigidity, distance, and time exacerbated these 

differences. Finally, there was the element of trying to define 

and carry out projects involving secret nuclear weapons 

systems, with a nation and general staff committed to a 

national military strategy of nuclear deterrence using these 

same weapons and systems. Just how difficult it was can be 

seen in the first set of joint projects from 1992 to 1995.

Nunn-Lugar projects in Russia

The very first Nunn-Lugar agreement Bush and Yeltsin 

signed at the Washington Summit meeting on June 17, 

1992 was the “Agreement Between the Russian Federation 

and the United States of America Concerning the Safe and 

Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons 

and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation.” Why were 

Russian officials so concerned with the “safe and secure” 

transportation of nuclear materials? Russian analyst, Oleg 

Bukharin, estimated that in late 1991 the Soviet Union’s 

nuclear arsenal contained approximately 25,000 nuclear 

warheads. Of that number, the USSR had declared it 

possessed strategic weapons, with 10,271 warheads, certified 

in the initial START I Treaty data exchange. The remaining 

approximately 14,000 were assumed to be tactical nuclear 

warheads.35 Once the Soviet Union fractured into 15 new 

nations, the reported START Treaty data listed 225 attributed 

strategic nuclear warheads in Belarus, 1,980 in Ukraine, 

1,400 in Kazakhstan, and 7,600 in Russia.36

The Russian General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate had 

the mission of controlling and accounting for each nuclear 

warhead from manufacture to delivery to the military 

forces in the field. Then, after the warhead’s operational 

life expired, the directorate was responsible for transporting 

warheads from the SRF’s bases and storage areas to the 

Ministry of Defense’s nuclear weapons storage sites. Most 

of these nuclear munitions had been manufactured in 

the mid-1970s, and by the early 1990s the rocket force’s 

replacement rate was between 1,600 to 1,700 warheads per 

year. Using special military rail and road transport vehicles, 

the 12th Main Directorate organized, transported and secured 

the movement of thousands of nuclear warheads across 

Russia each year. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, 

the General Staff assigned this directorate the mission of 

decommissioning and transporting to secure depots in Russia 

all of Soviet military forces’ tactical nuclear warheads located 

in storage depots in Central European nations. Then in 1991, 

this mission expanded to include all tactical warheads located 

in the former republics of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet era, 

most of the nuclear weapons storage depots and facilities had 

been located in remote, sparsely populated areas. According 

to a Defense Department report, the Soviet Union had more 

than 500 storage sites for securing nuclear warheads and 

materials. In the late 1990s, the Russian Ministry of Defense 

planned to consolidate nuclear warheads and materials into 

approximately 100 sites.37 This consolidation forced further 

movement of warheads and nuclear materials across the 

nation.

General Maslin, commander of the 12th Main 

Directorate, recalled that “the specialists who worked 

with nuclear weapons at that time were at a certain loss 

due to a growing number of tasks – we had to transport 

nuclear munitions throughout Russia by railroad and 

vehicles more often than before...We had to think about 

ways to enhance transportation security.”38 Maslin and the 

General Staff concluded that one of the most vulnerable 

stages in the nuclear chain of custody system was during 

transportation of warheads and nuclear materials. To 

address this urgent issue, the first bilateral Nunn-Lugar 

implementing agreement focused on providing immediate 

assistance for the Russian military in transporting nuclear 

warheads and materials.

At the Washington Summit in June 1992, Donald Atwood 

from the Department of Defense, and Victor Mikhailov 

from the Ministry of Atomic Energy, signed an agreement 

designating up to $5 million to purchase and deliver 500 

sets of nylon and kevlar armored blankets.39 These blankets 

would be used to enhance the protective capacity of the 

Russian-manufactured nuclear weapons containers and 

vehicles in transport. Defense Department officials delivered 

the first 200 sets of six-panel nylon blankets, which had 
75

been taken from U.S. Army stocks in Europe, to Russian 

MinAtom officials in July 1992. The following December, a 

contract was awarded for purchase of 250 sets of 10-panel 

kevlar blankets.40 This contract was the first in the NunnLugar program and set a pattern for future projects. The 

armored blankets were delivered to Moscow by June 15, 

1993.41 How were they used? According to General Maslin, 

Russian military officers and technicians used these blankets 

to protect “warheads from fire and other consequences of 

possible accidents.”42 The special blankets also served as 

protection from small-arms fire and potential terrorist attacks 

as weapons were being transported from storage depot sites 

to dismantlement facilities in Russia.43

A second Nunn-Lugar implementing agreement, also 

signed during the Bush-Yeltsin summit, specified the types 

and quantities of equipment and training for an emergency 

response system.44 Working together, specialists and 

military officers from MinAtom, the 12th Main Directorate 

and program officials from the Department of Defense 

defined the type, number and training requirements for an 

emergency response system. These were practical military 

and ministry men, possessing knowledge of their nation’s 

nuclear arsenals and its vulnerabilities. Within MinAtom, 

the 5th Main Directorate was the organization responsible 

for nuclear weapons research and development. It was 

responsible for managing and operating the weapons design 

laboratories, nuclear research facilities, and for assisting the 

MOD in the transportation of nuclear warheads and nuclear 

materials to MinAtom’s dismantlement plants and nuclear 

storage facilities. Led by Georgy Tsyrkov, MinAtom’s 5th Main 

Directorate worked closely with General Maslin and the 12th

Main Directorate, General Staff.45 Both Tsyrkov and Maslin 

worked with John Birely from DOD and the small CTR staff 

in developing requirements for the emergency response 

system.

In September 1992, the Defense Department’s NunnLugar program managers estimated it would take $10 

million to acquire more than 1,000 items in emergency 

response equipment and deliver them to Russia. Included in 

these items were: emergency access equipment (“jaws of life” 

Bush-Yeltsin Summit in Washington D.C., June 1992

George Bush Presidential Library
76

With Courage and Persistence

cutting tools), radiological and chemical protective clothing, 

personnel dosimeter and radiological sampling equipment, 

special communications equipment, and personal computers 

with specialized software. In the negotiations, Russian 

leaders emphasized that they accepted the assistance to outfit 

special emergency response teams in both the Ministry of 

Atomic Energy and the General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate. 

At the same time, they insisted their nuclear storage sites 

were secure and safe. Air Force Colonel Bob Dickey managed 

this CTR program in the Defense Department. It took more 

than a year for the bulk of equipment and training systems 

to be acquired, inspected, shipped and delivered to Moscow. 

Specific items and delivery dates were:46

n Sets of “Jaws of Life,” delivered January and April 

1993

n Protective suits & special packing materials, 

delivered April 1993

n “Violinist III” Alpha radiation detectors, delivered 

April-July 1993 

n Fiber scopes and training materials, delivered July 

1993 

n Training on the Fiber scopes and Violinists, 

completed July 1993 

n Communications equipment, delivered August 

1993 

n Packaging truck, delivered September 1993

n Portable Integrated Video System, delivered 

October 1993

n Training on Portable Integrated Video System, 

delivered in October-Nov 1993

n Delivery and training on Hot Spot Computer 

Codes, December 1993

n Delivery of communications gear and computer 

network, February 1994 

As this equipment arrived in Russia, the nation’s economy 

was deteriorating and its political stability was unraveling. In 

September 1993, Yeltsin ordered the Russian parliament to 

disband. In October, he sent Russian military forces into the 

parliament building to evict the recalcitrant deputies from 

power. In the Chechnya region, rebel factions challenged 

the authority of the Russian government and army. Chechen 

groups exploded bombs in the outer suburbs of Moscow. 

The central government felt forced to act in hopes of ending 

the provincial insurrection and urban disorder. Yeltsin and 

Grachev sent a Russian army to Chechnya to crush the rebels, 

but the confrontation did not go well as local rebel groups 

held off an uncoordinated and poorly led Russian army. In 

these dangerous times General Maslin ordered a series of 

training exercises at Russian military storage sites to test 

nuclear emergency procedures and newly-acquired American 

equipment. Maslin reported that the exercises confirmed 

the “high reliability” and “effectiveness” of these emergency 

procedures and equipment.47 In the next few years, this 

emergency response program would be expanded explicitly 

on the request of General Maslin and the senior officers at the 

General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate.

Another early Nunn-Lugar cooperative program, one 

involving a series of projects to enhance Russia’s nuclear 

weapons transportation security, sprung from discussions 

with Minister Mikhailov, General Maslin and their staffs. 

As noted earlier, Maslin believed that transportation via rail 

across Russia was the most vulnerable piece of the General 

Staff’s system for storing and protecting nuclear weapons and 

Donald J. Atwood

Department of Defense
77

materials. “He was very proactive,” recalled Bill Moon, an 

American CTR program manager, “in engaging the Americans 

on these issues. He was definitely the leader in Russia.”48 The 

12th Main Directorate and MinAtom shared responsibility 

for both transportation and warhead dismantlement. Since 

MinAtom was a gigantic ministry with a high degree of 

decentralization and compartmentalization, Mikhailov 

usually led the bilateral and multilateral negotiations, 

attending and addressing officials at international meetings, 

and participating personally in senior-level political meetings 

within the Yeltsin government. Following the initial series of 

Nunn-Lugar agreements, Mikhailov’s deputy, Nikolai Yergov, 

negotiated with Birely or Ambassador James Goodby on 

specific terms of the Nunn-Lugar implementing agreements.

Russia’s nuclear weapons transportation system had 

been designed to secure and transport out-of-service 

nuclear weapons from military storage depots to the 

dismantlement enterprises. Beginning in the late 1980s, the 

rate of dismantlement was approximately 1,500 to 2,000 

warheads per year.49 Under normal circumstances, specialists 

at the enterprise where the warhead had been manufactured 

performed the dismantlement work. Once dismantled, 

nuclear materials were placed in sealed hermetic containers 

and shipped in special railcars on heavily-guarded trains to 

one of MinAtom’s nuclear complexes for permanent storage. 

Highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium went to the 

closed nuclear cities of Chelyabinsk-65 and Tomsk-7; tritium 

was shipped to Chelyabinsk-65 for storage and recycling; 

and thermonuclear fuel was sent to Novosibirsk.50 Following 

processing, the assemblies and components containing 

HEU and plutonium were transported via rail to MinAtom’s 

Central Arsenal at Mayak. According to Russian analyst Dmitry 

Litovkin, the “most vulnerable” stage during transit was rail 

transport. If there were to be a railcar crash, followed by fire 

and explosions, it could cause a chain reaction and a nuclear 

explosion. The risk of such an accident occurring would 

increase if high-explosive materials were involved, or if there 

was a lack of railcars with fire-prevention or fire-suppression 

equipment, or if the safety systems were inadequate.51

In the summer of 1992, U.S. Defense Department program 

managers and Department of Energy (DOE) specialists worked 

with nuclear weapons officers at the 12th Main Directorate 

and MinAtom to define technical requirements for a NunnLugar assistance program to enhance security in transporting 

nuclear weapons and materials across Russia. Following a 

series of meetings and exchange of proposals, the bilateral 

group agreed on several items of equipment that would go 

into special conversion kits for installation in cargo and guard 

railcars. The kits, to be purchased with Nunn-Lugar funds, 

would provide improved fire detection, thermal protection 

and monitoring of external intrusions.

In the beginning, these bilateral meetings were extremely 

rigid. Bill Moon, one of the Defense Nuclear Agency’s 

first Nunn-Lugar project managers, recalled that “it was 

very painful” to develop an agenda for meetings using the 

administration’s interagency system. Within the Defense 

Department, program specialists would initiate a tentative 

agenda, list proposed projects, coordinate them with the 

department’s Nunn-Lugar policy officials and then get 

approval from officials at State, Energy and other organizations 

in National Security Council’s (NSC) interagency system. 

When the NSC approved the agenda, an American negotiating 

team would fly to Moscow for meetings with the Russian 

government’s team. Moon remembers that, “we would 

rent extra hotel rooms, since there was so much computer 

equipment...to record every little thing that we did. We had to 

make sure [that] the interagency back home was completely in 

sync with everything that we were doing.”52 Negotiations were 

conducted in a rigid diplomatic style reminiscent of recent 

arms control treaties and agreements. There was little of the 

trust that developed later, and negotiations went slowly. “Two 

days of the week,” Moon said, “were devoted to negotiations 

on the record of our discussions.”53 One consequence of this 

Jaws of Life equipment

Dependentarising/CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
78

With Courage and Persistence

extraordinarily cumbersome process, exacerbated by the fact 

that both nations had such large, entrenched bureaucracies, 

was that the two sides agreed to only a few projects at a time. 

A former White House official, Frank von Hippel, observed: 

“To assure that the government is speaking with 

one voice, most U.S. government communications 

to other governments are channeled through a few 

State Department or Embassy officials working 

from “talking points” prepared by interagency 

committees. This limits the rate of communication 

to one significant round every few months. In 

between both bureaucracies ponder the response 

of the other side and prepare the next round 

of proposals and associated talking points. The 

process is so ponderous that most people lose track 

of the forest for the trees.”54 

Perhaps because of the leadership of General Maslin and 

the urgency of the situation within Russia, the drafting of 

terms for the implementing agreement on nuclear weapons 

transportation system proceeded quickly. After just two 

months, John H. Birely and Victor Mikhailov signed a NunnLugar implementing agreement on August 28, 1992.55 The 

United States pledged up to $20 million for acquiring and 

delivering conversion kits to modify up to 100 cargo railcars 

and 15 guard railcars by April 1994. Work began quickly as 

the Russian government sent a Russian cargo railcar to the 

United States within 90 days. American technicians at Sandia 

National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico developed 

materials for the prototype railcar and conversion kits.

In the fall 1993, Lt. Colonel Bill Coleman, the Defense 

Department’s Nunn-Lugar program manager sent the 

prototype railcar and four conversion kits, containing fire 

detectors, thermal insulation, and sensors, from New Mexico 

Russian military railcar with new CTR equipment

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
79

to Russia.56 Following technical demonstrations to General 

Maslin and the senior staff of the 12th Main Directorate, and a 

Russian security inspection, training began on how to install 

conversion kits into the railcars. The contract for installing 

sensors and devices in the 100 railcars went to the Tver Railcar 

Building Plant, Russia’s largest manufacturing enterprise 

(9,600 workers) of special-purpose rail cars. From January 

1994 to April 1996, Nunn-Lugar funds financed installation 

of these conversion kits in 100 cargo railcars and 15 guard’s 

railcars at the Tver plant. General Maslin monitored the 

program carefully and stated publicly at an international 

forum in 1995 that: “This equipment has greatly enhanced 

physical security and fire protection for weapons in transit to 

dismantlement facilities.”57

Another Nunn-Lugar program, procurement of fissile 

material containers for transportation and storage, was 

clearly related to moving thousands of nuclear warheads 

but also was intended to help MinAtom store the nation’s 

excess nuclear materials safely and securely. In the 1990s, the 

vast strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and 

the United States were slated for reduction under strategic 

arms control treaties. During the Cold War nuclear arms 

race, the Soviet Union’s nuclear manufacturing centers had 

produced approximately 125 tons of plutonium and 1,050 

tons of HEU. By comparison, United States’ national nuclear 

plants had produced about 111 tons of plutonium and 

approximately 994 tons of HEU.58 Once the strategic arms 

reduction treaties entered into force, both nations’ defense 

and nuclear ministries were responsible for decommissioning 

strategic weapons systems, dismantling nuclear warheads, 

and transporting these warheads and nuclear materials 

to permanent nuclear storage sites. In the United States, 

the Department of Energy had mission responsibility for 

permanent storage, while in Russia it was the Ministry of 

Atomic Energy. While the U.S. government had the financial 

and physical resources needed to construct new permanent 

nuclear storage sites, the Russian government did not. 

As early as February 1992 in the very first U.S. - 

Russian discussions, Minister Mikhailov and his advisors 

recommended that Nunn-Lugar funds be used to design 

and build a new, modern fissile missile storage facility at 

MinAtom’s Central Arsenal at Mayak.59 Mikhailov argued 

that the lack of a secure facility to store materials extracted 

from dismantled nuclear weapons was a major bottleneck 

in the dismantlement process. Russia’s existing facilities did 

not meet contemporary international standards for safety, 

security or the environment. He continued that MinAtom 

needed additional capacity to store permanently the nuclear 

materials flooding in from military storage depots in Central 

Europe, the newly independent states, and eventually the 

missile, bomber and submarine systems being reduced by 

the arms control treaties. Reginald Bartholomew, Deputy 

Secretary of State, agreed with Mikhailov’s assessment 

and placed this Russian recommendation in the first set of 

Nunn-Lugar program initiatives.60

At this early point, the Russian government estimated 

that the new fissile materials storage facility would have 

the capacity to store up to 55 tons of excess plutonium 

in 25,000 containers. Negotiations in the spring of 1992 

focused on developing a specific requirement for special, 

hardened fissile materials containers. The United States 

used similar containers extensively and offered NunnLugar funds to purchase and deliver new fissile materials 

containers to Russia. By the time of the Bush-Yeltsin summit 

in Washington in June 1992, Mikhailov and the Russian 

negotiators had stated a requirement for up to 45,000 fissile 

materials containers.61

On June 17, 1992, Undersecretary Atwood, Department of 

Defense, and Minister Mikhailov, Ministry of Atomic Energy, 

signed the implementing agreement on fissile materials 

containers, designating up to $50 million for the program.62

The Department of Defense pledged to purchase and 

deliver a shipment of 10,000 containers by December 1995. 

On Mikhailov’s insistence, an annex to the implementing 

agreement stated that Russian nuclear weapons designers 

had to be consulted on the container’s technical design 

specifications. This annex required the Russian Ministry 

of Atomic Energy to provide within 30 days technical 

specifications on container vibration input environments, 

permissible vibration rates for the inner vessel, acceptable 

leak rate levels, and any design requirements not defined by 

the International Atomic Energy Agency.63 In a compromise, 

U.S. Defense and Energy Department officials agreed with 

Mikhailov’s demand that the containers would have a 

Sandia National Laboratories
80

With Courage and Persistence

Russian design, but they insisted they would be produced 

following U.S. design and manufacturing standards. 

As it turned out, arriving at a compromise defining the 

agreement was easy for the two governments. However, 

working together on specific projects was not. For 

instance, design specifications for the containers became 

a contentious sticking point. Mikhailov explained: “We 

developed documentation for these containers. After all, 

we were talking about incredibly complicated engineering 

designs and structures. But the Americans wanted us to use 

their drawings.”64 A bilateral committee of nuclear scientists 

and weapons designers from MinAtom and Sandia National 

Laboratories examined the technical merits for the design of 

the fissile material containers. The committee recommended 

accepting the Russian design, with some American 

modifications. With this decision, U.S. program managers 

approved Nunn-Lugar funds for fabricating a set of prototype 

containers, and in April 1993 10 of the new containers were 

delivered to MinAtom officials in Moscow.

As outlined in the implementing agreement, MinAtom 

technicians examined these containers to see if they 

conformed to the design specifications. Once the Russian 

ministry evaluation was in-hand, Colonel Dick Wright, the 

Defense Department’s program manager proceeded with 

competitive bids and awarded the project in September 1993 

to the Scientific Ecology Group of Carlsbad, New Mexico. 

The contract was for $40 million to build and deliver up 

to 33,000 fissile missile containers, with the first increment 

of 10,000 due by December 1995.65 At some point in the 

year-long design-to-prototype-to-production-model process, 

Mikhailov suggested that a Russian firm should manufacture 

the containers in Russia.66 Citing the Nunn-Lugar act, with 

its “Buy American” provisions, U.S. officials rejected this 

suggestion.

When it came time to negotiate the next major NunnLugar financed project, the design for a new fissile material 

storage facility, Minister Mikhailov demonstrated that he 

had learned his lesson on dealing with his counterparts. 

From the start, he asserted forcefully the superiority of 

MinAtom’s architects and design engineers. “The Americans 

didn’t have such a storage facility,” he said, “such a modern 

storage facility.”67 In Russia, he assigned the initial work to 

the Institute of Energy Technologies (VNPIET), a national 

nuclear design firm located in St. Petersburg. Then, he 

traveled to the United States and signed the U.S.-Russian 

facility design agreement on October 5, 1992, with $15 

million designated for the initial design project.68 The 

facility design work would be led by the St. Petersburg 

institute’s engineers and architects, with the U.S. effort 

managed by Colonel Wright, CTR program manager, who 

worked in collaboration with engineers in the international 

division of the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers in Omaha, 

Nebraska. This arrangement worked well throughout the 

design process over the next 18 months as the project 

moved from concept to final design.69

In the fall of 1992, the American engineers provided 

training to the Russian team in Omaha on the methods 

of using computer assisted design models and hardened 

structures designs and techniques. Then in 1993, U.S.-Russian 

design teams exchanged technical design requirements and 

held joint project management reviews. The storage facility’s 

concept design was completed in March, followed by joint 

technical requirements and design review meetings in 

Omaha that June. When the two national teams completed 

the final design for the fissile materials storage facility, joint 

planning began in December for the next step: drawing up 

construction requirements for building the storage facility Defense Threat Reduction Agency Department of Defense
81

and providing it with modern security and safety equipment. 

That project’s bilateral implementing agreement, signed by 

Ambassador James Goodby and Deputy Minister Nikolai 

Yergov on September 2, 1993, stipulated that the United 

States would provide construction and storage facility 

equipment.70 The U.S. designated up to $75 million for the 

project. However, the Russian government had to approve the 

final site selection, the final facility design and a construction 

schedule. It was at this point that progress on the fissile 

material storage facility ground to a halt.

MinAtom’s bureaucracy caused many of the delays. 

They insisted on changing the final design, altering 

planning assumptions and revising construction schedules. 

Originally, MinAtom officials had planned to build a single 

large facility to store 110,000 containers at the Tomsk-7 

nuclear complex.71 However in 1993, local opposition 

emerged and increased in the spring months when an 

explosion occurred at the Tomsk-7 complex’s radiochemical 

plant. As a consequence, MinAtom leaders cancelled plans 

for placing the facility at Tomsk and concentrated on a new 

site at Mayak, located within the Chelyabinsk-65 nuclear 

complex. With the new location identified, MinAtom’s 

facility design team in St. Petersburg moved ahead and 

completed the final designs for the Mayak facility in the 

spring 1994. At the same time, the Defense Nuclear Agency’s 

CTR project managers initiated procurement actions for the 

construction equipment.72

The Russian government moved ahead with site 

preparations and in July 1994 construction of the Mayak 

Fissile Material Storage Facility with a 25,000 container 

capacity began. At that time, the Russian government, 

specifically MinAtom, planned to finance the new storage 

facility’s construction costs. Six months later, however, 

Russia’s economy, along with state revenues had declined 

so severely that the government decided not to fund the 

project. At that time, Mikhailov appealed directly to Secretary 

of Defense William Perry. Within a few weeks, the United 

States agreed to dedicate some Nunn-Lugar CTR funds to 

construction of the Mayak facility. Work proceeded slowly, 

yet by mid-1995 Russian contractors were pouring concrete 

for the walls and floors.73

During these formative years, MinAtom and the Defense 

Department developed other Nunn-Lugar programs – 

some that were not successful, and others that were multinational and very successful. An example of a program 

that never gained momentum was a nuclear Materials 

Protection, Control, and Accountability (MPC&A) system. 

The project began in September 1993 when Ambassador 

Goodby and Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Yergov 

signed an implementing agreement providing up to $10 

million for its development.74 In the year leading up to the 

agreement, Russia and the United States exchanged experts 

and technicians who visited a Russian nuclear power 

plant and enrichment facility, and who later toured U.S. 

facilities to assess the need for such a system. Following 

the Goodby-Yergov agreement, bilateral discussions 

led to a joint decision on a project that would develop 

a model MPC&A system to be installed at MinAtom’s 

low-enrichment fuel fabrication plant at Elektrostal.75

Senior Russian MinAtom officials, including Mikhailov, 

denied that there was a problem with their facility-based 

material controls and accounting system. This position 

was held despite the fact they did not have a consolidated 

national accounting system, one that encompassed data 

on all nuclear facilities or during transportation of the 

nuclear materials.76 At the same time, senior American 

officials were reluctant to share details of the U.S. nuclear 

materials accounting system, fearing it would compromise 

information and physical security. For more than two 

years, the project went nowhere. One Russian analyst 

characterized the bureaucratic posturing as “scandalous” 

since Russia faced a serious new threat from criminals 

stealing nuclear materials or diversion of fissile materials 

from nuclear complexes in the closed cities.77 As a result, 

15 months after the signed implementing agreement, less 

than six percent of the $10 million designated funding for 

this project had been spent. Russian officials complained 

that very little of the proclaimed American assistance ever 

reached Russia.78 By mid-1995, the MPC&A was perhaps the 

Defense Department’s least successful Nunn-Lugar project.

U.S. and Russia chemical weapons 

stockpiles

United States: 30,000 tons

Russia: 40,000 tons
82

With Courage and Persistence

CTR assistance for eliminating Russian 

Chemical Weapons

Another difficult project involved destruction of chemical 

weapons. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the 

United States manufactured, tested and stored huge arsenals 

of chemical weapons. When the Cold War ended both nations 

participated in complex multinational negotiations that 

led to the United Nations’ Chemical Weapons Convention 

(CWC).79 By December 1993, representatives from 154 

nations had signed the comprehensive CWC Treaty, including 

a provision that the treaty would enter into force with 

ratification by 65 nations.80 At that point, the United States’ 

stockpile had approximately 30,000 agent tons of mustard 

gas and various nerve agent compounds, and the Russian 

Federation had 40,000 agent tons of chemical weapons. 

According to the CWC Treaty, all these chemical weapons 

had to be destroyed within 10 years. Almost simultaneously 

with the signing of this major nonproliferation treaty, the 

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service issued a report declaring 

that nine nations were developing the capacity to produce 

chemical weapons and chemical precursors.81 In the United 

States, the Office of Technological Assessment declared that 11 

nations had active programs for making chemical weapons.82

Despite these new threat analyses, the new treaty signaled the 

emergence of a broad, international post-Cold War consensus 

against chemical weapons. Under the CWC Treaty’s protocols, 

national stockpiles had to be destroyed within a decade and it 

prohibited all future activities relating to the “development, 

production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer and 

use of chemical weapons.”83

Given the existence of such a broad international policy 

consensus, it should have been a straightforward effort to 

develop a bilateral cooperative agreement for the U.S. to 

provide funds for designing projects to reduce the Russian 

Federation’s chemical weapons stockpile. In fact, it was 

extraordinarily difficult. Part of the difficulty lay with the 

United States. In the late 1980s, the Secretary of Defense 

had assigned the U.S. Army as the lead agency responsible 

for developing plans and programs to reduce and eliminate 

all U.S. chemical weapons. In the intervening years, U.S. 

Army planners drew up a comprehensive program based on 

modern incineration technologies, public safety concerns 

and adherence to the highest environmental standards 

for the nine projected U.S. chemical weapons sites. With 

congressional approval and funding, the Army planned to 

build and operate new incineration facilities at chemical 

weapons storage sites and eliminate all the weapons within 

10 years. Defense officials estimated elimination costs at $8.2 

billion in 1992.84

In the summer of 1992 when they met with Russian 

officials in Moscow to draft the initial Nunn-Lugar 

implementing agreement, American officials drew upon 

their plans for eliminating U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles 

and insisted that the Russian government must develop a 

comprehensive plan for destroying all of its chemical weapons 

at existing storage sites using similar incinerator technologies. 

Russian officials rejected the U.S. assumption that their 

chemical weapons experts and military commanders could 

not develop its reduction plan independently; one based on 

their more extensive knowledge of Soviet/Russian chemical 

weapons systems. They also rejected the concept of using U.S. 

incineration methods.85 Although senior Russian officials 

had signed a CTR implementing agreement “Concerning the 

Safe, Secure, and Ecologically Sound Destruction of Chemical 

Weapons” in Moscow in July 1992, there was more confusion 

than consensus on moving to the next stage: defining specific 

cooperative programs and projects. U.S. Defense Department 

officials declared that $25 million would be the initial limit 

for Nunn-Lugar chemical weapons assistance. In reality, 

however, little money was obligated or disbursed.86

The reason lay not in the Nunn-Lugar process but with 

the Russian government in Moscow. Neither the Soviet 

government nor the new Russian parliament had developed 

a comprehensive plan, one with fixed ministerial and 

organizational responsibilities, a national legal liability 

statue, annual funding, or any requirements for the consent 

and approval of the governments in the regions where the 

dangerous chemical weapons would be destroyed. Instead 

there was confusion and bureaucratic infighting. In 1992, 

a Presidential Committee on Chemical Disarmament, led 

by Academician Anatoly Kuntsevich asserted it would lead 

all negotiations and manage dismantlement programs. 

Within the Ministry of Defense, General Stanislav V. Petrov 

led the Russian Army’s Radiation, Chemical-Biological 

Defense Troops, which controlled the chemical weapons 

production and storage depots. General Petrov asserted the 

primacy of the Ministry of Defense in planning, scheduling, 

technology and funding. Bilateral negotiations on U.S. 

CTR assistance programs for chemical weapons ground to 
83

a halt during 1992 and 1993. Within the Russian Duma, 

parliamentarians questioned the government’s commitment 

to implementing the CWC Treaty. Internal debates within 

the Russian government failed to resolve the complex issues 

of missions, funding, destruction technologies, health and 

safety standards and the environment. The legal basis for the 

nation’s chemical demilitarization and elimination program 

languished in the Russian Duma for years.87

In an attempt to stimulate the Russian government and 

parliament into action, Harold P. Smith, Jr., U.S. Assistant 

to the Secretary of Defense, set up a Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Support Office in Moscow in June 1993.88

This new office, staffed by people from the Army Corps 

of Engineers, On-Site Inspection Agency and defense 

contractors, was intended to signal that the U.S. Defense 

Department was prepared to work with the Russian 

government on chemical weapons elimination projects. 

Still, there was little effort within the Russian government to 

resolve the thorniest issues of roles, missions, funding and 

schedules. When President Yeltsin traveled to Washington in 

January 1994 for a summit meeting with President Clinton, 

they reaffirmed their commitment to promote ratification 

of the CWC Treaty and complete the protocols needed 

to implement a 1990 bilateral agreement on chemical 

weapons.89 That agreement grew out of a bilateral 1989 

Memorandum of Understanding on Chemical Weapons, 

which stated that the United States and the USSR/Russian 

Federation would exchange data on the respective stockpiles 

and then conduct a series of challenge inspections at each 

nation’s chemical weapons production and storage sites.90

Since the protocols were incomplete; the data exchanges and 

challenge inspections had not been done.

Following the Yeltsin-Clinton summit, U.S. and Russian 

chemical warfare experts agreed on the 1990 Memorandum 

of Understanding protocols and both nations exchanged 

required data on their respective chemical weapons 

stockpiles. Soon afterward each side conducted five 

challenge inspections. As these inspections were underway, 

Harold Smith, Gloria Duffy and senior Defense officials 

flew to Moscow in March 1994 and signed an amendment 

to the basic U.S.-Russian CTR agreement pledging that 

the United States would designate up to $30 million in 

additional CTR funds to assist in design of a new Russian 

chemical weapons destruction analytical laboratory. The 

new lab would be located in Moscow’s Vernadskiy Institute 

for Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry.91 Two months 

later, Smith announced the administration would ask 

Congress to appropriate $500 million to design and build 

a new chemical weapons destruction facility in Russia.92

Despite these American pledges and announcements, 

there was scant progress with Russian officials on any 

specific chemical weapons programs or projects in 1994-

1995. By May 1995, only $7.5 million had been disbursed 

on this major CTR program, a sum that disappointed the 

American program managers, as well as Assistant Secretary 

Smith, Secretary Perry, Senators Nunn and Lugar and 

Congress. In fact, some in Congress questioned the wisdom 

of appropriating any further CTR funds for the chemical 

weapons program with Russia.93

Engaging Russian nuclear scientists and 

engineers: The International Science and 

Technology Center

The Nunn-Lugar project for funding an International 

Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow also had 

to overcome its share of obstacles. It began as a concept even 

Harold P. Smith, Jr.

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
84

With Courage and Persistence

before emergence of the Russian Federation. In May 1999 Gurii 

I. Marchuk, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated 

that more than “500 scientists from academy institutes have 

gone abroad, either permanently, or on long-term contracts.”94

In fall 1991, Foreign Minister Kozyrev traveled to Washington 

and proposed that an international fund be established to 

keep disaffected Soviet scientists from leaving their institutes 

and research centers.95 In January 1992, just weeks after the 

Soviet Union had collapsed, Mikhailov, Minister of Atomic 

Energy, declared that of the more than 100,000 people 

employed in the former USSR’s nuclear weapons development 

complexes, 10,000 - 15,000 were in possession of “really secret” 

information, and perhaps 2–3,000 had knowledge of advanced 

technologies of “paramount importance.”96 Mikhailov said he 

was reasonably certain that if these scientists could find civilian 

employment they would remain in the country, citing a recent 

law that prohibited the scientists from leaving Russia. Robert 

Gates, CIA director, testifying to Congress in January 1992, was 

less sanguine. He explained that there was a group of 1-2,000 

Soviet scientists with “weapons design expertise” whose 

skills had no civilian counterpart.97 Meanwhile, the German 

government declared it was concerned about this issue. When 

Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev met with German Foreign 

Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in mid-January, he outlined 

his proposal for an international fund for scientific research and 

for establishing transparency in emigration.

Consequently when Yeltsin and Bush and their senior 

advisors met at Camp David in early February 1992, the issue 

was on the agenda. Bush proposed that they establish a joint 

U.S.-Russian research center in Moscow that would involve 

scientists from both nations cooperatively working together. 

The Russians insisted that the German government be involved. 

On February 17, following a burst of diplomatic activity, Baker, 

Genscher, and Kozyrev announced establishment of the new 

International Science and Technology Center.98 On the same day, 

12 foreign ministers of the European Union nations endorsed, 

at the urging of Germany’s Genscher, the new Moscow science 

and technology center concept and pledged to contribute up to 

20 million euros. The following month, Japan also indicated its 

willingness to participate. By May, the United States, European 

Union and Japan made a joint proposal to provide up to $75 

million in funding for the new center. The Russian government 

stated that it would provide a facility for the center, as well as 

pay for maintenance, utilities, security and related support. 

The concept was to have an international board that would vet 

and approve scientific research proposals, including requests 

for new laboratory equipment from the Russian scientific and 

technical community. Collaborative international scientific 

projects would be encouraged, even facilitated by the center’s 

administrative and professional staff.99

In the United States, the Bush Administration acted 

quickly to move the new Russian science and technology 

center from concept to legislation to program and project. 

Senator Nunn included the center in the authorizing language 

for the FY1993 Department of Defense Authorization 

Act. In October 1992, Public Law 102-484 authorized the 

Defense Department to establish science and technological 

centers in the newly independent states, with $25 million 

set aside for the project. The multinational legal agreement 

establishing the Russian science and technology center was 

signed on November 27, 1992 in Moscow by representatives 

of the United States, Russian Federation, Japan, European 

Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic 

Community.100 From the beginning it was an international 

center. According to the charter, the International Science and 

Technology Center’s principle objective would be to provide 

“weapons scientists and engineers, particularly those who 

possess knowledge and skills related to weapons of mass 

destruction or missile delivery systems...opportunities to 

redirect their talents to peaceful activities.”101 In the Defense 

Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev Department, Nunn-Lugar program managers prepared to RIA Novosti
85

meet with their counterparts in Russia’s MinAtom, but the 

meetings were delayed repeatedly. The Yeltsin government, 

acceding to pressures from the Duma, submitted the new 

center’s legal agreement and charter to the Russian parliament 

for ratification where it languished for several years, holding 

up any real movement on the new science center.102

Colonel Bob Dickey, who managed this project within 

the CTR program, released very few funds to the new center 

in 1993 due to ratification delays in the Russian Duma.103

The following year, however, Yeltsin’s government worked 

out a provisional protocol that circumvented the ratification 

process, enabling the center’s international governing 

board to hold its first meeting in March 1994. European, 

Japanese, American and Russian representatives serving on 

the new center’s governing board met in Moscow, awarding 

$11.6 million to 23 projects involving more than 600 

scientists and engineers and their technical staffs.104 Prior 

to the meeting, Colonel Dickey had notified Congress, as 

required, and then released the funds to Dr. Victor Alessi, 

director, Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation 

in the Department of Energy. He served as the American 

representative to the center’s governing board. The board’s 

first meeting was a success, in large measure because a 

preparatory committee had used the year productively 

during the time the Duma had held up the opening of the 

institute. Committee members and the center’s director had 

traveled out to most of the closed sites, nuclear complexes, 

and weapons design institutes and had explained the rules 

to Russian scientists and engineers for developing and 

submitting proposals.

Following its first meeting in March 1994, the center’s 

governing board met four more times during the year, 

awarding project grants each time. By the end of the year, 

Finland, Sweden, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia had signed 

the basic agreement and were members of the center. 

During Fiscal Year 1994, Colonel Dickey released $23.4 

million as the U.S. contribution to the ISTC.105 Located at 

MinAtom’s Institute of Pulse Technology in Moscow, the 

new center was led by Oles Lomacky, executive director, 

who managed a staff of 21 people.106 In December 1994, the 

U.S. National Security Council approved a reorganization 

of the entire U.S. CTR program. It directed the Secretary 

of Defense to transfer responsibility for the ISTC program 

to the State Department, with the provision of $10 million 

in CTR funds to cover transition costs.107 By that time, the 

new international center in Moscow was well underway, 

with approximately 5,000 Russian scientists and engineers 

working on projects funded by the center.108 The Russian 

government, the Ministry of Atomic Energy and the 

scientists and engineers judged the new international effort 

a success.109

Colonel Bob Dickey

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

International Science and Technology Center

International Science and Technology Center
86

With Courage and Persistence

U.S. - Russian Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination Program begins

While the Defense Department was pulling away from 

managing program funding for the International Science 

and Technological Center, it was pushing ahead with another 

major Nunn-Lugar CTR program with Russia: Strategic 

Offensive Arms Elimination (SOAE). Initially, U.S. diplomats 

and defense policy officials listened as Russian Federation 

officials explained their first priorities for cooperative projects: 

transportation security, emergency response systems, fissile 

material containers, a new fissile materials storage facility, 

and a scientific and technological center for Russian nuclear 

weapons scientists. As these projects were being discussed 

and defined in the summer and fall of 1992, U.S. presidential 

elections brought the Clinton Administration to power. 

Following President Clinton’s inauguration in January 1993, 

U.S. Senate hearings and approval of the president’s cabinet 

officials, the administration turned to policy review of U.S. 

relations and programs with Russia, Ukraine and the other 

new nations.

Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, his deputy, William J. 

Perry, and key senior officials, Ashton Carter, Gloria Duffy, 

Laura Holgate and Harold Smith, argued that Nunn-Lugar 

funds should be used to assist the Russian government in 

accelerating its required strategic weapons eliminations 

under START I.110 Carter, a professor at the Kennedy School 

of Government at Harvard University, had introduced the 

original concept of the United States offering bilateral 

security assistance to Senators Nunn and Lugar in 1991. 

Now 18 months later, Carter was Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for International Security Policy and he sought to 

expand the Nunn-Lugar program into specific projects on a 

far broader scale. These arguments were persuasive within 

the Clinton Administration. In 1993 and 1994, a small 

cadre of Defense Department military officers, Colonel 

Robert Rozak, Colonel Jim Reid, Lt. Colonel Bill Coleman, 

and Commander Michael Demmio, accompanied Deputy 

Secretary Perry, Carter, and Smith on numerous visits to 

the newly independent states. During these visits the group 

discussed and defined Nunn-Lugar projects with their 

ministerial counterparts. They engaged with military and 

defense leaders and participated in numerous technical 

requirements meetings and conferences.111 The Clinton 

Administration and senior defense leaders sought to 

engage the Yeltsin government on a broad variety of 

political, economic and military assistance programs.112 In 

the area of assistance for nonproliferation of weapons of 

mass destruction, there was continuity with policies of the 

previous administration, but there was change too, as the 

entire American CTR assistance program was expanding 

significantly.113 There was a new sense of engagement and 

energy: expansion of the strategic offensive arms program 

with the Russian Federation was a prime example.

Eight months after the Russian Parliament ratified the 

START Treaty, American Secretary of Defense Aspin met 

Defense Minister Pavel Gravchev in Moscow in June 1993. 

They discussed expanding Nunn-Lugar program to assist the 

Russian government in meeting its international obligations 

for eliminating weapons systems under the START Treaty.114 As 

a direct result, two months later Ambassador James Goodby, 

U.S. Ambassador for the Safe, Secure, and Dismantlement 

Talks, arrived in Moscow with a large American team to begin 

negotiations on the first U.S. - Russian strategic offensive arms 

elimination CTR implementing agreement. Goodby had 

worked in arms control and nonproliferation for more than 

30 years. An experienced diplomat, he was well known and 

respected by senior officials in the Russian government. Gloria 

Duffy served as the ambassador’s deputy and represented 

DOD as a deputy assistant secretary of defense and special 

coordinator for CTR. Both Goodby and Duffy believed one of 

the principal objectives of the Nunn-Lugar legislation was to 

encourage, through financial aid and technical assistance, the 

new treaty states to fulfill their treaty obligations. As Goodby 

saw it, it was “not to just fulfill it, [but] to expedite it, and to 

accelerate it.”115

In Moscow, Goodby, Duffy, and the American 

delegation met for 10 days with a large contingent from the 

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, 

General Staff, and the Committee on Defense Industry 

(Roskomoboronprom). The latter committee was a critical 

organization since it coordinated the resources, budgets 

and work of nearly 3,000 defense enterprises, institutes, and 

design and production bureaus.116 The Yeltsin government 

announced in the midst of the negotiating sessions, that it 

had assigned responsibility for eliminating Russia’s strategic 

and conventional weapons systems to the State Committee 

for Defense Industry.117 In that committee, Nikolai I. 

Shumkov directed the main administration for disposition 

of weapons and materiel. A capable and experienced man, 
87

he became Russia’s key negotiator on technical questions 

relating to weapons dismantlement. Shumkov combined 

experience working in the Soviet Union’s Military-Industrial 

Commission with a stint as a senior policy advisor working 

with Soviet negotiating delegations on the strategic and 

conventional arms control treaties. He had also worked as 

a program director for modernizing nuclear missiles in the 

Soviet strategic nuclear submarine forces. After the final 

meeting on August 23, 1993, Victor Glukhikh, chairman 

of the Committee on Defense Industry and Gloria Duffy, 

Defense Department Special Coordinator for the CTR 

Program, signed the implementing agreement “Concerning 

Cooperation in the Elimination of Strategic Offensive Arms 

(SOAE)”. The United States pledged up to $130 million 

and promised to move quickly to acquire and deliver new 

equipment to Russia.118

This U.S.-Russian Federation SOAE implementing 

agreement was significant for two reasons. First, it sent a 

signal to the Ukrainian government parliament and the 43rd

Rocket Army during a time of intense debate on the future 

of Ukraine’s nuclear forces and strategic weapons. The fact 

that the United States was willing to commit substantial 

resources – more than $100 million – to the Russian 

government for eliminating its strategic offensive arms, 

demonstrated to Ukraine’s government and its military, 

diplomatic and parliamentary leaders that if their nation 

would ratify START and its protocols, similar American funds 

and resources would follow. Second, the new implementing 

agreement forced DOD’s CTR policy and program managers 

to concentrate on developing new projects that would meet 

a specific, measurable objective – assistance to Russia for 

elimination of its treaty-based strategic offensive arms under 

the START Treaty.119

This linkage of direct assistance to Russia’s START 

Treaty compliance proved to be of political importance. 

The United States, everyone assumed, had sufficient 

resources and the political will to rigorously fulfill its treaty 

obligations to the letter of the law. The Russian Federation, 

it was assumed at the time, would comply with arms control 

treaties and use its own resources and limited U.S. CTR 

assistance to meet its treaty obligations. Accordingly, the 

United States and Russia would be reducing their strategic 

deterrence forces step by step under an international treaty 

that required extensive and continuous data exchanges, 

on-site inspections, satellite verification and annual 

reporting of all eliminations. Successive U.S. and Soviet/

Russian governments had committed themselves to an 

array of bilateral and multilateral arms control treaties – 

INF, CFE, CWC, START I and START II. Visible, verifiable 

and reciprocal, these negotiated treaties and protocols 

established an international structure for cooperative 

reductions beyond the treaties.

Russia’s initial state contract for Strategic 

Offensive Arms Eliminations

Before the United States offered its assistance, the 

Russian government had planned and initiated a program 

to decommission, dismantle and eliminate strategic missiles 

and missile silos, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and 

air launched cruise missiles and bombers as required by the 

START Treaty. When the treaty was signed in July 1991, the 

Soviet Union had 26 strategic missile divisions located in six 

missile armies. After the dissolution, 20 missile divisions were 

based in Russia.120 The director of the main administration 

for disposition of weapons and materiel, Nikolai Shumkov, 

worked with senior generals at the general staff and the 

military forces in planning the sequential decommissioning 

and elimination of strategic nuclear forces. “Back in Soviet 

times,” Shumkov explained, “we had a planned system 

[within MOD] for both weapons procurement and for 

weapons elimination and disposition. The number of 

specific systems to be eliminated at each specific base was 

determined either at the state defense contract level or at 

government level. This is the way we have always done it, and 

we continue to do it.”121 It was the reverse, he continued, in 

the weapons procurement system where the military forces 

set requirements for new weapons and the defense industrial 

sector defined technical, scientific and production aspects 

of a weapon and its systems. The old defense bureaucratic 

system persisted in the new Russian Federation. Now in the 

early 1990s, the military planning staffs and many of the 

same defense enterprises and program managers turned to 

planning the elimination of Russia’s START Treaty excess 

missiles, bombers and submarines.

The Strategic Rocket Forces, working with Shumkov’s 

administrative office, established missile dismantlement 

sites at Pibanshur, Sechuga, Uzhur and Yedrovo. The Russian 

Naval Forces identified three naval shipyards – Zvezdochka 

in Severodvinsk, Nerpa in Murmansk and Zvezda in Bolshoi 
88

With Courage and Persistence

Kamen for dismantlement of missiles as well as elimination 

of nuclear submarines. To dismantle Russia’s heavy bombers, 

the Russian Air Force established a single elimination site 

at Engels Air Base. Once the strategic weapons had been 

decommissioned and the nuclear warheads separated and 

secured, then the launchers (missiles) would be transported 

by military vehicles and special railcars from their 

operational sites to dismantlement bases. There, Shumkov’s 

administrative office in Moscow had contracted with large 

defense enterprises to initiate the dismantlement, salvage 

and elimination work. The same military-industrial defense 

enterprises that during the Soviet Union had produced more 

than 27,000 nuclear weapons, including 11,000 strategic 

nuclear warheads and 1,400 ICBM launchers, were directed 

to begin dismantling and eliminating the excess weapons. In 

1993, work on decommissioning and dismantling weapons 

began in the missile fields, naval shipyards, and the bomber 

base. Coordination between the SRF, the main administration 

in Moscow and the enterprises went as scheduled. According 

to one report, by July 1994 the Russian government had 

removed more than 400 missile launchers from fixed silos 

and nuclear submarines.122

The dismantlement work was quite technical and, in some 

cases, dangerous. In the Strategic Rocket Forces, the first step 

was removal of a missile regiment from alert status. Next, 

nuclear warhead specialists from the SRF’s 6th Directorate 

removed the warhead from the missile launcher, then 

secured and transported it to the division’s nuclear weapons 

depot. In the case of the liquid fuel rockets, fuel was pumped 

from the missile in the silo into special tanker vehicles. Then 

the missile, resting in its launch canister, was lifted from the 

silo and placed into a special military transport vehicle and 

taken to a temporary storage facility at the missile division. 

After the regiment’s missiles were removed from the sites, the 

silos were prepared for demolition. Each missile silo, indeed 

the missiles on nuclear submarines as well, were destroyed 

in accordance with START I Treaty elimination protocols.123

All of the secret dismantlement work was performed at 

secure military sites. Secrecy was necessary since Russia’s 

national military strategy had not changed; it still retained 

its emphasis on strategic nuclear forces “on alert.” Since the 

missiles, submarines and bombers being eliminated were 

the same models as those in the field, it was imperative to 

Russian military commanders that all aspects of the strategic 

systems would remain secret. It was out of the question 

that any Americans would work at these Russian military 

dismantlement sites.124

From the beginning several issues complicated the 

dismantlement process. There were so many strategic 

launchers to be eliminated under the START treaties and 

agreements that the new Russian Federation did not have 

sufficient infrastructure for eliminating all the strategic weapon 

systems. During the initial SOAE negotiations in August 

1993, Shumkov explained that Russia had to demobilize and 

eliminate hundreds of liquid fuel missiles, SS-18s and SS-19s. 

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, he explained that “half 

of the fleet of special rail tank cars for the shipment of fuel 

and rocket-fuel oxidizer ended up outside of Russia...many 

in Latvia and Ukraine.”125 Russian officials estimated they 

would need a storage capacity for more than 110,000 tons of 

liquid rocket fuel. Then they declared Russia would have to 

finance and construct new plants to convert the toxic heptyl 

rocket fuel and its oxidizer into a commercial compound. 

The SRF’s most modern ICBM was its solid rocket-fueled 

SS-24 missiles. Several hundred of these missiles would be 

eliminated under the treaties. There were no plants in Russia 

to eliminate solid rocket-fueled missiles; new ones would 

have to be funded and constructed. A third issue concerned 

the Russian Navy. None of the navy’s shipyards had modern 

equipment, facilities for defueling the nuclear submarines 

or facilities for storing spent nuclear fuel. While the Russian 

government was capable of removing the land and sea-based 

strategic missiles in accordance with the START Treaty, it was 

incapable of destroying the launchers and weapons systems 

without constructing new elimination facilities. While not all 

these issues were discussed at the first round of negotiations 

for the U.S.-Russian SOAE projects, they would sometimes 

surface in months, or even years, down the road.126

First U.S.-Russian SOAE projects 

What exactly was being requested, discussed and accepted 

in those initial negotiations in August 1993? Director 

Shumkov and Russian officials requested, and Ambassador 

Goodby and the American delegations agreed, that the 

American CTR program would purchase and deliver the 

following equipment to Russia:127

n Tanker railcars for transporting and storing the 

highly toxic heptyl and amyl fuels removed from 

decommissioned ICBMs and SLBMs
89

n Transportable incinerators to burn excess the 

liquid rocket fuels

n Equipment to expedite nuclear submarine SLBM 

launcher eliminations

n Heavy equipment to assist in ICBM fixed-silo 

launcher eliminations

n Long-range heavy bomber elimination equipment

n An emergency response train for transporting 

SLBM and ICBM fuels and missiles to elimination 

sites

During negotiations, both sides insisted on including 

specific terms and conditions. The United States insisted the 

aid was being given cooperatively and expected the Russian 

government’s State Committee for Defense Industry to use it 

for “expeditious, safe and environmentally sound” elimination 

of strategic offensive weapons. The Russian committee on 

defense industry insisted on being equal partners in identifying 

specific equipment, defining performance specifications, and 

establishing training and other requirements.128

Negotiators from both parties included other conditions. 

Since all the equipment would be American-manufactured, 

Russian officials requested Russian language training on the 

new machines with translated equipment manuals. They 

further insisted that the U.S. firms maintain equipment for 

up to a year following delivery. In turn, the U.S. delegation 

asked that the Russian government identify specific points 

of entry for delivery of equipment and notification of 

arrival within ten days. In accordance with the terms of the 

government-to-government CTR framework agreement, 

the U.S. stated it would pay no customs or taxes on any 

of the U.S. provided equipment, maintenance or training. 

The U.S. asserted its right to send a small team of auditors 

to Russia to examine the use of equipment, services 

and training provided. Russia limited these audits and 

examinations to two sites and no more than three times a 

year. The U.S. agreed to provide the equipment within one 

year and declared that the Department of Defense would 

consider requests from the State Committee for Defense 

Industry for additional material, services and training. 

Since this SOAE implementing agreement would be in 

effect for seven years, both sides anticipated expanding 

assistance in the following years.129

The final signed agreement accommodated each nation’s 

requirements, requests and conditions. What was not in 

the agreement was a set of assumptions on how the work 

would actually be done. Shumkov and Russian ministerial 

officials assumed the Committee for Defense Industry 

would plan and control the actual work eliminating the 

missiles, bombers, submarines and their launchers in 

Russia. They would be the program managers in charge 

of setting the schedule, performance and completion 

requirements. As Russia’s senior program manager for 

Strategic Offensive Arms Eliminations, Shumkov would 

work with the military services in establishing disposition 

sites, fuel storage areas, and in coordination with MOD 

and MinAtom officials, develop the technical processes for 

decommissioning, dismantling, defueling and destroying 

the strategic weapons and materials.130 U.S. Defense 

Department CTR officials assumed their role was to assist 

Shumkov and his staff in identifying the equipment and 

then U.S. officials would purchase it competitively, ship 

and deliver it to Russia, and provide ancillary training and 

maintenance. United States officials would not manage 

any aspect of the elimination programs or projects within 

Russia. Although many assumptions changed later, they 

were accepted by each government in 1993 and 1994.

In fact, the Department of Defense had great difficulty 

fulfilling its commitments. The defense agency responsible 

for delivering on the promised commitments in the SOAE 

agreement was the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA). That 

agency had only a handful of people trying to work within 

congressional and departmental legal policy guidelines 

and federal acquisition regulations. To get a sense of 

the gap between the expectations of the department’s 

CTR policy officials and the performance of its program 

Eliminating Tu-160 bomber, Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
90

With Courage and Persistence

managers, Table 4-1 contains equipment the United States 

government promised to deliver to Russia in one year.

While some of this equipment was acquired and 

dispatched within a year, the vast bulk took two, and in 

some cases as long as five years to reach Russian elimination 

sites. Even for experienced Defense Department program 

managers and senior military officers, the program delivered 

material and equipment to Russia at an extraordinarily 

slow pace. Jim Reid, a senior Air Force Colonel, recalled 

his frustrations with the American acquisitions process. He 

Table 4-1. Initial U.S.-Russian Federation CTR Equipment List: SOAE Agreement, 23 August 1993131

Russian request U.S. commitment

Elimination of liquid rocket Propellants (heptyl & amyl) Transportable incinerators (750-ton capacity annually)

Railcars for transporting and storing liquid rocket propellants 100 new tanker railcars for amyl

100 new tanker railcars for heptyl

SLBM Launcher elimination equipment

Hydraulic sheers (6) 

Hydraulic guillotine sheers (3)

Plasma steel hull cutters (6) 

Oxy-acetylene torches (60)

Marine cable shredders (3) 

Ventilation and filter units (60)

Welder’s hoods & air supply sets (60)

ICBM & ICBM silo elimination equipment

Plasma cutter (4) 

Bulldozers (4) 

Mobile cranes-60 tons (4)

Electric drills (4)

Electric angle grinders (4) 

Grinding wheels (100)

Electrical impact wrenches (4)

Heavy bomber elimination equipment 

Truck mounted crane (2) 

Tractor and semi-trailer units (2)

Fork lifts (4), dump trucks (2)

Fire trucks (3)

Hydraulic sheers (2)

Plasma cutters (4)

Guillotines (2) 

Mobile cranes, 85-tons (2) 

Universal hydraulic tools (4 sets)

Electric drills (4)

Electrical angle grinders (4) 

Grinding wheels (100)

Emergency response training equipment 

Railroad-mounted crane (1)

Set of tools (1)

Hydraulic sheers (2 sets)

Hydraulic grapples (3) 

Universal processor for reducing concrete & Steel 

structures (1) 

Hydro-abrasive cutter (1)

Source: “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Committee for Defense Industry 

of the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of Strategic Offensive Arms,” 23 August 1993.
91

explained that “Defense Nuclear Agency people would put 

together some catalogs, go over to Moscow and talk with 

the defense industry committee members about equipment 

for the shipyards, and find out what kind of equipment 

would be helpful for the shipyards to dismantle nuclear 

strategic submarines.” When the American project officers 

returned to Washington, Reid continued, they would work 

with the Defense Department’s CTR policy managers, 

estimate funding levels, go through the congressional 

notification process and then develop specifications for 

the competitive government acquisition process for each 

category of equipment. This complex acquisition process, 

however, that the armed forces used to order thousands of 

similar items daily, proved under the CTR program to be 

recondite and full of delays and difficulties.132

There were implementation problems in Russia as 

well. Government reorganizations, characteristic of newly 

formed nations, converted the Committee on Defense 

Industry (Roskomoboronprom) in 1993 into the State 

Committee for Defense Industries (Gosomoboronprom). 

Then in 1994, it became the Russian Federation Ministry of 

Industry (Minoboronprom). In all three agencies the same 

administrator, Nikolai Shumkov, directed implementation 

of the missile elimination program. He led the department 

responsible for disposition of strategic offensive arms and 

in late 1993 became the chief coordinator for the program 

within the Russian government. He was responsible for 

tracking Russia’s START I Treaty elimination commitments. 

While the lines of authority for implementing Russia’s SOAE 

program were being clarified, the constant shift of ministries, 

enterprises and organizations within the government made 

coordination difficult. Often one ministry did not know what 

another ministry had done, or even if the government had 

approved projects. U.S. officials became frustrated at repeated 

delays in Moscow with every aspect of the program.133

A second, more serious issue arose within the Russian 

government. Starting in late 1992 and accelerating each 

subsequent year, the government cut funds for elimination 

of weapons and materials. The Russian parliament cut the 

budgets for the military services and the Ministry of Defense. 

Under the Yeltsin government, the Minister of Defense 

shifted his limited funds to weapons modernization and 

military manpower.134 To take one of the many examples, 

at one point the Defense Ministry stopped appropriating 

money for repairs to its military depots and storage facilities. 

As a consequence, dangerous conditions developed at the 

missile depots storing thousands of metric tons of toxic 

liquid rocket fuels. There were no funds for maintenance on 

the specialized fuel transport vehicles. Like General Maslin, 

Director Shumkov recalled that it was a desperate time. 

“Finally there came a time when the Russian budget had 

absolutely no money for compliance with treaty obligations 

or for elimination of the weapon systems and the weapons 

continued to deteriorate to the point that they were unsafe 

for us, and, well, for the entire world.”135

Criticism cascades down on American 

and Russian CTR programs

A gap had developed between American CTR policy 

officials’ promises and the reality of program managers’ 

deliveries to Russia and elsewhere. On one hand, DOD 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

CTR equipment being used in heavy bomber elimination
92

With Courage and Persistence

officials envisioned a large, sweeping, multi-faceted, multiyear defense assistance program that would assist the new 

governments rapidly and persistently. They reported to 

Congress that the CTR program had budgeted and obligated 

$78.7 million in fiscal year 1993 and $51.3 million in fiscal 

year 1994 for Russian SOAE assistance. Program managers, 

on the other hand, saw a foreign assistance program so 

encumbered with bureaucratic regulations, congressional 

conditions, and departmental legal assumptions that it 

probably would not succeed or persist. John Connell, 

who joined the CTR program in December 1993, was a 

keen observer of bureaucratic organizations and of federal 

managers trying to make programs work. He concluded that 

“initially all we [at DNA] were going to do...was buy some 

bulldozers and trucks and some cranes, and then maintain 

them for a year, or in some cases three years. And then we 

were done. We were going to walk away.”136

Rose Gottemoeller, Director for Russia, Ukraine and 

Eurasia on the National Security Council in 1993-1994, saw 

the issue clearly. As the Clinton Administration developed 

its agenda for the region, Nunn-Lugar assistance became the 

“most important” means for accomplishing the president’s 

foreign policy priorities with the Russian Federation. 

However, in the Defense Department there were critics who 

wanted the program scaled back. For several years the Defense 

Nuclear Agency, Gottemoeller wrote, had been criticized for 

“slowing” program implementation by insisting that the 

“letter” of DOD procurement rules be fulfilled.137 These 

procedural rules slowed every aspect of the program, and 

caused congressional critics to blame the administration, 

department and program office for “not delivering.”138

Ashton Carter, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International 

Security Policy, had policy responsibility for the Defense 

Department’s Nunn-Lugar CTR effort from 1993 until 

1996. He had a similar analysis: “The Pentagon acquisition 

system is justly fabled for its ponderous procedures, endless 

paperwork and slow workings. Now the acquisition system 

that seemed to purchase airplanes in California and 

computers in Massachusetts, only with difficulty, was being 

asked to conduct multimillion dollar projects in places like 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

CTR equipment being used in heavy bomber elimination
93

Pervomaysk, Ukraine, Engels and Russia; places where U.S. 

industry had never done business.”139 According to these 

senior officials, the department needed better management 

of the American process of defining, acquiring, coordinating, 

delivering and getting materials expeditiously to the actual 

facilities and elimination sites in Russia.

To a degree, Gottemoeller, Carter and other senior CTR 

policy officials were responding to a barrage of congressional 

criticism, specifically from analysts working at the General 

Accounting Office (GAO). Long associated with Congress, 

the GAO conducted independent evaluations and reports for 

Congressional committees. Their evaluations were not only 

influential but forced responses from the administration 

and its senior program officials. In the formative years of the 

program, the GAO issued ten reports on the administration’s 

performance of the CTR program. Most, if not all these 

reports to Congress were critical of the program’s policy 

coordination, management, organization, lack of audits 

and examinations, and effectiveness. The evaluations were 

quite specific, measuring CTR annual performance against 

the administration’s congressional notifications, obligation 

rates and disbursements. 140 While administration officials, 

especially Ashton Carter and Harold Smith, responded to 

the critiques in congressional testimony and with written 

responses, the cumulative weight of criticism forced changes. 

In Congress, Senators Sam Nunn, Richard Lugar and Pete 

Domenici turned back most of the severest criticisms, while 

asserting their interest, attention and patronage.

Not surprisingly, Russian analysts were also critical of the 

Yeltsin government’s lack of capacity to define, receive and 

use CTR assistance. In 1995, Vladmir A. Orlov, director of 

a Moscow-based center for nuclear policy issues, surveyed 

key CTR decision-making officials in the Russian President’s 

Office, National Security Council, Ministry of Atomic Energy 

and Ministry of Defense.141 He found intense bureaucratic 

competition existed within the Russian executive branch, as 

many ministries and offices vied for influence in CTR-program 

decisions. There was little or no coordination between 

ministries and offices. Competition existed, for instance, 

between MinAtom and the Federal Atomic Inspectorate 

over CTR programs that would assist nuclear facility safety 

and security. The Ministry of Defense and the President’s 

Committee on Chemical and Biological Weapons clashed 

repeatedly over which organization had responsibility for 

chemical weapons destruction. American CTR officials who 

traveled to Moscow in these years recalled having to go from 

ministry to ministry, providing the same information but 

failing to get any decisions, since governmental responsibility 

was so undefined.

Within the Russian government, there was no central 

decision-making organization. This issue became acute when 

national-level decisions were needed on customs duties, local 

taxes, or granting access to military sites, nuclear cities or 

facilities. The consensus for accepting Nunn-Lugar assistance, 

so prominent in testimony of government officials before the 

Duma committees in 1992 and 1993, had dissipated in in the 

cascade of Russian domestic events, repeated program delays 

and inability of the government’s ministers or ministries to force 

solutions on entrenched bureaucracies that were demanding 

complex military and technical requirements.142

Oleg Bukharin, a Russian analyst and nuclear physicist, 

evaluated MinAtom’s work with the Defense Department’s 

CTR program from 1992 to 1995. He found that policymaking was tightly centered in Moscow, with little 

information provided to the main directorates working on 

cooperative projects in the nuclear cities and nuclear sites. 

MinAtom was highly centralized and compartmentalized; 

hence information on agreements, programs, or projects was 

not available to even the senior managers in the directorates. 

Secrecy and suspicion were central to MinAtom’s bureaucratic 

culture. As a result, U.S. CTR officials were often rebuffed as 

foreigners with no need to know any information on the 

nuclear sites.143 In these years, MinAtom’s budgets were 

being cut; there was no money for restructuring its extensive 

bureaucracy. Outside funds, like CTR, were eagerly sought 

Rose E. Gottemoeller

U.S. Embassy, Tallinn, Estonia
94

With Courage and Persistence

after. However under U.S. law and the bilateral agreements, 

these funds could not be awarded directly to MinAtom. 

When the promised American equipment failed to arrive 

in Russia quickly, Minister Mikhailov, Minister of Atomic 

Energy, criticized the program: “I am personally satisfied by 

the implementation of only two agreements: on containers 

and on storage facility design. Frankly speaking, it is the U.S. 

side that is responsible for these delays. We’ve received much 

less equipment than was promised. Moreover, the assistance 

we get is mostly assistance to U.S. companies, not to us.”144

A similar theme was expressed by Alexander A. Pikayev, 

counsel to the Defense Committee of the Russian Duma and 

a nonproliferation analyst. In the first four years of NunnLugar/CTR, it had proposed spending $612 million; it had 

obligated $348 million in signed contracts; and had sent 

$119 million in goods and services to Russia. Per annum, 

Russia received only $34 million in CTR assistance; an 

amount that in 1995 constituted less than eight percent of 

the Russian Federation’s weapons dismantlement budget.145

Pikayev admitted that American assistance had improved in 

1995, a development he attributed to managerial reforms 

in the U.S. Department of Defense. Yet, these changes came 

very late, as weakness in the Russian government under 

Yeltsin was producing greater instability in the nation’s 

decision-making bureaucracy. Mikhailov at MinAtom was 

already disenchanted with the program; he was unlikely to 

champion the American assistance effort across the Russian 

government. At the Committee for Defense Industry, Nikolai 

Shumkov faced a series of ministerial-level reorganizations 

that stripped his organization of most of its revenues and 

resources. While some CTR equipment was flowing to 

Russian submarine dismantlement shipyards and bomber 

elimination centers, the pace was slow. The Russian chemical 

weapons destruction effort had severe organizational and 

technical difficulties in addition to rivalries over decisionmaking authority. MinAtom’s fissile material control and 

accounting system had stalled on the rocks of secrecy, 

suspicion and bureaucratic intransigence. Like other Russian 

analysts, Pikayev was impressed by the American generosity 

and earnestness, but he concluded there were so many 

problems and difficulties with the U.S.-Russian Federation 

CTR program that it would dissipate if major changes were 

not undertaken.146

These critiques, while accurate, belied many senior 

Russian officials’ support for Nunn-Lugar assistance, 

specifically for continuing programs that furthered their 

nation’s nonproliferation objectives and treaty compliance. 

Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov declared that 

“agreements concluded with the United States on the NunnLugar fund fully reflect Russia’s national interests and meet 

Russia’s concerns.”147 In general, the Russian prime minister 

and key ministers supported CTR, especially assistance 

programs in nonproliferation and defense conversion.148

Yuri Baturin served as special assistant for national security 

in President Yeltsin’s Office. “We generally support the idea 

of the Nunn-Lugar fund,” Baturin explained, “and we expect 

it to increase...[t]he problem of reducing nuclear risks and 

proliferation is a very complicated and delicate one.”149 At the 

Russian National Security Council, Deputy Secretary Valerii 

Mamilov was familiar with all aspects of the program: “We 

welcome the U.S. Nunn-Lugar plan and believe in its fast 

implementation, with the understanding that the money 

should be invested in Russia, not outside of it.”150 In the State 

Duma, key committee chairmen and members continued to 

support the government’s ministries working with the United 

States Department of Defense on the Nunn-Lugar fund. 

Perhaps the strongest endorsement came from the Ministry 

of Defense and the General Staff. Colonel General Maslin had 

worked closely with American CTR managers and declared: 

“The U.S. offered us aid, free of charge. We have no money in 

our budget to solve disarmament problems ourselves. Why 

should we say ‘No’? The CTR helps MOD a lot.”151

From these opinions and others, it appeared that many 

senior Russian officials had concluded that the government 

needed the array of nonproliferation and treaty compliance 

assistance programs U.S. CTR officials were offering. In this 

regard, both governments continued to share the same broad 

policy objectives in 1993 and 1994 that they had when 

Senators Nunn and Lugar had put forth the initial assistance, 

in spite of the enormous domestic and bureaucratic pressures 

and problems. “This program,” Nunn concluded at a major 

international nonproliferation conference in 1995, “helped 

to focus the leadership of these newly emerging countries on 

the key problem of weapons of mass destruction at a time 

when they had many critical things to consider, when this 

was only one of many urgent priorities.”152

Officials in the Russian and American governments 

agreed they shared many of the same policy objectives. 

They did not share, however, which specific changes were 

necessary to make CTR assistance work. The array of issues 
95

was lengthy: How to make program decisions more quickly; 

how to fix decision-making responsibility at lower levels of 

the ministries, departments and military commands; how to 

manage and carry out the programs professionally; how to 

get requested equipment, training packages and instructors, 

and maintenance specialists to the right dismantlement 

site or storage facility on time and on schedule. If there was 

disarray within the Russian government and bureaucracies, 

there were structural and managerial problems within the 

Clinton Administration and the Defense Department. While 

no one in the United States thought the CTR effort with 

Russia would end, few held strong expectations that it would 

succeed with dozens of major, new programs and projects in 

the next decade. Two developments – one widely foreseen, 

the other totally unexpected – changed everything.

Two developments 

In the first instance, world and regional leaders, media 

and the public paid close attention to Ukraine in the fall 

and winter of 1993 and 1994. After nearly two years of 

independence, Ukraine’s government was forced to decide 

on the fate of its inherited nuclear armies – the 43rd Rocket 

Army’s 130 SS-19 and 46 SS-24 ICBMs, and the 46th Bomber 

Army’s 21 heavy bombers, with their combined arsenal of 

more than 1,800 attributed nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian 

government’s long-awaited decision would involve both 

Russia and the United States, and it would thrust the NunnLugar CTR assistance program directly into the heart of a 

major, new international accord: the Trilateral Agreement of 

1994. In doing so, it also influenced the future of the U.S.-

Kazakhstan and U.S.-Russian CTR assistance programs.

In a second, unexpected development, Secretary of Defense 

Les Aspin abruptly resigned in December 1993. Following the 

sudden death and injuries to U.S. Army Rangers in Mogadishu, 

Somalia, President Clinton asked for Aspin’s resignation.153

The new secretary, William Perry, took office in January 1994 

just as Clinton, Yeltsin and Kravchuk signed the Trilateral 

Agreement in the Kremlin. Immediately, Secretary Perry made 

it his top priority to carry out all of the United States’ CTR 

commitments to Ukraine. With that, everything changed.

Endnotes

1

 Yevgeny P. Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear 

Weapons Safety,” John M. Shields and William C. Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the NunnLugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, (Cambridge: Harvard 

University Press, 1997), p. 142.

2

 Vladimir Orlov, Roland Timberbaev, and Anton Khloppkov, 

Nuclear Nonproliferation in U.S.-Russian Relations: Challenges and 

Opportunities, (Moscow: PIR Center, 2002), pp. 161-162. See also 

Gunnar O. Arbman and Charles L. Thornton, “Russia’s Tactical 

Nuclear Weapons Part I: Background and Policy Issues,” FOI Report, 

Part I, (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2003).

3 Arms Control Reporter, 1992, pp. 407.E.59-108. This section 

describes the movement of forces from Central European nations 

and the Baltic States into Russia.

4 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, pp. 407.E.109-113.

5

 Joseph P. Harahan and John C. Kuhn, On-Site Inspections 

Under the CFE Treaty: A History of the On-Site Inspection Agency and 

CFE Treaty Implementation, 1990-1996, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site 

Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 1996), pp. 73-77.

6

 Ibid., pp. 89-90.

7

 William E. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military, (New 

Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 388-404. This point 

constitutes one part of Odom’s conclusion. 

8

 Dmitry Litovkin, “A Cooperation Between the 12th Main 

Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation 

and the U.S. Department of Defense under the Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program,” in Ivan Sfranchuk, ed., Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program: How Efficient?, (Moscow: PIR Center, 2000), 

pp.13-17. See also, John Pike, “Russian National-Level Nuclear 

Weapons Storage,” GlobalSecurity.org, at www.globalsecurity.org/

wmd/world/russia/storage.htm accessed on 29 December 2011. 

Also, Orlov, Timberbaev, and Khloppkov, Nuclear Nonproliferation in 

U.S.-Russian Relations.

9

 Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons 

Safety,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p 142.

10 Joseph P. Harahan, On-Site Inspections Under the INF 

Treaty: A History of the On-Site Inspection Agency and INF Treaty 

Implementation, 1988-1991, (Washington, D.C.: On-Site Inspection 

Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, 1993), pp. 41, 85, 110, 160.

11 Harahan and Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty, 

pp. 73-77. Interview, Lieutenant General Vladimir I. Medvedev, 

Director Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, MiniPstry of Defense, 

Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, On-Site 

Inspection Agency, Magna, Utah, 30 August 1994.

12 Ibid. See also, Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. 

Army (retired), Deputy Secretary of Defense for CTR (, 1994-

1997),, U.S. Department of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Senior Historian, DTRA, West Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 

2004.
96

With Courage and Persistence

13 Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their 

Nuclear Ambitions, (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center 

Press, 1995), pp. 89-182.

14 The Russian Federation’s Foreign Policy Concept was issued 

in April 1993. See, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 29 April 1993.

15 Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons 

Safety,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 142.

16 Statement, Under Secretary Reginald Bartholomew, U.S. 

State Department, to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 

SH 102-510, 5 February 1992. See also, Interview, Ambassador 

William Courtney, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan (1992-1995),, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 28 August 2002. During 

the fall and winter of 1991-1992, Courtney worked with the U.S.-

Soviet-Russian delegations in a series of technical meetings. See too, 

Statement, Major General William F. Burns, U.S. Army (retired), 

Special Envoy on the Safety, Security, and Dismantlement of 

Nuclear Weapons, Department of State, to U.S. Senate, Committee 

on Foreign Relations, SH 102-872, 27 July 1992.

17 Brief Biography, Mikhailov, Victor Nikitovich, Member 

Russian Academy of Sciences. See too, Interview, Dr. Victor N. 

Mikhailov, Minister of Atomic Energy (1992-1998), Russian 

Federation and Scientific Director of the Sarov Nuclear Center 

(1999-2005), Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, U.S. Department of Defense, Moscow, Russia, 19 

January 2005.

18 Michael Weins, “Accord at Summit,” New York Times, 17 

June 1992, pp. A1-A10. For the actual agreement see “Agreement 

Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and 

Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons 

Proliferation,” Washington, D.C., 17 June ,1992. The agreement 

was signed by George Bush and Boris Yeltsin.

19 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the President’s Committee on 

Conventional Problems of Chemical and Biological Weapons of the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe, Secure, and Ecologically 

Sound Destruction of Chemical Weapons,” Washington, D.C., 

30 July 1992. “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of 

the United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation of Nuclear Weapons 

Through the Provision of Cargo and Guard Railcar Conversion 

Kits,” Moscow, Russia, 28 August 1992. “Agreement Between the 

Department of Defense of the United States of America and the 

Ministry of Atomic Energy Concerning Technical Assistance for the 

Design of a Safe, Secure, and Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for 

Fissile Material Derived from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” 

Washington, D.C., 5 October 1992.

20 Committee hearings in the Russian Federation’s Congress 

of People’s Deputies, cited in, Vladimir Orlov, ed., Guidebook: 

Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 

(Moscow: Human Rights Publishers, 2006), pp. 13-16.

21 For Dr. Mikhailov’s testimony see, Orlov, ed. Guidebook, pp. 

14-15.

22 Ibid., pp. 15-16.

23 Ibid., p. 16.

24 Ibid., p. 16.

25 Ibid., p. 13.

26 Interfax, Moscow, 4 November 1992. “Deputy Defense 

Minister Details Costs,” FBIS-SOV 1992, 5 November 1992. Fred 

Haitt, “Russian Duma Ratifies Treaty,” Washington Post, 5 November 

1992.

27 Maslin, “The CTR Program and Russia’s National Security 

Interests,” in Safranchuk, ed., The Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program, (Moscow: PIR Center, 2000), pp. 4-8. 

28 Interview, Dr. Alexi Arbatov, Deputy Chairman, Defense 

Committee, DUMA, Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, U.S. Department of Defense, Moscow, Russia, 21 

January 2005.

29 Interview, Arbatov, 21 January 2005.

30 “Minutes of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian 

Federation,” Rossiskaya Gazeta, 19 December 1992, cited in, Orlov, 

ed., Guidebook, pp. 15-16.

31 Maslin quote from, Orlov, ed., Guidebook, p. 12.

32 Oleg Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

216-217.

33 U.S. Department of State, Fact Sheet: Safe and Secure 

Dismantlement of Nuclear Weapons in the New Independent 

States, 3 January 1994. Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means: The 

Politics of US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, 

(Westport 2001), pp. 32-33.

34 Alexander A. Pikayev, “The CTR Program in Russia: Is a 

New Start Possible? A Russian View,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 103-137. Pikayev was very critical 

of the amount of Nunn-Lugar funds that reached Russia in these 

years. This view was seconded by another Russian analyst in, 

Orlov, “Perspectives of Russian Decision-makers and Problems of 

Implementation,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold 

War, pp. 85-102.

35 Arbman and Thornton, Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons Part.

36 Dmitry Litovkin, “A Cooperation Between the 12th Main 

Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation 

and the U.S. Department of Defense under the Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program,” in Ivan Sfranchuk, ed., Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program,: How Efficient?, (Moscow: PIR Center,2000), 

pp. 13-17. Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

215-216.

37 U.S. Department of Defense, “Proliferation: Threat and 

Response,” November 1997. See also, “Russian National-Level 

Nuclear Weapons Storage,” GlobalSecurity.org, at www.globalsecurity.

org/wmd/world/russia/storage.htm accessed on 29 December 2011.

38 Maslin, “The CTR Program and Russia’s National Security 

Interests”, in Sfranchuk, ed., Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs, 

p. 5.

39 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation and Storage of 
97

Nuclear Weapons Through the Provision of Armored Blankets,” 

Washington, D.C., 17 June 1992.

40 The armored blankets were delivered in panels so that 

they could be expanded or contracted around the containers. For 

security reasons, the Russian 12th Main Directorate did not allow 

access to the actual warhead containers.

41 Briefing, Dr. John Birely, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense 

for Atomic Energy, 10 November 1993.

42 Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons 

Safety,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 145.

43 Ibid.

44 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation and Storage of 

Nuclear Weapons Through the Provision of Emergency Response 

Equipment and Related Training,” Washington, D.C., 17 June 1992.

45 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 

214.

46 Briefing, Birely, 10 November1993.

47 Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons 

Safety,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 145.

48 Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, CTR Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 20 July 2004.

49 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 

216.

50 Ibid.

51 Litovkin, “Cooperation Between the 12th GUMO and the U.S. 

DOD within the CTR Framework,” in Sfranchuk, ed., Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program, p. 14.

52 Interview, Moon, 20 July 2004.

53 Ibid.

54 Cited in Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

222-223. For von Hippel’s article see, Frank von Hippel, “Working 

in the White House on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Arms 

Control: A Personal Report,” FAS Public Interest Report, vol. 48, no.2 

(1995).

55 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation of Nuclear Weapons 

Through the Provision of Cargo and Guard Railcar Conversion 

Kits,” Moscow, 28 August 1992.

56 Briefing, Birely, 10 November 1993.

57 Maslin, “Russian-U.S. Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons 

Safety,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

145-146.

58 David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, 

Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, 

Capabilities, and Policies, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 

Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly 

Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Washington, D.C.: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), pp. 179-180.

59 Statement of Reginald Bartholomew, Under Secretary of State 

for International Security, Department of State, to the U.S. Senate, 

Foreign Relations Committee, SH 102-510, 5 February 1992. For the 

diplomatic context see, James A. Baker III and Thomas M. DeFrank, 

The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992, 

(New York: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1995),, pp. 558-586, 588-613, 

614-636. Also, James M. Goldgeiger and Michael McFaul, Power and 

Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War, (Washington, 

D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), pp. 18-40, 41-59.

60 Statement of Reginald Bartholomew, Under Secretary of State 

for International Security, Department of State, to the U.S. Senate, 

Foreign Relations Committee, SH 102-510, 5 February 1992.

61 This figure, 45,000, represented the design capacity of the 

Soviet nuclear complex. See, Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear 

Threat Reduction Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, p. 228.

62 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation 

and Storage of Nuclear Weapons through the Provision of Fissile 

Materials Containers,” Washington, D.C., 17 June 1992.

63 Ibid., see Annex A.

64 Interview, Mikhailov Interview, Dr. Victor N. Mikhailov, 

former Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, with 

Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, U.S. Department of 

Defense, 19 January 2005.

65 Briefing, Birely, 10 November 1993.

66 Interview, Mikhailov, 19 January 2005.

67 Ibid.

68 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning Technical Assistance for the Design of a Safe, Secure, 

and Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for Fissile Material Derived 

from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” Washington, D.C., 5 

October 1992.

69 Briefing, Birely, 10 November 1993.

70 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of the Russian Federation 

for Atomic Energy Concerning the Provision of Material, Services, 

and Training Related to the Construction of a Safe, Secure, and 

Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for Fissile Material Derived from 

the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” 2 September 1993.

71 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

216-217.

72 Briefing, Birely, 10 November 1993.

73 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 

217.

74 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of the Russian Federation 
98

With Courage and Persistence

for Atomic Energy Concerning Control, Accounting, and Physical 

Protection of Nuclear Material,” 2 September 1993.

75 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, 

pp. 220-221. See also, Orlov, Timberbaev, and Khloppkov, Nuclear 

Nonproliferation in U.S. Russian Relations, pp. 215-217.

76 General Accounting Office, “Report on Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union,” 

October 1994.

77 Pikayev, “The CTR Program in Russia,” in Shields and Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 110.

78 Ibid., p. 110. See also, Jessica Eve Stern, “Cooperative 

Activities to Improve Fissile Material Protection, Control, and 

Accounting,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, 

pp. 309-343.

79 In October 1992, Arms Control Today devoted an entire issue 

to examining negotiations, issues, definitions, and inspection 

regimes in the Chemical Weapons Convention. See, “The Chemical 

Weapons Convention Banning the Poisons of War,” Arms Control 

Today, October 1992 (Washington, D.C.).

80 For a published copy of the CWC Treaty see, Convention on 

the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of 

Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, U.S. Arms Control and 

Disarmament Agency, (Washington, D.C.: October 1993). For the 

number of nation joining the treaty see, Thomas Stock and Anna de 

Geer, “Chemical Weapon Developments” in Stockholm International 

Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 1994: World Armaments 

and Disarmament, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 

314-342.

81 Russian Federation Federal Investigative Service Report, A 

New Challenge After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass 

Destruction, JPPS-TND-93-007.

82 U.S. Congress, Office of Technological Assessment, Report, 

Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks, 

OTA-ISC-559 (August 1993).

83 CWC Treaty, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, 

Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their 

Destruction, ACDA, 1993, p. 2.

84 For a good overview of the challenges facing U.S. and 

Russian officials in destroying their chemical weapons stockpiles in 

1992-1993 see, Paul Doty, “The Challenge of Destroying Chemical 

Weapons,” in Arms Control Today, October 1992, pp. 25-29.

85 See, Igor Khripunov, “U.S. Assistance to Russia’s Chemical 

Demilitarization Efforts,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 363-366.

86 Government Accounting Office Report, “Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union: 

An Update,” 9 June 1995, pp. 16-17.

87 Khripunov, “U.S. Assistance to Russia’s Chemical 

Demilitarization Efforts,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 363-381.

88 Report, Office of the Secretary of Defense to the U.S. 

Congress, “Quarterly Report on Program Activities to Facilitate 

Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet 

Union,” 20 September 1993.

89 Stock and de Geer, “Chemical and Biological Weapons,” in 

SIPRI Yearbook 1995, pp. 341-342.

90 For the text of the U.S.-Soviet Union MOU Agreement see, 

SIPRI Yearbook 1991, pp. 536-539.

91 See, “Amendment to the Agreement between the Department 

of Defense of the United States of America and the President’s 

Committee on Problems of Chemical and Biological Weapons 

of the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe, Secure and 

Ecologically Sound Destruction of Chemical Weapons,” Moscow, 

18 March 1994.

92 Teresa Hitchens, “U.S. eyes Russian chemical aid: Congress 

may increase funding for deconstruction site,” Defense News, 29 

May 1994, p. 34. For context see, Stock and de Geer, “Chemical and 

Biological Weapons,” in SIPRI Yearbook 1995, pp. 351-352.

93 GAO Report, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reducing the 

Threat from the Former Soviet Union: An Update,” 9 June 1995, 

pp. 16-19. In November 1994 the leadership changed in Congress 

and the new leaders were very critical of the CW projects in Russia. 

For the political context see, Dunbar Lockwood, “The Nunn-Lugar 

program: No Time to Pull the Plug,” Arms Control Today, June 1995, 

pp. 8-13.

94 R. Alan Moody, “The International Science Center Initiative,” 

in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 254.

95 Ibid., pp. 254-255. For background see, U.S. State 

Department, International Science and Technology Center Fact 

Sheet, 12 June 1992.

96 Moody, “The International Science Center Initiative,” in 

Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 255-256.

97 See, R. Jeffrey Smith, “Gates Fears Soviet ‘Brain Drain’,” 

Washington Post, 16 January 1992.

98 Moody, “The International Science Center Initiative,” in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 261-262.

99 Ibid., p. 262. 

100 “Russian Science and Technology Center Agreement Signed,” 

U.S. Department of State Dispatches, 7 December 1992.

101 Ildar A. Akhtamzian, “The International Science and 

Technological Center: Bureaucratic Games,” The Nonproliferation 

Review, vol. 3, no. 1 (Fall 1995), p. 79.

102 Moody, “The International Science Center Initiative,” in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 262, 267-271.

103 Briefing, CTR Program Office, “DOD CTR Funding Status, 

FY92 – FY98,” no date.

104 USIS News Release, “First Meeting of the International 

Science and Technological Center Board,” 18 March 1994. 

105 Moody, “The International Science Center Initiative,” in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 262, 267-

271. Also, Briefing, CTR Program Office,” no date.

106 Oles Lomacky, Executive Director, First Annual Report: The 

International Science and Technological Center, (March-December 

1994,), Moscow, Russia, September 1995. 

107 Public Law 103-160, “National Defense Act” for FY 1994, 

November 30, 1993, gave the Secretary of Defense the authority 
99

to transfer CTR funds to the departments of State and Energy. In 

December 1994, Secretary Perry transferred the mission and the 

money for the ISTC to the State Department. See Moody, “The 

International Science Center Initiative,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 270-271.

108 Lomacky, First Annual Report.

109 Akhtamzian, “International Science and Technological 

Center,” p. 82. Moody, “International Science Center Initiative,” 

in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 251-289. 

Sharon K. Weiner, “Preventing Nuclear Entrepreneurship in Russia’s 

Nuclear Cities,” International Security, vol. 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 

126-158.

110 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A 

New Security Strategy for America, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings 

Institution Press, 1999), pp. 72-82.

111 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, p. 73. Interview with Mr. 

Jim Reid, Director, CTRCooperative Threat Reduction Policy Office, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, 1 May 2000. Interview with Dr. Harold P. Smith, 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological 

Programs (1993-1998),) with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, 14 December 2001. Interview Ms. Laura S.H. Holgate, 

Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense for International 

Policy, with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 June 2002.

112 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential 

Diplomacy, (New York: Random House, 2002).

113 See Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 49-77.

114 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, pp. 611.B.802.

115 Interview, Ambassador James Goodby, U.S. Ambassador 

for the Safe, Secure, and Dismantlement Talks (1993-1994), with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 March 

2005.

116 Sfranchuk, “ESOA Program in Russia,” in Sfranchuk, ed., The 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, p. 26.

117 Interview, Nikolai Ivanovich Shumkov, Director (retired), 

Department of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and 

Director, Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, 

MOD, Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Moscow, Russia, 20 July 2005.

118 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Committee for Defense Industry 

of the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the 

Elimination of Strategic Offensive Arms,” 23 August 1993.

119 Beginning in 1995, DoD’s CTR Program Office began using 

a chart, dubbed the “Scorecard,” to illustrate the specific number of 

missiles, bombers, submarines, and launchers had been eliminated 

and how many would be under the START I Treaty timelines.

120 Pavel L. Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 

(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 149-150.

121 Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005.

122 Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 149-150. 

Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005. The July 1994 figure is from the 

U.S. GAO, Report: “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reducing the 

Threat from the Former Soviet Union: An Update,” 9 June 1995, 

pp. 13-14.

123 Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 149-150. 

Interview, Major General (Ret.) Vasily Lata, Director, director 

Strategic Plans, SRF, MOD, Russian Federation, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Moscow, Russia, 25 January 2005.

124 There were times when this fact was not appreciated in 

Washington, D.C., especially in Congress. For American CTR 

officials “access” to Russian military bases and sites was always an 

issue. In some areas, nuclear weapons depots and storage areas, the 

issue remained a difficult issue for many years.

125 Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005.

126 This lack of nuclear weapons elimination infrastructure 

was at the center of many negotiations and programs. See, John 

W.R. Lepingwell and Nikolai Sokov, “Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination and Weapons Protection, Control, and Accounting,” 

The Nonproliferation Review, (Spring 2000), pp. 59-75. See also, 

Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005. Also, Interview, Moon, 20 July 

2004. And also Interview, Reid, 1 May 2000.

127 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Committee for Defense Industry 

of the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the 

Elimination of Strategic Offensive Arms,” 23 August 1993.

128 Ibid.

129 Ibid.

130 Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005.

131 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Committee for Defense Industry 

of the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the 

Elimination of Strategic Offensive Arms,” 23 August 1993.

132 Interview, Reid, 1 May 2000.

133 Sfranchuk, “ESOA Program in Russia,” in Sfranchuk, ed., 

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, pp. 24-34. Oleg Bukharin, 

“MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction Activities,” in Shields and 

Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 211-229.

134 Pikayev, “The CTR Program in Russia,” in Shields and Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 103-139.

135 Interview, Shumkov, 20 July 2005.

136 Interview, John Connell, Chief, Strategic Nuclear Arms 

Elimination Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 16 February 2001.

137 Rose Gottemoeller, “Presidential Priorities in Nuclear 

Policy,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 68.

138 Ibid., p. 69. The Congressional Accounting Office issued 

a series of reports in these years that were critical of the DoD’s 

implementation of the Nunn-Lugar/CTR program in Russia and 

other nations. 

139 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, p. 74.

140 Among the most important were: GAO, Reports, “Soviet 

Nuclear Weapons: Priorities and Costs Associated with U.S. 

Dismantlement Assistance,” 3 February 1993; “Soviet Nuclear 

Weapons: U.S. Efforts to Help Former Soviet Republics Secure 

and Destroy Weapons,” 3 September 1993; “Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union, 
100

With Courage and Persistence

10 June 1994; “Former Soviet Union: U.S. Bilateral Programs 

Lacks Effective Coordination,” 2 July 1995; “Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union: 

An Update,” 6 September 1995; and “Former Soviet Union: 

Information on U.S. Bilateral Program Funding,” 15 December 

1995.

141 Orlov,“Perspectives of Russian Decision-makers and 

Problems of Implementation,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 85-102.

142 Ibid., pp. 100-102.

143 Bukharin, “MinAtom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 

211-229.

144 Dr. Viktor Mikhailov’s quote in, Orlov, “Perspectives of 

Russian Decision-makers and Problems of Implementation,” in 

Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 92-93.

145 Pikayev, “The CTR Program in Russia,” in Shields and Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 103-104.

146 Ibid., pp. 126-129.

147 Deputy Foreign Minister Mamedov’s quote cited in, 

Orlov, “Perspectives of Russian Decision-makers and Problems of 

Implementation,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold 

War, p. 93.

148 Prime Minister Chernomyrdin’ statement is cited in, 

Orlov, “Perspectives of Russian Decision-makers and Problems of 

Implementation,” in Shields and Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold 

War, p. 93. 

149 Ibid., p. 93. Special Assistant Baturin’s statement is cited in 

this article.

150 Ibid., p. 93, for NSC Deputy Secretary Mamilov’s quote.

151 Ibid., p. 92, for Colonel General Maslin’s statement.

152 See also, Senator Sam Nunn, “Foreword: Changing 

Threats in the Post-Cold War World,” in Shields and Potter, eds., 

Dismantling the Cold War, p. xii. Both Senators Nunn and Lugar led 

congressional delegations to the region, seeking out government, 

military, and political leaders, and discussing the joint programs. 

They admitted past difficulties, but insisted that the problem of the 

weapons of mass destruction was so serious that every government 

had to recognize and work on the issue.

153 Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, 

(New York: Penguin Group, 2002). See also, John F. Harris, The 

Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, (New York: Random House, 

2005), pp. 121-125.
101

CHAPTER 5

Resolving Ukraine’s Nuclear Inheritance

Resolving Ukraine’s nuclear inheritance was difficult. 

Theoretically, sovereign states control all military forces 

stationed on their territory, either directly or through status 

of forces agreements. However, when Ukraine became an 

independent state in December 1991, President Kravchuk 

signed agreements in Minsk and Almaty ceding operational 

control over the strategic nuclear forces on its territory – the 

rocket and bomber armies – to the new Commonwealth of 

Independent States (CIS) Armed Forces, headquartered in 

Moscow. Except for those nuclear and naval forces in the 

Black Sea fleet, Ukraine nationalized all other inherited 

military forces: the conventional armies, air forces, air 

defense and paramilitary units. Ukraine required the 

military officers and men to take a new oath of allegiance, 

wear new national uniforms, learn and use the Ukrainian 

language and serve under a civilian Minister of Defense. The 

distinction between the inherited strategic and conventional 

forces, which seemed settled at the time of independence, 

was under constant review throughout 1992 and 1993.

On this issue Ukrainian leaders were inconsistent. First 

they acknowledged, and then they challenged, the legitimacy 

of the CIS Armed Forces’ control over the strategic nuclear 

forces, the rocket and bomber armies on their territory. At 

the urging of the United States, Ukrainian leaders signed 

the Strategic Arms Reduction (START) Treaty’s Lisbon 

Protocols in May 1992 and pledged to eliminate, following 

ratification, all of the missiles and bombers the treaty 

required. Yet Ukraine’s parliament delayed consideration 

of the treaty month after month. By the time of the final 

vote on ratification, it had attached so many conditions 

that Russia and the United States refused to accept it. At one 

point, President Kravchuk declared that the government had 

assumed “administrative” control over the strategic nuclear 

forces in Ukraine. At another point the Minister of Defense 

insisted that the national oath of allegiance be administered 

to all personnel in the strategic forces. Later, the Ukrainian 

government and parliament claimed that the nation “owned” 

the nuclear weapons and nuclear materials.

Russian leaders rejected all Ukrainian claims of control or 

ownership. From June 1992 forward, Russia demanded that 

Ukraine remove the strategic nuclear forces on its territory 

from alert status, decommission them and return the nuclear 

warheads to the Russian Federation. Nationalistic and 

distrustful, Ukraine refused Russia’s stipulations. For nearly 

two years, claims, rejections, demands and counterclaims 

raged between Russia and Ukraine. This bickering was 

visible in public many times. The dispute over the status 

and future of these nuclear forces on Ukrainian territory 

became bitter and complex, involving security guarantees, 

regional dominance, national military strategies, economic 

compensation and dismantlement assistance. The United 

States’ diplomatic and defense leaders had little influence 

in these rancorous Russian-Ukrainian bilateral negotiations, 

except in the final months of 1993.

At the center of this storm were Colonel General Mikhtyuk 

and the 43rd Rocket Army. In comparison to Belarus, which 

had inherited 81 SS-25 missiles mounted on truck-driven 

mobile launchers, the 43rd Rocket Army had 139 SS-19 and 

46 SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) located 

in fixed, reinforced concrete silos. They could not be moved. 
102

With Courage and Persistence

In Belarus, the Supreme Soviet parliament had acted quickly, 

voting to return the missiles and warheads to Russia. In 

Ukraine, the government did not act quickly; the 43rd Rocket 

Army remained in place.

Status of the 43rd Rocket Army

Considering the contentious relationship between Ukraine 

and its powerful neighbor, one of the remarkable aspects 

of the developing situation in Ukraine was the willingness 

of the 43rd Rocket Army’s commander, General Mikhtyuk, 

to meet with Ukrainian, Russian and even American 

delegations. In March 1992, General Kostiantyn Morozov, 

Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, and Anatoly Zlenko, Minister 

of Foreign Affairs, traveled to Pervomaysk, the 46th Rocket 

Division headquarters, where they met the commanding 

general and division officers. They toured a missile complex 

command post for SS-24s, inspected the launching systems 

and the nuclear weapons storage depot, and talked with 

the rocket division’s officers and men. General Mikhtyuk 

briefed the defense minister, a former fighter pilot, and the 

foreign minister, once a university professor, on the rocket 

army’s personnel, finances and security. Speaking with the 

benefit of 36 years of experience as a Strategic Rocket Forces 

officer, the general explained the consequences of the Soviet 

Union’s collapse on the rocket army. The former centralized 

systems, he told them, for monitoring and replacing critical 

warhead and missile parts had broken down. The complex 

missile systems required technical expertise from design 

and production bureaus to provide the operational missile 

forces with periodic and specialized maintenance inspections 

on the nuclear weapons complexes. That system was not 

functioning. Finally, funding for all of the complex operations 

and maintenance functions needed to sustain a large, modern 

strategic rocket army in the field, which had never been 

problematic before, was now drying up.1

Everyone at the meeting knew that both the Russian and 

Ukrainian economies were under stress. Inflation was just 

beginning and both governments were trying to sustain their 

military-industrial economies with decreasing revenues. 

When the meeting concluded, Defense Minister Morozov 

said that he was sympathetic to General Mikhtyuk’s difficult 

situation, telling reporters that once Ukraine and Russia 

resolved the “ownership” issue of the nuclear weapons then 

technical assistance for the rocket army could be negotiated 

quickly.2

 Exactly one month later, Ukraine’s president and his 

Deployment of 43rd Rocket Army in Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
103

defense minister made abundantly clear how they intended 

to “resolve” the ownership issue. On April 4, 1992, President 

Kravchuk ordered that the 43rd Rocket Army and the 46th Air 

Army be incorporated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.3

 10 

days later, General Morozov told a congress of the Ukrainian 

Officers Union in Kiev, “Whoever does not take the oath of 

allegiance can resign.”4

In fact, very few officers took the oath or resigned. The 

43rd Rocket Army was not incorporated into the Ukrainian 

Armed Forces, nor was it involved in any of the negotiations 

between Russia and Ukraine over its future. “I think it was 

the right decision,” General Mikhtyuk recalled later, “not 

involving the strategic missile specialists in the discussions 

concerning their future.”5

 From time to time, Mikhtyuk 

would travel from the army’s headquarters in Vinnitsa to 

the capital, Kiev, to discuss technical issues with members 

of the Ukrainian National Security Council and meet with 

individual deputies and committee members of parliament. 

However, he prohibited the senior officers from any 

such discussions. “I gave an order to my deputies and the 

commanders of the rocket divisions,” he recalled, “not to 

get into these discussions and to focus all of their efforts on 

the maintenance of the armaments (missile complexes) and 

maintaining the equipment in safe condition.”6

The 43rd Rocket Army was one of the largest in the former 

Soviet Union. Its operational missile complexes and launch 

control centers required continuous maintenance, periodic 

and scheduled replacement of obsolete or broken parts, 

technical and nuclear surety inspections, debugging of 

computers, and continuous remote monitoring of the status 

of the missile launching systems. Throughout 1992 and 

1993, a reduced rocket army of approximately 20,000 men 

kept the missile complexes on continuous operational alert 

and General Mikhtyuk demanded it meet all of the Strategic 

Rocket Forces’ current operational and technical standards. 

The 139 SS-19 missiles, each with six nuclear warheads, 

and 46 SS-24 missiles, with 10 warheads, were located 

in 190 fixed, buried silos scattered across the Ukrainian 

countryside. Experienced missile officers monitored the 

missiles and weapons from command complexes located 

deep underground in buried command posts.7

 Like all 

commanders in the Strategic Rocket Forces, General 

Mikhtyuk relied on technical inspection teams to measure 

and report on the rocket army’s operational standards. These 

teams reported directly to him on the status of the personnel, 

equipment and systems working at the missile complexes. 

Conducted in the field with more than 100 personnel, these 

large technical inspection teams spent a week or longer 

working in the missile divisions and regiments – examining 

the silos, launch control centers, communication systems, 

security systems and the maintenance centers. According 

to General Mikhtyuk, these inspections required “a great 

number of division units, special division services and 

special industrial teams.”8

Yet the constant discussions about their future in the 

Ukrainian parliament, and media did not escape the officers 

and men of the 43rd Rocket Army. “The situation was not 

easy,” Mikhtyuk recalled, “the majority [of commanders and 

officers] wanted to take part in resolving the problem of the 

43rd Rocket Army’s future.”9

 In fact, the 46th Rocket Division’s 

former commander, Major General Vasily Tolubko, had 

Senator Lugar, Senator Nunn and General Mikhtyuk (l.-r.)

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

43rd Rocket Army’s missile forces

139 SS-19 missiles 

(6 warheads each)

46 SS-24 missiles 

(10 warheads each)
104

With Courage and Persistence

resigned his commission, was elected to parliament and 

advocated that Ukraine retain the 43rd Rocket Army, thus 

making it a nuclear state.10 While General Tolubko’s position 

was never the majority opinion, it compounded existing 

tensions. Delegation after delegation arrived at army and 

division headquarters, either at Vinnitsa, Pervomaysk or 

Khmelnitsky. They met with the commanding general, 

discussed the army’s status and toured the missile complexes. 

Invariably, these visitors met with reporters outside the 

missile base. In July 1993, President Kravchuk and a large 

delegation traveled to Khmelnitsky to learn first-hand the 

status of the SS-19 missile complexes.11 Later in the summer 

and fall, other Ukrainian, Russian and even American 

officials visited the headquarters for briefings and traveled 

out to the missile complexes of the 43rd Rocket Army.12 Such 

attention, unusual for any military unit, was extraordinary 

for an operational rocket army in the Strategic Rocket Forces.

General Mikhtyuk used his command presence and 

personal prestige to persuade the army’s officers to remain 

committed to the mission. “I had many discussions,” he 

recalled, “explaining to them that a sudden emotional 

decision on this issue (oath of allegiance) could result in 

negative consequences.”13 The general’s order to his strategic 

missile specialists to abstain from public commentary paid 

off. A majority of the strategic rocket officers did not take 

the oath of allegiance or become involved in the national 

debate. They also did not resign, although many petitioned 

their missile division commanders for transfers to other SRF 

rocket armies based in the Russian Federation. Some requests 

were granted but most were not. Like their commander, 

the officers and men continued to serve as strategic rocket 

officers carrying out their duties. 

As long as this modern, operational ready strategic rocket 

army remained in the field, it had value. The preplanned launch 

codes, apparently remained in the rocket army’s underground 

command and control centers. The missiles’ predetermined 

guidance codes remained within each of the intercontinental 

missiles. No one denied that authority to launch the nuclear 

force, the third largest in the world, remained in Moscow. 

However, everyone admitted that decommissioning the 

rocket army and removing its nuclear warheads could not 

be done without the acquiescence of the government and 

parliament of Ukraine. Some military analysts thought that 

Ukraine had the scientific, technical, and operational skills to 

field a nuclear missile and bomber force.14

Resolving Ukraine’s nuclear inheritance: 

three paths

By 1993 there were three courses of action open to the 

Ukrainian government and parliament. The first proved to 

be the shortest-lived. Maintaining the existing command 

structure with the Supreme Commander, CIS Armed 

Forces controlling the 43rd Rocket Army and 46th Bomber 

Army became untenable by mid-year. Nine months earlier, 

Belarusian and Russian presidents had signed an agreement 

to return all of the missiles and warheads on the territory 

of Belarus to Russia.15 Then in 1993, the Russian General 

Staff ordered the rocket army and bomber commands based 

in Kazakhstan to relocate the 104 SS-18 missiles (1,040 

warheads) and 40 Tu-160 bombers to bases in Russia.16

That left only the nuclear arsenals of Russia and Ukraine 

constituting the CIS Armed Forces. Russia’s Minister of 

Defense, Pavel Grachev, advocated ending the paper-thin 

nuclear alliance and returning all of the strategic weapons 

and warheads to Russia. Ukraine objected. President 

Kravchuk maintained the legal position that the Supreme 

Commander of the CIS Armed Forces controlled all strategic 

forces. Speaking at a news conference in May 1993, he told 

reporters, “If we declare that these weapons belong to Russia, 

the 43rd Rocket Army will no longer be a CIS army, but a 

Russian army. This would mean the presence of occupying 

forces on the territory of Ukraine.”17

Unbeknownst to Kravchuk, in Moscow President Yeltsin, 

Marshal Shaposhnikov, and Defense Minister Grachev were 

planning at that moment to end the CIS Armed Forces. On 

June 15, 1993 at a meeting of the CIS defense ministers in 

Moscow, Shaposhnikov announced his resignation as the 

Supreme Commander.18 Grachev declared that the Russian 

Federation would not name a successor. Further, he said that 

Russia would not agree if any of the other states named a 

new commander.19 Since all CIS decisions had to be through 

unanimous consent, the Russian defense minister had 

achieved a fait accompli: with no commander, there was no 

command. As the meeting ended, the CIS defense ministers 

endorsed Gravchev’s recommendation not to appoint a 

new commander and to set up a lower-level joint staff that 

would coordinate military cooperation among the states. In 

practice, these decisions meant that day-to-day command 

and control over the strategic nuclear forces in the nonRussian states had devolved to the Russian General Staff, 
105

Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, and Russian Air Forces.20 The 

concept that the CIS Armed Forces would exist to control 

all of the region’s nuclear forces was over; what remained 

was the question of ownership of the missiles, bombers and 

warheads on Ukrainian territory.

Russia’s decisive actions forced Ukraine to consider 

a second course. The Ukrainian government deliberated 

keeping the 43rd Rocket Army and the 46th Air Army intact 

and having the Minister of Defense take operational control 

over the strategic missiles and bombers. In June, following 

dismantlement of the nuclear forces command, Prime 

Minister Leonid Kuchma and a Rada member, Dmytro 

Pavlychuko, recommended that the government assume 

operational control over some of the nuclear weapons.21

Specifically, they argued that the government should assert 

control over the 46 SS-24 missiles, which had been designed, 

manufactured and deployed on Ukrainian territory. In July, 

Rada deputies voted 226 to 15 for a new national defense 

doctrine that declared the nuclear weapons located on its 

territory to be Ukrainian property.22 President Kravchuk 

supported this doctrine. Defense Minister Morozov directed 

the Strategic Forces Administrative Control Center in Kiev, 

an entity the Ministry of Defense established in 1992 with 

the exclusive task of monitoring the 43rd Rocket Army, 

to assume responsibility for logistical support, and to 

provide maintenance, personnel and payment systems for 

the strategic rocket and bomber forces.23 As these events 

unfolded, Yeltsin invited Kravchuk to a presidential summit 

meeting in Moscow. They discussed the collapse of the 

CIS Armed Forces command, status of nuclear forces and 

warheads, Black Sea fleet, oil and gas fees, foreign debts, and 

financial and banking issues.24 Not one issue was resolved.

Ukraine’s torturous course 

By mid-1993 military and political forces seemed to be 

compelling Ukraine along a trajectory to become a nuclear 

state. Then in the summer months of 1993, a sudden 

confluence of other forces pulled the national government 

on a different course. By July an inventory of the 43rd Rocket 

Army’s nuclear warhead storage depots determined that 

they had exceeded their capacity and that the situation was 

developing into an acute problem. Three months earlier 

Colonel General I.D. Sergeev, Commander of the Russian 

Strategic Rocket Forces, met with General Mikhtyuk in 

Pervomaysk, Ukraine for an inspection of the 46th Rocket 

Division’s nuclear armament depot.25 As they toured 

the depot, Mikhtyuk explained that the facility held 240 

warheads, approximately five times its normal capacity. He 

admitted there were problems with nuclear safety and then 

told Sergeev that the issue would only worsen if the army 

did not receive technical assistance from the Strategic Rocket 

Forces and the Russian General Staff.26 Following the meeting, 

General Sergeev told reporters from Russia, Ukraine, and 

the international wire services that the situation in the 43rd

Rocket Army was dangerous and that Ukraine’s government 

was incapable of assisting the army with its nuclear safety 

problems. In his comments to the same reporters, General 

Mikhtyuk pointedly stated that the Russian SRF had refused 

to send any nuclear technicians, nuclear components or 

funds to the rocket army that would have alleviated this 

problem.27

When he returned to Moscow, General Sergeev assigned 

a small team of Russian nuclear engineers to go to Ukraine, 

examine the situation and produce a detailed, technical 

study of the 43rd Rocket Army’s nuclear storage system. The 

experts went to Ukraine, investigated and released a report in 

November stating that “serious infractions in the storage and 

safety of Ukraine’s nuclear warheads could cause a disaster on 

the same scale as Chernobyl.”28 General Mikhtyuk was well 

aware of these critical problems; he had briefed numerous 

Ukrainian delegations as well as the defense minister and the 

members of the national security council in Kiev. He sent 

Prime Minister Leonid D. Kuchma

 RIA Novosti
106

With Courage and Persistence

copies of the Russian experts’ report to Ukraine’s president, 

defense, and foreign ministers.29

Accumulating warheads was not the general’s only 

problem. In late June, General Mikhtyuk ordered two 

regiments of SS-19s missiles taken off alert status because 

the components inside the warheads, the ammunition 

parts, were past their operational life.30 The first regiment 

to be decommissioned was in the 46th Missile Division in 

Pervomaysk. The general’s decision was well known, both in 

Moscow and Kiev. All of the rocket army’s intercontinental 

ballistic missiles, sitting in their remote silos, were 

continuously monitored for combat status. Daily, weekly and 

monthly reports flowed from the rocket army to headquarters 

of the Strategic Rocket Forces in Moscow.

Following General Mikhtyuk’s decision to decommission 

the two regiments, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Morozov 

announced that the first regiment with 10 missile complexes 

(silos) would be “deactivated,” which meant that the 

warheads would be separated from the missile, lifted out 

of the silo, secured, and prepared for safe transport to the 

division’s nuclear storage depot. Russian and Ukrainian 

nuclear engineers and technicians would work in the field, 

cooperatively carrying out the dismantlement tasks. Then 

the defense minister asserted that the “warheads will remain 

in Ukraine, under Russian supervision and maintenance” 

until the Ukrainian Rada voted on ratification of the START 

I Treaty. Deactivation of the second SS-19 regiment, he 

announced, would begin approximately six weeks later in 

mid-September.31 One result of the SS-19 deactivations and 

the serious accumulation of warheads was that Ukraine’s 

political leadership realized that the 43rd Rocket Army 

was deteriorating and that the nation could not become a 

credible nuclear military force. Indeed, many of Ukraine’s 

senior military leaders had never seriously considered a 

national security strategy based on the existence of nuclear 

forces. Instead, they saw the 43rd Rocket Army, with its fixed 

silo-based missiles, as a security liability. Missile systems 

required continuous maintenance, constant security and 

continuous monitoring for nuclear safety concerns. Finally, 

senior military officers believed that if Ukraine insisted on 

retaining these nuclear forces, then military relations with 

Russia would become and remain problematic.32

Even so, military concerns were not enough to force 

the Ukrainian leaders to change course. To make matters 

worse, the country’s economy was in a severe recession 

and the government’s policies to institute reforms proved 

to be inept, incoherent and contradictory.33 By mid-1993, 

unemployment, or more accurately underemployment, 

soared to 40 percent. Entire industries had collapsed and 

there was no new capital investment, except for government 

funds that propped up hundreds of state-run enterprises. 

Foreign investors, frightened by the government’s inability 

to manage the economy, transferred their assets, investing in 

other nations in the region. Capital flight became a major 

issue. Budget deficits led directly to price inflation. From 

June to December 1993, Ukraine went through a devastating 

period of hyperinflation. Prices rose by 50 percent or more 

each month for six consecutive months, and by 93 percent 

in December. At that time, the exchange rate reached 38,000 

coupons to the dollar.34 The loss of confidence in the 

government was so profound that some outside observers 

speculated that the state would not survive; it would devolve 

and become a province of the Russian Federation.35

In the middle of this the chaotic summer in 1993, 

Ukraine’s president and executive cabinet began developing 

a framework for negotiating the future of the strategic nuclear 

forces and the Black Sea fleet. Leading the effort was Deputy 

Foreign Minister Boris Tarasuk, who chaired a national 

committee on disarmament. He articulated three conditions 

for Ukraine to give up its claims to nuclear weapons: 

security guarantees from the nuclear powers to ensure the 

Ukrainian Defense Minister General Kostiantyn P. Morozov

RIA Novosti
107

new nations’ sovereignty, compensation for the nuclear 

materials in the weapons, and dismantlement assistance, 

including housing for displaced officers and environmental 

restoration.36 Tarasuk’s three point framework became 

the Kravchuk government’s negotiating position and this 

strategy bore fruit immediately. On July 27, U.S. Secretary 

of Defense Aspin and Ukrainian Defense Minister Morozov 

signed a Nunn-Lugar memorandum of understanding 

in Kiev. The United States pledged $175 million to assist 

Ukraine in dismantling the SS-19 missiles.37 This agreement 

would go into effect when Ukraine and the United States 

completed negotiations on terms for a bilateral umbrella 

agreement. Those negotiations, however, had to wait until 

the conclusion of a Russian-Ukrainian presidential summit 

meeting, which would examine all major issues.

In early September, President Yeltsin and his senior 

ministers flew to Yalta for a summit meeting with President 

Kravchuk. Held in a hunting lodge built for Joseph Stalin, 

the meeting became known as the Massandra Summit. All 

the outstanding Ukrainian-Russian issues were on the table: 

the future of the nuclear forces and weapons, the Black 

Sea fleet, national oil and gas debts, security guarantees, 

compensation for the strategic weapons and warheads, and 

conversion of the nuclear materials. Ukraine owed Russia 

more than $2.5 billion for oil and natural gas credits. A week 

before the summit, Russia’s state-run gas firm, Gazprom, 

cut gas supplies to Ukraine by 25 percent. Then, Russian 

Defense Minister Gravchev declared that Gazprom would 

cut off all gas to Ukraine if it did not reach agreement at the 

summit. During the meeting Yeltsin proposed that Ukraine 

give up its claim to the Black Sea fleet and all its nuclear 

warheads. In exchange, Russia would forgive up to $2.5 

billion in gas and oil debts and provide compensation in 

the form of nuclear fuel rods that would be manufactured 

from the reprocessed nuclear materials. These fuel rods 

would be used in Ukraine’s nuclear fuel plants. For its 

part, Ukraine would have to ratify the START I Treaty and 

Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) Treaty promptly, and 

transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia within 24 months. 

Weakened by the economic recession, facing a bleak future 

without oil and gas, and desperately short of nuclear fuel 

rods, Kravchuk, Kuchma and the Ukraine government 

agreed to the Russian terms and signed a series of bilateral 

agreements giving up its claims to the strategic weapons, 

warheads, and the Black Sea Fleet.38

No sooner had the agreements been signed than 

every Ukrainian leader involved in the negotiations came 

under severe public criticism, a situation that caused 

Defense Minister Morozov to resign immediately. In 

public, Ukrainian senior government officials rejected 

the agreement. In Moscow, Russian leaders dismissed the 

Ukrainian government as incompetent and untrustworthy. 

One Ukrainian analyst thought the Massandra Summit was 

a fiasco that “exposed Ukraine’s weakness, isolation and lack 

of options.”39 Relations between Russia and Ukraine reached 

an all-time low. It was at this precise moment that United 

States diplomats and defense officials seized the opportunity 

and engaged both the Ukrainian and Russian governments 

so forcefully that within a few months a new international 

agreement had been negotiated, signed and entered into the 

first phases of implementation.

United States engages Ukraine and 

Russia

U.S. Ambassador William G. Miller arrived in Kiev in 

September 1993, just as the Massandra summit ended. 

A career foreign service officer, Miller had worked on the 

foreign affairs and defense subcommittees of the U.S. Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee and had been staff director 

of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He knew 

Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar well. Prior to arriving 

in Kiev, he had been briefed by State Department experts 

that Ukraine was a weak, bankrupt state that would probably 

fail.40 Within weeks of taking up his post, Ambassador 

Miller rejected that assessment and began examining the 

variances between U.S.-stated policy on the issue of nuclear 

forces located on the national territory of Ukraine and the 

government’s statements and actions at the Massandra 

summit. Miller found that the United States had never 

Three points in Ukrainian 

nonproliferation policy

1. Security Guarantees

2. Compensation

3. Dismantlement Assistance
108

With Courage and Persistence

seriously considered that the nuclear forces in Ukraine were 

“owned” by that nation as a right of succession. Yet, Ukraine’s 

president, prime minister, defense and foreign ministers, and 

a majority of the parliament held this belief and were willing 

to negotiate that right away, as demonstrated at the summit. 

Ambassador Miller made the case that the United States 

should reconsider its policy regarding these forces with 

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, the State Department 

and senior officials in the National Security Council.41

During the same month, President Clinton had gone 

to the United Nations where he reaffirmed the United 

States’ commitment to supporting and encouraging nuclear 

nonproliferation policies. Speaking at the General Assembly, 

the president declared: “I have made nonproliferation 

one of our nation’s highest priorities. We intend to weave 

it more deeply into the fabric of all our relations with the 

world’s nations and institutions.”42 The president and 

his administration supported the START I Treaty, Lisbon 

Protocols, NPT Treaty, START II, Chemical Weapons 

Convention, the Open Skies Treaty and the Nunn-Lugar 

assistance program. They also embraced the recent U.S.-

Russian negotiations on facilitating and financing the 

reprocessing of highly enriched uranium in nuclear weapons 

for commercial sale to nuclear power plants. Not only did 

Clinton and his senior foreign, defense and national security 

teams support these broad nonproliferation measures, there 

was also a consensus in Congress led by Senators Nunn and 

Lugar.43

The United States government developed four major 

policy objectives for U.S.-Ukraine relations. First, it wanted 

Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, to ratify the START Treaty 

and the Lisbon Protocols. Under consideration in the 

Rada for nearly 18 months, U.S. officials tried to persuade 

Kravchuk’s government to force a vote in parliament. 

Second, the U.S. wanted the Rada to ratify the NPT Treaty, 

declaring that Ukraine would renounce use of nuclear 

weapons and become a non-nuclear nation. Third, the U.S. 

sought to transform U.S.-Ukrainian relations to deal with 

a broader set of issues than just nuclear forces and arms 

control treaties. Specifically, it wanted to address economic 

assistance, student exchanges, defense conversion and trade. 

Finally, the U.S. wanted to engage Ukraine in negotiations 

for receiving Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction aid. 

To this end, Ambassador James Goodby, Chief of the Safe, 

Secure, Dismantlement Talks, and Gloria Duffy, his deputy, 

led American delegations to Kiev for meetings in August, 

October and December. Secretary of Defense Aspin had 

already stated that the U.S. would provide $175 million in 

Nunn-Lugar assistance to Ukraine. Now the two sides needed 

to negotiate the specific terms.44

In Kiev, Ambassador Goodby met with Ukraine’s 

negotiators; Anton Buteyko, from the National Security 

Council, Deputy Foreign Minister Boris Tarasuk and 

Konstantine Hryshchenko, a ministry arms control official. 

The Ukrainians demanded that the Americans provide new 

security guarantees, construct new apartments for displaced 

military officers, carry out environmental restoration of the 

missile complexes, develop plans for industrial plants to 

convert the rocket fuels to commercial fuel and provide all 

the standard heavy dismantlement equipment and technical 

training and maintenance assistance needed to dismantle 

the decommissioned missiles and bombers. Foreign 

Minister Anatoliy Zlenko stated they estimated the total cost 

for the projects at over $2.5 billion. Ambassador Goodby 

General Vladimir A. Mikhtyuk, U.S. Ambassador William G. 

Miller and Laura S.H. Holgate (l.-r.)

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
109

dismissed that figure, reminding them of the U.S. pledge 

of $175 million. That set the tone for the negotiations. In 

discussing the aid, the ambassador and his team learned 

that the Ukrainian diplomats were in a difficult position, 

often caught in the crossfire between powerful circles within 

the Kravchuk government. At one point, Goodby recalled 

that after five days of contentious meetings in a Kiev hotel, 

negotiations had come to a standstill. The final night, U.S. 

Secretary of State Christopher, who was in Ukraine for 

presidential-level meetings, suggested the two delegations 

reconvene and try and resolve their differences. They met all 

night, wrapping up the U.S.-Ukraine umbrella agreement at 

six o’clock in the morning. As Ambassador Goodby prepared 

to leave Kiev, he told the press that the U.S. delegation 

would return in December to negotiate and sign a series of 

implementing agreements. Just before Secretary Christopher 

left Kiev, he announced at a press conference that the Clinton 

Administration would seek from Congress an additional 

$155 million in economic assistance for Ukraine.45

The next 11 weeks, from late October to mid-January, 

were extraordinarily important for the future of U.S.-

Ukraine-Russian relations as politicians and diplomats 

from the three countries engaged in a flurry of activities. 

Secretary Christopher returned to Kiev; Ambassador Miller 

convened and joined trilateral discussions; Ambassador 

Goodby returned with a large, senior delegation; Deputy 

Secretary of Defense William Perry arrived; Strobe Talbott, 

U.S. Special Advisor for the New Independent States and 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov traveled 

to Kiev from Moscow; and Vice President Gore telephoned 

Ukraine’s president repeatedly, sending a series of messages 

and letters.46 The objective was to negotiate a draft trilateral 

agreement, one acceptable to Ukraine, Russia, and the 

United States, that addressed all aspects of the nuclear forces 

issue. Throughout December, small teams of diplomats and 

defense officials met in Kiev, hammering out details of the 

complex trilateral deal. Ukraine‘s negotiators were willing 

to give up their claims to the inherited strategic rocket 

and bomber forces and warheads, but held on to their 

demands for security guarantees from the great powers for 

its sovereignty, compensation for the nuclear materials in 

the strategic weapons, and financial assistance for Ukraine 

President William J. Clinton at the United Nations

United Nations
110

With Courage and Persistence

in dismantling missile and bomber weapons systems. Their 

fervent nationalism and demands made Russian negotiators 

suspicious. In the end, the three delegations worked out their 

differences – mainly because the level of American assistance 

for dismantling and eliminating the weapons had largely 

been settled in the CTR umbrella agreement, as had the level 

of Russian debt forgiveness for Ukraine’s oil and gas debts in 

the Massandra agreements.

The last week of December, Ambassador Miller formally 

invited the three nations’ working group to Washington for 

further meetings in the first week of January. There, the three 

delegations agreed on a definition clarifying the amount of 

highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the nuclear warheads, 

decided that for the next 10 years Ukraine would receive 

compensation for 10 years in reprocessed nuclear fuel rods, 

and developed a cost formula for dismantling the warheads 

in Ukraine and shipping them via rail to storage depots in 

Russia. Within two days, the three parties had agreed on a 

draft text, annex and six secret letters. On Monday, January 

10, 1994, President Clinton announced that the presidents 

of the three nations would sign the trilateral agreement at 

a previously scheduled Moscow summit meeting in midJanuary. Clinton said he would fly to Ukraine, meet with 

President Kravchuk and his ministers, and then the two 

presidents would travel to Moscow for the summit. As events 

unfolded, however, doubts emerged that the final, negotiated 

agreement would ever be signed.47

When President Clinton arrived in Kiev, Ukraine’s 

president and senior government ministers met him at 

the airport. The “visit” was confined to the airport, and it 

lasted barely two hours. It was contentious. At a joint news 

conference, President Kravchuk refused to endorse the 

trilateral agreement; he also never mentioned that the nation 

would give up its nuclear weapons, and he did not invite any 

members of the Rada to join him at the ceremony. Foreign 

Minister Zlenko and Kravchuk’s national security advisor 

Buteyko insisted that the negotiated agreement was not final 

and that negotiations needed to be reopened. According to 

Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher and President William J. Clinton

William J. Clinton Presidential Library
111

Strobe Talbott, who was standing on the tarmac, “Clinton 

and Christopher, neither of whom was in the habit of 

roughing up a head of state, decided to make an exception. 

They told Kravchuk in the bluntest of terms that if he backed 

out of the deal that had already been made it would be major 

setback for Ukraine’s relations with both the United States 

and Russia.”48 Talbott remembers that “a visibly shaken” 

Ukrainian president promised he would stick with the 

agreement as written.

After that Ukrainian interlude, Clinton and Kravchuk 

and their delegations flew to Moscow, where haggling over 

the agreement continued. This time it was the Russians’ 

turn to be difficult. As they drove out of Moscow to a 

late-night dinner at Yeltsin’s dacha, Clinton learned the 

Russians so distrusted the Ukrainians that they wanted 

new guarantees. Victor Mikhailov, Yeltsin’s senior advisor 

and Minister of Atomic Energy even wanted to crush the 

agreement. When they arrived at the dacha, Yeltsin stood 

at the door ready to greet the American president. “Clinton 

got out of his limousine,” Talbott recalled, “grabbed Yeltsin 

by the shoulders, leaned close to his face and said that 

the two of them had to talk alone, right away.”49 As they 

walked around the driveway, Clinton told Yeltsin about 

his scolding of Kravchuk, and that the Ukrainian president 

had pledged to control his ministers and to honor the 

agreement with Russia and the United States. Yeltsin got the 

message. No one in the Russian government, he declared, 

would challenge the negotiated agreement. Finally, 

Clinton told Yeltsin that “the U.S. would remain deeply 

and conscientiously involved in the follow-up, making 

sure that both of its partners’ interests were protected.”50

President Clinton’s message to Yeltsin that evening was that 

the United States would be the honest broker in making the 

agreement work. In fact, the United States went far beyond 

that position, becoming so actively involved in developing 

and implementing cooperative threat reduction programs 

with both Ukraine and Russia that it transformed the entire 

region’s approach to nonproliferation and to reducing the 

inherited Cold War nuclear arsenals.

Trilateral Agreement of 1994

Early in the morning of January 14, 1994, Presidents 

Clinton, Yeltsin, and Kravchuk signed the trilateral 

agreement in the Kremlin. The ceremony was brief; the 

document was short, containing a statement, annex, and six 

secret letters.51 Following the official act, President Kravchuk 

declared that Ukraine would accede to the NPT Treaty, thus 

allowing the START I Treaty to enter into force. This meant 

that Ukraine’s inherited strategic nuclear forces would be 

eliminated within the START Treaty’s seven-year limit. In his 

press statement, Yeltsin declared Russia would compensate 

Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus for the value of the HEU 

in the nuclear warheads located on their territories. The 

specific amounts, usually debt relief, were later negotiated 

with each of these nations. In the agreement’s annex, the 

three presidents agreed that within 10 months, Russia would 

provide Ukraine with nuclear fuel assemblies containing 100 

tons of low-enriched uranium, for use in its nuclear power 

stations. In the meantime, Ukraine would transfer at least 

200 nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement. Russia 

also agreed that Ukrainian officers could monitor warhead 

transfer, transportation and dismantlement. The remaining 

warheads in Ukraine, 1,600, would be sent to Russia for 

reprocessing within three years. In the annex, the United 

States stated it would provide $60 million to Russia to cover 

the initial costs of transportation and dismantlement. These 

commitments and actions would be accomplished in 1994. 

The value of the nuclear materials in the warheads was 

estimated at $1 billion. In addition, Russia agreed to forgive 

Ukraine’s oil and gas debts of up to $2.5 billion.52

On security guarantees, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin 

declared in writing to Kravchuk that the United States and 

Russia were prepared to offer Ukraine security assurances. 

These assurances were consistent with those spelled out in 

the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s 

(CSCE) Final Act: respect for the independence and 

sovereignty of states, no border changes by force, no threat 

or use of force against the territorial integrity or political 

independence of any state and no use of economic coercion. 

If Ukraine’s parliament ratified the Nonproliferation Treaty, 

then U.S. and Russian leaders would reiterate their pledge 

not to use nuclear weapons against any non- nuclear state, 

including Ukraine. The two nations also pledged to seek UN 

Security Council action to assist Ukraine if it were attacked or 

threatened with nuclear weapons. Finally, President Clinton 

indicated that Ukraine would be invited to participate 

in NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program.53 On financial 

assistance, President Clinton reaffirmed United States’ 

commitments to provide technical and financial assistance 
112

With Courage and Persistence

for dismantling of nuclear forces and storage of fissile 

materials. Then, Clinton declared that under the NunnLugar program, the United States had agreed to provide 

Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus with nearly $800 

million in assistance. Ukraine, he stated, would be receiving 

a “minimum” of $175 million. He committed the United 

States to rapid implementation of the assistance agreement.54

Once the Trilateral Agreement was signed, the Ukrainians 

departed quickly, and Clinton and Yeltsin turned to a 

lengthy discussion on NATO expansion. Clinton told Yeltsin 

that they had worked so diligently and successfully with 

Ukraine on nuclear nonproliferation, now they should 

now focus their efforts on security architecture for Europe.55

With that, they left Ukrainian issues behind. According to 

Clinton’s biographer, John Harris, the president considered 

U.S. relations with Russia to be the most important of any 

nation.56 The president practiced personal diplomacy with 

the Russian president. During his terms, from 1993 to 2001, 

the two leaders met 18 times, signing numerous agreements, 

accords and joint statements. Nonproliferation, specifically 

arms control treaties and new initiatives in the Nunn-Lugar 

Cooperative Threat Reduction program, were part and 

parcel of many of their summits, international meetings and 

conversations.

Immediate consequences

For General Mikhtyuk and the rocket army, the Trilateral 

Agreement changed everything. Less than a week had passed 

when General Vitaly Radetskyi, Ukraine’s new Minister of 

Defense, summoned Mikhtyuk and two of his senior generals 

to Kiev. Without warning, General Radetskyi told them they 

had 15 minutes to decide whether to take Ukraine’s oath 

of allegiance. General Mikhtyuk and one general took the 

oath, while the other refused. Then, the minister ordered 

the commanding general to return to his headquarters in 

Vinnitsa immediately, and convene all of his subordinate 

commanders. He did so, explaining his personal decision to 

U.S. President Clinton, Russian President Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Kravchuk sign the Trilateral Agreement in Moscow, 

January 1994

William J. Clinton Presidential Library
113

remain in Ukraine, and asking each officer to take or reject the 

oath. “All of my deputies,” Mikhtyuk recalled, “except one, 

said they would not take the oath and asked me to transfer 

them to the Russian Federation for further military service 

in the Strategic Rocket Forces.”57 The general then traveled 

by car, stopping at the two rocket division headquarters. He 

convened all the officers and men. Again, he explained the 

new situation and gave them the choice of taking the oath. 

Within a week, 900 officers, approximately 40 percent of 

the total, opted to leave Ukraine and instead go to Russia 

to serve in the Strategic Rocket Forces in Russia.58 This act of 

taking the oath was one of the final steps in nationalizing the 

43rd Rocket Army and bringing it under control of Ukraine’s 

Minister of Defense.

General Mikhtyuk accepted each officer’s decision, 

asking only that the officers choosing to transfer to Russia 

remain on duty with the rocket army until an orderly process 

could be established. The next day, he discussed the sudden 

requirement to take the oath and the scope of the officer’s 

transfer requests with Colonel General Sergeev, commander 

of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces. They agreed the transfers 

would take place over many months, without demotions, 

loss of pay or loss of housing privileges. “Those officers,” 

Mikhtyuk recalled, “who did not want to take the oath 

patiently waited for their transfer, and carried out their duties 

carefully.”59 The two generals came to an understanding 

that the 43rd Rocket Army’s mission henceforth would be to 

secure the operations of its missile complexes and nuclear 

weapons storage depots before its decommissioning and 

total elimination.

These events occurred in the space of one week. The 

following week, President Kravchuk acted decisively and 

sent the Rada the Trilateral Agreement and a draft resolution, 

stipulating ratification, without any reservations, of the 

START I and NPT Treaties.60 As expected, the government’s 

decision to denuclearize the nation forced a major debate 

in parliament and the public. Kravchuk and his senior 

ministers argued the case for treaty ratification forcefully. 

On the issue of Ukraine’s nuclear forces, the president stated 

that Ukrainian experts had informed him it was no longer 

possible to establish command, control or even to maintain 

the strategic rocket army. The missiles and warheads were 

becoming obsolete. The service life of the SS-19 missiles 

would expire in 1996. Beyond that, President Kravchuk 

asserted that the components of the nuclear warheads, which 

were accumulating in nuclear weapons storage depots, were 

becoming unstable and that transferring them immediately 

to Russia was imperative, before it became too dangerous to 

transport them across Ukrainian territory.61

General Radetskyi reinforced the president’s arguments, 

stating categorically that “the danger of an explosion of 

radioactive materials and warheads is growing...This could 

lead to a catastrophe potentially bigger than Chernobyl.”62

Foreign Minister Zlenko argued that Ukraine had been 

isolated because of its unwillingness to ratify the arms control 

treaties and settle the nuclear question. With the Trilateral 

Agreement, it now had an opportunity to end this isolation 

and ensure that nuclear weapons would not be used militarily. 

Instead they would be converted into fuel rods for the 

nation’s nuclear power plants. Minister Radetskyi reminded 

the deputies of the recent rise of Russian ultranationalists 

who wanted Ukraine to become a Russian province. Finally, 

the president and ministers stressed that Ukraine’s national 

security depended on economic prosperity, which could not 

be achieved without foreign aid. After further debate, the Rada 

voted in early February to endorse the Trilateral Agreement 

and to ratify the START I Treaty and Lisbon Protocols without 

conditions. The vote on NPT narrowly failed. As a direct 

consequence, the START Treaty’s entry into force was delayed 

for several months.63 This delay occurred because Russia’s 

Duma, in its ratification articles, demanded that Ukraine, 

Belarus and Kazakhstan grant accession to the NPT Treaty, 

before it would exchange the START Treaty’s instruments of 

ratification.

Despite this delay, the Russian government moved 

swiftly to negotiate a series of bilateral agreements with 

Ukraine on removing the warheads. One week after the Rada 

ratified START I, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Yuri Dubinin 

and Ukrainian Deputy Premier Valeriy Shmarov signed 

43rd Rocket Army’s new mission

	 H Secure operations

	 H Transfer warheads

	 H Decommission missiles

	 H Total elimination of missiles and facilities
114

With Courage and Persistence

implementing agreements on the process for compensation 

payments and credits, the level of maintenance and security 

assistance during dismantling and packaging nuclear 

warheads, the schedule for shipment and transfer, and 

procedures for Ukrainian officers to monitor warhead 

movement, dismantlement and reprocessing.64 They 

also agreed on procedures for notifying each nation on 

the schedule and actual decommissioning of the missile 

complexes. President Kravchuk announced that the 43rd

Rocket Army had deactivated 20 SS-19 missiles and 20 SS24s and that it would deactivate an additional 50 ICBMs 

by March 1994.65 These Russian-Ukrainian agreements and 

presidential announcements had direct consequences for 

the 43rd Rocket Army. For the remainder of its existence, its 

mission would be to maintain some SS-24s on operational 

alert, continue the process of warhead deactivation and 

removal from the missiles, support transfer of the warheads 

and nuclear materials from the army’s storage depots to 

Russian military commands, continue deactivating SS-19 and 

SS-24 strategic missiles, and complete the officer transfers.

Three weeks after the Trilateral Agreement, Russian 

nuclear officers and technicians arrived at the rocket 

army’s nuclear weapons storage depots in Pervomaysk and 

Khmelnitsky. General Mikhtyuk stood ready to cooperate. 

As a senior rocket army commander he knew and had 

worked with Colonel General Maslin, Chief of the 12th Main 

Directorate, Russian General Staff. They had discussed 

technical issues and procedures for removing warheads 

from the missiles. “We had worked closely together,” 

Mikhtyuk recalled, “We removed and prepared [warheads] 

for transportation: Maslin supplied the transport.”66

Responsibility for planning and implementing safety and 

security procedures in the transfer of nuclear warheads 

from the rocket army and the heavy bomber air army fell to 

the Russian General Staff. However, mission responsibility 

in Ukraine rested not with General Mikhtyuk but with the 

Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative Control Center 

in Kiev.67 This center, led at first Lieutenant General A.L. 

Kryzko, had negotiated Nunn-Lugar CTR implementing 

agreements with American and Russian officials. In the first 

week of February 1994, the Minister of Defense selected 

Colonel Aleksandr I. Serdyuk, an experienced, senior 

nuclear weapons officer to be the center’s new commander. 

Under Colonel Serdyuk, the center worked closely in the 

next few months with Major General Trofimov, a senior 

officer in the Russian General Staff’s 12th Main Directorate, 

in developing an intergovernmental agreement defining 

all activities associated with warhead dismantlement, 

packaging, transport and transfer.68

At the end of February, six weeks after the Trilateral 

Agreement was signed the first Russian military train, 

commanded by officers from the 12th Main Directorate 

and guarded by the Kirovograd special military brigade, left 

the 43rd Rocket Army’s nuclear weapons storage depot in 

Ukraine for Russia.69 Under Nunn-Lugar the United Stated 

had already delivered 4,500 armored blankets and the first of 

150 super railcar containers to Russia’s 12th Main Directorate. 

Some of this equipment was apparently used to transport 

warheads from Ukraine to Russia. At the end of 1994, General 

Mikhtyuk reported to Ukraine’s president and members of 

National Security Council that the rocket army had shipped 

to Russia more than the required 200 warheads. In fact, the 

total number was 675.70

American Secretary of Defense Perry 

comes to Pervomaysk

In the midst of this secret and sensitive operation, the 

Americans arrived. In late March 1994, just eight weeks after 

the Trilateral Agreement, U.S. Defense Secretary William F. 

Perry and Ashton Carter, accompanied by Defense Minister 

Radetskyi and senior Ukrainian government officials, flew 

into Pervomaysk. They went to an SS-24 missile complex 

where General Mikhtyuk led the American defense secretary 

and others down into a hardened underground missile 

launch control center. In a small room with targeting 

maps pinned on the wall, two young rocket officers briefed 

procedures for launching the missiles. Perry later wrote, “We 

watched the countdown and stared at the targets highlighted 

on the map – cities in Germany and England, in Kansas and 

Oregon.” He continued, “Never had the balance of terror 

seemed as real and as terrible...as it was at that moment.”71

That same morning, General Mikhtyuk and General 

Radetskyi took the Americans up to the surface where they 

walked across an ice-frozen knoll to a missile silo where a 

large, thick concrete-reinforced blast door had been raised. 

Perry and Carter looked down into the silo at the large SS-24 

rocket. Although the nose cone with its 10 nuclear warheads 

had been removed, the size of the missile complex and the 

sight of the modern SS-24 were proof that the rocket army had 
115

been a very formidable force. Perry, who had participated in 

some of the important, initial trilateral negotiating sessions 

in December, pledged to work closely with the Ukrainian 

Minister of Defense on the gradual and safe elimination of 

these nuclear missiles and weapons.72

That same day, Generals Radetskyi and Mikhtyuk 

briefed the American defense secretary on Ukraine’s plans 

for transporting warheads to Russia and for deactivating 

the missiles and then destroying the missile complexes in 

Ukraine. In November 1993, the Ukrainian government’s 

cabinet of ministers had approved a plan, called the 

Comprehensive Program, on the staged reduction of ground 

and air-based nuclear forces located in Ukraine. Developed 

by military and civilian experts from the ministries of 

defense, machine industry, environment, finances and the 

national science academy, this Comprehensive Program was 

the government’s baseline planning document. 

It had three assumptions. First, Ukraine would ratify 

the START Treaty and eliminate the missile and bomber 

complexes within seven years in accordance with the treaty’s 

elimination protocols. These protocols were quite specific, 

with detailed procedures for eliminating missiles, silos, 

bombers and cruise missiles. Next, the government’s plan 

anticipated consultations with the Rada and its parliamentary 

committees on the schedule, type and progress of the 

eliminations. The third assumption, which involved the 

United States, assumed that foreign assistance would be 

available to provide the means and materials to carry out 

the eliminations.73 That was a good assumption since in 

October 1993, Secretary of State Christopher and Foreign 

Minister Zlenko had signed the U.S.-Ukraine CTR umbrella 

agreement, defining the categories and conditions for using 

$175 million in United States dismantlement assistance.74

General Radetskyi stressed two further points. First, 

Ukraine would take responsibility for deactivating every 

missile and decommissioning every regiment and division in 

the rocket army. General Mikhtyuk and the 43rd Rocket Army 

would be responsible for decommissioning the SS-19 and 

SS-24 missiles, the launch complexes and facilities. Some of 

newest missiles, the SS-24s, would remain operational and 

on alert, pending a presidential decision on deactivation. The 

Ministry of Defense would have responsibility for scheduling 

and approving the actual eliminations. Radetskyi’s second 

point was that Ukraine would liquidate the missiles, launch 

complexes and facilities in accordance with the START Treaty, 

if the United States followed through on its commitment and 

sent sufficient equipment, funds, trainers and maintenance 

assistance.

He explained that considerable work in defining the level 

and kind of assistance was already done. For 14 days in late 

November and early December 1993, U.S. and Ukrainian 

delegations negotiated a series of draft agreements for 

implementing the $175 million CTR umbrella agreement. 

They included expansion of Ukraine’s emergency response 

capabilities, establishment of a new national export 

control system, setting up a new system of government-togovernment communication link for conveying data on 

arms control treaty compliance and on-site inspections, and 

development of a new national system for nuclear material 

controls, accounting and physical protection. For eliminating 

strategic nuclear missiles, they also decided on the type of 

equipment needed: railroad cranes, road mobile cranes, 

all-terrain vehicles, cutters, emergency communications 

U.S. and Ukrainian officials at SS-19 silo, Pervomaysk, 1994

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
116

With Courage and Persistence

equipment, and other ancillary items, along with defining 

requirements for services, training and maintenance to be 

acquired and delivered to the Ministry of Defense. Although 

Ukraine’s 26-man negotiating delegation consisted of 

the majority of military officers, there were some civilian 

officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of 

Machine Building, Ministry of Nature and the Academy of 

Sciences. Following two weeks of day and night negotiations, 

Lieutenant General Kryzko and Gloria Duffy signed the first 

implementing agreement on December 5, 1993.75 Over the 

next two weeks, they signed other bilateral agreements.76

Perry and Carter, of course, knew of these earlier meetings 

when General Radetskyi told Perry that Ukraine would need 

help with a major new project of constructing and equipping 

a new SS-19 neutralization plant in Dnipropetrovs’k. 

Ukraine’s dismantlement plan for SS-19s stipulated that 

the missiles would be removed from the silo, defueled and 

then shipped to a temporary storage facility at Mikhaylensky. 

From there, toxic heptyl and amyl liquid fuels would be 

transported via rail several hundred kilometers to the new 

neutralization plant. Perry listened, indicated a willingness 

to discuss the project, and then said he was prepared to sign 

the draft implementing agreements. Then the American and 

Ukrainian defense ministers signed annexes to three CTR 

implementing agreements, one increasing funds for strategic 

nuclear arms elimination from $135 to $185 million, and 

two others increasing the funds by $5 million each for the 

export control system and Material Protection, Controls 

and Accounting programs. Perry and Radetskyi then signed 

a new bilateral agreement on defense conversion. It stated 

the Department of Defense would provide up to $40 million 

to Ukraine’s Ministry of Machine Building to convert 

defense enterprises to civilian activities and convert military 

technologies to civilian applications.77

For Secretary Perry the most significant new CTR 

agreement was the one providing assistance for conversion 

of the military-industrial complexes. It also contained a 

provision that allowed Nunn-Lugar funds to be used for 

construction of housing for military officers and men who 

had been forced into retirement by the decommissioning of 

the rocket army. Housing for officers and their families had 

developed into a major political issue in Ukraine. The Rada 

had enacted a law, requiring that retiring military officers be 

provided with housing. Without it, the 43rd Rocket Army’s 

missile bases could not be closed.78 Perry recognized the 

political meaning of the housing commitment and gave 

his word that U.S. assistance would be forthcoming.79

This commitment would later be controversial, especially 

with some members of Congress. Nevertheless, Perry had 

committed the U.S. government to proceed. That same day 

two American defense officials, Brigadier General John C. 

Reppert and Paul Boren, Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), 

signed a joint statement with Ukrainian Major General D.A. 

Rudkovskiy and Major General S.N. Malinovskiy on the 

terms for construction of housing units for the displaced 

military officers.80

Accelerating assistance: Perry’s influence

Secretary Perry did not forget these commitments when 

he left Pervomaysk. Under his leadership, CTR became the 

largest and most effective program in achieving the U.S. 

government’s nonproliferation objectives. Perry was trained 

as a mathematician and had extensive business experience 

in electronics before serving in the department as an 

undersecretary for research and development programs in 

the Carter administration. In the 1980s he was managing 

director of an investment firm, and then joined Stanford 

University as a professor of engineering and director of 

the university’s Center for International Security and Arms 

Control. He followed closely nuclear weapons developments 

and international negotiations on U.S.-USSR nuclear arms 

control treaties and agreements. Perry knew Senator Sam 

Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 

and had served on commissions with him. He participated 

in early meetings that had developed the initial NunnLugar legislation and he strongly endorsed the concept. 

His experience taught him that deconstructing the huge 

Cold War arsenals safely and securely would require 

personal intervention with foreign defense leaders. It 

would also require multi-year financing, intensive program 

management, and the responsibility to carry through on 

multiple international projects securing warheads and 

eliminating weapons systems.81

In the Clinton Administration, Perry emerged as the 

leader in nonproliferation initiatives and U.S. engagement 

with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and later, North Korea. 

In speeches, articles and congressional testimony, Perry 

advocated a new strategy for the post-Cold War era, which 

he called preventive defense. Perry wrote “Preventive 
117

defense is a strategy for influencing the rest of the world, not 

compelling it.”82 He implemented this strategy in practical 

ways: through Cooperative Threat Reduction programs with 

Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan; in new programs in 

the Defense Department’s global counter-proliferation effort; 

in new exercises with military forces in NATO’s Partnership 

for Peace alliance; and in expanding NATO membership to 

include Central European nations. In all these efforts, Perry 

stressed diplomacy and international cooperation.83

In 1993, when he served as the deputy, Perry set in 

motion a major reform of the department’s unfocused way 

of handling CTR programs. Before this reform, Congress 

had appropriated approximately $400 million per year in 

Nunn-Lugar funds to the Defense Department. The State 

Department had appointed an ambassador to negotiate and 

sign bilateral umbrella agreements, which designated specific 

program areas for Nunn-Lugar funds. Senior officials at the 

National Security Council directed all U.S. negotiations, 

using diplomatic instructions. Negotiations usually 

concluded with signed agreements on specific assistance 

projects between the foreign nation and one of three U.S. 

government departments: Defense, State or Energy. Defense 

officials emphasized those agreements leading to cooperative 

denuclearization projects. State pushed for nonproliferation 

projects, such as the science and technology centers and 

development of the fissile material storage facility in central 

Russia. The Department of Energy sought out programs 

that would develop fissile materials control, accounting, 

and physical security systems. Once the umbrella and 

implementing agreements were negotiated and signed, 

DOD sent Nunn-Lugar funds to other departments for their 

projects. Perry objected to this arrangement.84

His first action was to strengthen the department’s 

CTR policy and program management teams. He assigned 

Ashton Carter as the lead official in developing CTR policy. 

Carter’s office certified what programs and projects would be 

negotiated; it notified Congress of specific projects; and with 

State Department in the lead, it negotiated bilateral umbrella 

and implementing agreements with foreign governments. 

Carter’s staff also prepared and testified to Congress on 

the department’s CTR budget request. Four senior defense 

officials worked closely with Carter. Gloria Duffy was the 

William Perry and Ashton Carter

Department of Defense
118

With Courage and Persistence

Special Coordinator for CTR and Deputy Head of the Safe 

and Secure Dismantlement Talks. Elizabeth Sherwood served 

as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine 

and Eurasia. Susan Koch was the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

for Threat Reduction Policy, and Laura Holgate, who had 

worked with Carter at Harvard University, now served 

as a special assistant responsible for tracking numerous 

initiatives, including improving relations with Congress. 

In formulating policy, these defense officials coordinated 

with Rose Gottemoeller, NSC Director of Russia, Ukraine 

and Eurasia, who chaired the interagency working group for 

the Nunn-Lugar Program. In the second half of 1993, the 

team negotiated and signed 25 bilateral CTR agreements 

with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Testifying 

before Congress, Carter called it the “year of negotiations.” 

He predicted that 1994 would become the “year of 

implementation.”85

Responsibility for implementation fell to Harold P. 

Smith, Jr., Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic 

Energy. Smith was a nuclear engineer, and founder and 

president of a defense consulting company. He was a 

professor of engineering at the University of California. He 

knew Perry well. The scope of his responsibilities was much 

broader than his title suggested. He was also responsible 

for planning, modernization, security and survivability of 

the U.S. nuclear stockpile, chemical and biological defense, 

chemical weapons destruction, arms control treaty execution 

and compliance, and implementation of the CTR Program.86

Two defense agencies reported to his office directly: Defense 

Nuclear Agency (DNA) and the On-Site Inspection Agency 

(OSIA). Both agencies had a role implementing the CTR 

programs. “Perry made it vividly clear to me when I was 

sworn into office in June 1993,” Smith wrote, “that this 

[CTR] program must move, and it must move quickly.”87

Perry directed Smith to set up a new CTR Program Office that 

would report to Ashton Carter, Assistant to the Secretary of 

Defense, who reported directly to the Defense Secretary and 

Deputy, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition 

and Technology. He also directed the office be staffed with 

experienced administrators and acquisition specialists. 

Established in May 1994, this new office would give Perry, 

Carter and Smith a single program manager responsible 

for implementing all the department’s CTR programs and 

projects.88

Smith asked U.S. Army Major General Roland Lajoie, 

who was about to retire after 35 years of military service, to 

develop the new CTR Program Office.89 Lajoie had a long, 

productive career as an Army Soviet area specialist, serving 

as U.S. Defense Attaché to the Soviet Union, and directing 

the On-Site Inspection Agency, a new post-Cold War 

organization responsible for carrying out on-site inspections 

of recent international arms control treaties. He was fluent 

in Russian and French.90 His new office staff included John 

Ruberto and experienced military officers: Colonel Jim Reid, 

Colonel Bill Tuttle, Lt. Colonel Robert Davies, Commander 

Mike Demio, and others. Their task was to work with defense 

ministries and military officials in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine 

and Kazakhstan to define their security and dismantlement 

requirements and determine specific tasks, costs, schedules 

and performance standards. Essentially, these program 

officials managed the Defense Department’s CTR programs 

and acquisition projects.91

By summer 1994, Perry had succeeded in pinning 

responsibility on specific people, designated offices and 

program managers within the Defense Department. Division 

of CTR responsibilities into policy and implementation 

worked reasonably well for the next four years.92 In fall 

of 1998, a substantial defense reorganization folded the 

CTR Program Office and Defense Nuclear Agency into a 

new organization, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

(DTRA).93 By that time there were literally dozens of major 

CTR projects underway. Yet within DOD, the same working 

division between policy and implementation remained. At 

General Mikhtyuk greets Harold P. Smith, Jr.

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
119

times, personal differences between policy and program 

officials flared up, with one side accusing the other of making 

commitments in the field, while the other complained of 

limited authority to implement a project’s schedule and 

performance.94

Beginning in 1993, Perry began holding monthly 

meetings in his office to review every aspect of the NunnLugar program. Ashton Carter, Harold Smith, Roland Lajoie, 

Jack Beard, DOD’s General Counsel, and perhaps a program 

manager or two, participated in these gatherings that would 

run an hour or longer.95 Smith recalls, “Bill Perry liked to 

work in small groups, so the main players would often 

assemble in his office, and we would simply give him status 

reports, and identify areas where we would need help.”96

Lajoie found that, “the Secretary was unusually interested in 

the CTR program, and every detail. He understood its value 

at the highest policy level...and he had an interest in the 

most detailed implementation aspects.”97 Lajoie had worked 

on contemporary arms control treaties with senior leaders 

in the U.S. and Soviet/Russian governments – presidents, 

defense and foreign ministers, ambassadors, and senior 

general officers. Still, he was impressed with Perry’s personal 

style, “He’s a wonderful gentleman and a good listener and a 

polite and considerate individual. He would listen – honestly 

listen. He never dictated.”98 These monthly meetings were 

held, the secretary’s extensive travel schedule permitting, for 

nearly four years until Perry’s resignation in early 1997.99

That duration was extraordinary, but more extraordinary 

is what the Secretary did with the program. Perry traveled 

continuously, going to Russia four times a year for nearly 

four consecutive years. He went to Ukraine four times, 

and several times to Kazakhstan. He hosted the defense 

ministers of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in Washington 

at his Pentagon office, where meetings always involved one 

aspect or another of the Nunn-Lugar program. On trips to 

the region, Perry would take Carter and Smith along, with 

fully detailed planning sessions as they flew to Moscow, or 

another destination. They covered all aspects of the program 

and projects, and then on the return trip to Washington they 

would work on the implementation and policy issues that 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry and Russian Minister of Defense Grachev (c.) meet with troops

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
120

With Courage and Persistence

were in the Congress, the National Security Council and for 

the President. Smith remembers that traveling with Dr. Perry, 

“was really a tour de force.”100

In Russia, Perry worked hard to establish a working 

relationship with Minister of Defense Pavel Gravchev. He 

also met and discussed CTR projects with General Maslin 

from the 12th Main Directorate and Nikolai Shumkov, 

Director of the Main Administration for the Disposition of 

Warheads and Materials. Maslin thought that little had been 

done in the first two years, but “once William Perry came 

on the scene...substantial progress was made.”101 There 

were many issues in Perry’s relationship the Russian defense 

ministry that went beyond CTR and arms control treaties: 

establishing military-to-military contacts, scheduling joint 

military exercises, working out joint command relations 

with NATO over Bosnia, developing senior-level military 

officer seminars, and establishing good relations with 

defense civilians. As Lajoie pointed out, “we had to deal 

with Russia, because ultimately Russia would be the last 

remaining nuclear country.”102 He added, however, that if 

there was a priority with Secretary Perry in 1994 and 1995, 

it was probably assisting Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in 

removing their “nuclear capability.”

Of the three nations, Ukraine captured and held Perry’s 

attention the firmest. Valery Shmarov, Vice Premier of 

Ukraine, first met with Perry in Kiev in December 1993. 

Shmarov led Ukraine’s negotiating team preparing the 

Trilateral Agreement. Perry, then Deputy Secretary of 

Defense, discussed the CTR program with the Ukrainian 

leaders at length. Three months later, in March 1994, he 

returned to Ukraine as Secretary of Defense. When he and his 

small delegation flew to the missile complex at Pervomaysk, 

Shmarov remembered Perry listening carefully as Generals 

Radetskyi and Mikhtyuk presented the case for U.S. funding 

of housing construction for displaced SRF officers and their 

families. “That was a big problem for our county,” Shmarov 

declared,” and we placed a great deal of emphasis on this 

issue, even to the U.S. Congress. Thanks to William Perry, we 

managed to obtain funds for the construction of residences 

in Khmelnitsky, Pervomaysk, and Vinnitsa.”103

General Mikhtyuk, who met and escorted Secretary Perry 

each time he visited the rocket army, said that, “he made an 

impression of a highly educated, intellectual person who 

had been working in the sphere of nuclear technologies for 

years. I found him a purposeful, persistent person who was 

able to achieve the goals set by his [commander in] chief.”104

Nearly 10 years after the Trilateral Agreement was signed, 

Ukraine’s Vice Premier Shmarov remained intensely proud 

of his role in solving an “enormous” problem for his nation. 

He acknowledged that the U.S. and Russia acted “responsibly 

and consistently.” In a part of the world where agreements 

and declaratory statements by national leaders were made 

and abandoned quickly, the United States had delivered on 

what it promised. “Secretary Perry was the central figure,” 

Shmarov thought, “and helped, as I did on my side, to see 

that the agreement was implemented.”105 Shmarov said Perry 

set up a direct phone line to Kiev and they discussed the 

status of Ukraine’s dismantlement program “every day.”

Implementation: Ukrainian expectations, 

American realities

Ukraine counted on American assistance. Its ministries 

had developed the nation’s Comprehensive Plan and its 

president, premier, vice premier, defense minister, national 

security council and foreign minister all expected they would 

be working with senior-level American officials on bilateral 

programs to eliminate nuclear weapons. President Kravchuk 

signed the Trilateral Agreement and the Rada had ratified 

it; both the government and parliament anticipated the 

American government would honor its commitments. They 

expected assistance with the economic, social and ecological 

consequences of reducing the strategic nuclear arsenal. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry and Ukrainian Vice Premier 

Shmarov sign CTR agreement, Pervomaysk, 1995

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
121

Finally, they expected American “presence” in Ukraine for 

the long term, until the last vestiges of nuclear forces were 

eliminated.

Secretary Perry shared Ukraine’s expectations. He pushed 

the department’s Nunn-Lugar CTR policy and program 

managers relentlessly to work with Ukrainian defense 

and government ministries and develop new programs 

and projects. In meeting after meeting, in Washington, 

Kiev or Pervomaysk, Perry would tell Carter, Smith, Lajoie 

and others to work with their Ukrainian counterparts to 

find solutions for practical problems due to different legal 

systems, different decision making processes, different ways 

of planning projects and even different perceptions of project 

completion.106 As a result, in contrast to American assistance 

programs in Belarus or even Russia in these years, the U.S.- 

Ukrainian bilateral denuclearization effort developed at a 

dynamic pace from 1994 forward, with dozens of programs, 

hundreds of specific projects and thousands of pieces of 

American-purchased equipment sent to Ukraine. The U.S.-

Ukrainian CTR program became a model for the other 

nations.

Implementing this complex, large-scale, multi-year 

U.S.-Ukrainian denuclearization program transformed 

the relationship between the two nations in ways not 

anticipated. Over time it became more business-like.107

Before the Trilateral Agreement of January 1994 and the 

initial CTR agreements, U.S. leaders regarded Ukraine as a 

source of nuclear instability, and possibility a nuclear state. 

Then in that same year, American and Ukrainian officials 

turned to solving a host of practical problems: customs 

duties, contracts, payments, delivery schedules. They 

participated in dozens of meetings to review requirements, 

schedules, equipment, costs and performance standards. In 

the fall 1994, Shmarov became Ukraine’s defense minister. 

Shortly thereafter, a direct telephone line was installed, 

linking him to Secretary Perry to discuss the disarmament 

program.108

In Kiev, American Ambassador William Miller met every 

Saturday morning with Volodomir Horbulin, Secretary 

of Ukraine’s National Security Council. They discussed 

a range of topics, but most often implementation issues 

and problems.109 General Lajoie and Assistant Secretary of 

Defense Smith traveled to the region frequently and talked 

by telephone with their counterparts in Ukraine on a regular 

basis. Senators Nunn and Lugar traveled to Ukraine every year, 

if not more often. “They were aware of everything,” Lajoie 

recalled, “They were very good with our counterparts at all 

levels.”110 When Ukrainian delegations visited Washington, 

the senators would meet with them, invariably discussing 

CTR issues, problems and ways to help their work.

These changes began just weeks after the Trilateral 

Agreement was signed in January 1994, when the Ukrainian 

Minister of Defense made an emergency request for 

equipment to assist in deactivating SS-19 missile complexes. 

The U.S. agreed to use Nunn-Lugar funds to purchase and 

deliver the requested cranes, all-terrain vehicles, emergency 

access equipment, communications equipment, truck 

batteries, power saws and other tools. The request also 

included a requirement for 2,200 tons of gasoline, diesel and 

hydraulic fuels. The amount of assistance, approximately 

$750,000 was not large, but it was done quickly.111 At 

Ambassador Miller’s suggestion, many of these items were 

purchased directly from the Ukrainian economy, creating 

a small infusion of U.S. dollars. In March, Secretary Perry 

and a small delegation flew to Pervomaysk for a meeting 

with Defense Minister Radetskyi and Vice Premier Shmarov. 

There Perry announced the U.S.-Ukraine’s Strategic Nuclear 

Arms Elimination (SNAE) implementing agreement would 

be increased by $50 million.112 That money, Perry noted, 

could be used to dismantle the SS-24 missile complexes. 

The Ukrainian government did not decide to eliminate the 

SS-24 missiles in 1994. Instead they chose to withhold the 

deactivation decision until they could gauge Russian and 

American commitment.

At the same Pervomaysk meeting, Perry announced 

the commitment of $20 million in Nunn-Lugar funds for 

military officer housing construction projects. In March 

1994, the 43rd Rocket Army had 18 operational regiments, 

manned by approximately 6,000 officers and warrant 

officers. By Ukrainian law, these officers would be retired 

with dismantlement of the rocket army. The Ukrainian 

government stated it would only be able to provide housing 

for 3,500 officers, which left 2,500 officers without housing. 

Perry wanted to integrate this requirement for officer 

housing into the plan to assist local industries in Ukraine, 

and the other nations as well, with “seed” money to convert 

their defense industries into commercial ventures. Perry said 

it was part of a new “defense conversion” program and he 

signed an agreement in Pervomaysk designating up to $40 

million for projects in Ukraine.113
122

With Courage and Persistence

New houses at Pervomaysk military base

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry dedicates new apartments at Pervomaysk

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
123

In June 1994, the Defense Nuclear Agency awarded a 

$10 million contract to Bill Harbert International, a U.S. 

manufacturer of prefabricated homes throughout the world. 

In turn, Harbert moved quickly and contracted with the 

Ukrainian firm, Fregat, a former defense industrial company 

that had manufactured Soviet naval ship components in 

Pervomaysk, home of the 46th Rocket Division. Working 

together, they used the Ukrainian company’s factory to build 

300 prefabricated homes.114 In September, the CTR program 

manager awarded a $16 million contract to another two 

American firms, ABB SUSA and American Service, Inc., and 

two Ukrainian defense firms, Montazhnik and the Central 

Design Institute. The Ukrainian firms had formerly designed 

and constructed ballistic missile silos and command and 

control structures. The contract stipulated the design and 

construction of an apartment complex, with 195 apartments 

for rocket army officers and their families in Khmelnitsky, 

home station of the 19th Rocket Division.115 Satisfied with the 

way these projects had developed, Secretary Perry observed, 

“we are building more than a few houses in Ukraine, we are 

building a housing industry.”116

Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination: First 

projects, first equipment

During 1994 U.S. assistance to Ukraine for strategic nuclear 

arms elimination emerged as that nation’s largest single area of 

cooperation. In February, following the Ukrainian emergency 

request, Nunn-Lugar program managers had purchased 

“emergency” equipment, supplies and fuels to assist Ukrainian 

technicians removing and preparing SS-19 warheads for 

transport. The new cranes and safety equipment were used 

in lifting the SS-19 missiles from their silos. Although the 

43rd Rocket Army had maintenance equipment such as road 

mobile cranes, specialized warhead vans and communications 

equipment, the new U.S.-provided equipment, once it began 

to arrive in Ukraine in the late summer and fall months, 

accelerated the dismantlement process. 

Once the SS-19 missiles had been lifted out of their silos 

and defueled, the Ukrainians requested the United States 

purchase storage tanks to store the fuels. A Ukrainian firm, 

Ivano-Frankovsk based in Kharkiv, received a contract in 

September to manufacture and deliver 60 storage tanks.117

Once finished, these storage tanks went via rail across 

Ukraine to a new U.S.-funded rocket fuel storage facility being 

constructed at Shevchenko. During the SS-19 dismantlement 

process, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense worked closely with 

the Russian General Staff and nuclear experts to package 

and transport the nuclear warheads being sent to Russia. 

In return, the Russian government sent reprocessed nuclear 

fuel rods to Ukraine. The complex unfolding of the three 

nations’ commitments were observed with great interest by 

the governments in Kiev, Moscow and Washington.

In April the Defense Department’s CTR program awarded 

a contract to two Ukrainian enterprises, K.B. Yuzhnoe and 

Yuzhmash, for design of a new SS-19 missile neutralization 

facility at Dnipropetrovs’k, a city with numerous militaryindustrial factories and industrial plants. Since the Soviet 

Union had concentrated all neutralization facilities on 

Russian territory, Ukraine had to build such a facility to be 

able to finish the SS-19 dismantlement process. Defueling an 

SS-19 left the skin of the missile permeated with toxic heptyl 

and amyl fuels. A high-pressure steam process separated the 

fuels from the metal, so the rockets could be disassembled by 

cutting and shredding. In the process, valuable metals, gold, 

silver, platinum, which were embedded in the rocket skin, 

would be separated and distilled out. The Ukrainian firms 

also designed a missile storage yard, with an overhead bridge 

crane for lifting missiles from railcars to the storage yard. In 

September 1994, Morris-Knudson, a large U.S. construction 

and engineering firm, received a $27-million contract to build 

and equip neutralization and missile disassembly facilities 

in Dnipropetrovs’k. Work at the site began in January 1995, 

and it was completed in 18 months. In July 1996, the new 

facilities were commissioned and began operation.118

With these projects underway, Ukrainian delegations 

regularly traveled from Kiev to Washington to meet with 

American CTR program managers. In long, tedious meetings 

they tried to define their requirements for American 

equipment to be purchased and shipped to Ukraine. John 

Connell, a DNA program manager for the strategic nuclear 

elimination programs in Ukraine, called this early phase the 

“catalogue book” approach. The Ukrainians would bring 

a catalogue book or a picture of all kinds of equipment 

items, specifically, a bulldozer, railroad cranes, intermodal 

rail containers, industrial incinerators or some other 

specialized equipment. At the DNA acquisition and technical 

specialists would take the picture and develop performance 

specifications. Connell remembers the entire negotiating 

process was painful, for both sides:
124

With Courage and Persistence

“The first time I met a Ukrainian, it was at DNA 

headquarters. There was a general, a lieutenant 

colonel and some civilians. They were in a room 

negotiating. We were trying to find out how many 

drill bits they wanted and what size. Were they 

metric, or what...they had no clue. They had no 

way to specify them. Our technical people were 

trying to nail them down very specifically, so we 

would know what to buy. It was very frustrating 

for me to witness...I was very uncomfortable with 

what was taking place.”119

Yet, CTR officials had to define technical requirements 

and specifications precisely because under Congressional 

legislation all these items had to be purchased in open 

competition. There was sufficient money, since $55 million 

had been obligated for acquiring and shipping the equipment 

to Ukraine.120

In 1994 program managers in Washington saw CTR as 

an equipment-driven program. Working with acquisition 

specialists, managers sought to acquire equipment through 

a series of steps: negotiating requirements with their 

national counterparts, issuing acquisition statements, 

notifying Congress, advertising the specific requirements for 

equipment in open bidding, evaluating competitive bids, and 

then awarding a contract. Next, they would accept delivery, 

and arrange for transoceanic shipment to Ukraine, Russia or 

the other nations. The acquisition process was lengthy and 

filled with obstacles. Senior officials became frustrated at the 

slow pace. Ashton Carter wrote, “The Pentagon acquisition 

bureaucracy is justly fabled for its ponderous procedures, 

endless paperwork, and slow workings.”121 Now that system 

was being asked to acquire and send heavy equipment to 

nations, which only a few years earlier, had been enemies 

of the United States. Carter believed the situation called 

for a more rapid response on the part of the department’s 

bureaucracy, and he became a strong supporter of the new 

CTR program office.

Early in 1994, Connell was selected as chief of the 

Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination Division at the 

SS-19 missile stages in deconstruction facility at Dnepropetrovsk

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
125

Defense Nuclear Agency.122 His division was responsible for 

implementing the strategic dismantlement and elimination 

program in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. He played 

a pivotal role in transforming the U.S. CTR program in 

Ukraine. He began by changing the approach. “All the 

negotiating methods available,” he said, “were Cold War 

negotiating techniques, developed when we were dealing 

with the Soviet Union – sit in the middle of the table, pass 

notes to each other, only one person talks at a time and 

all the rules of formal negotiation.”123 Instead, it occurred 

to him as he sat in one meeting after another, that he was 

the program manager for a large foreign assistance effort in 

which the key word was “cooperative.”

Consequently, Connell developed a different approach 

in joint meetings with Ukrainians. He would concentrate on 

solving problems and not on winning negotiating points. 

“Sometimes I had to look across the table at the individual 

I was talking to and say [to myself]: Now this individual 

is a general, a colonel or a civilian of high rank. I don’t 

understand what he wants, but I have to assume he is an 

intelligent person.” He would rephrase the question, or ask 

it differently. At times, he admitted “my first assumption 

would be that this is an unreasonable request. This is just out 

of the ball park. We can’t talk anymore.”124 Then, he would 

remind himself of his new mantra of seeing the issue as 

one of many in a problem solving meeting with reasonable 

people who had national interests, national limitations, and 

national problems. He would search for an area where they 

could work together. In 1994 and 1995, Connell traveled to 

Ukraine frequently, leading U.S. government and contractor 

groups, meeting with Ambassador Miller, monitoring the 

arrival and condition of U.S. CTR equipment, arranging with 

U.S. Embassy officials for payment of local contracts, setting 

up equipment training courses, approving maintenance 

schedules and participating with defense and rocket army 

officers on source selection panels.

CTR perceptions, problems and solutions

By the fall of 1994, the rapid expansion of CTR programs 

had caused major problems for the staff at the U.S. Embassy. A 

small office was devoted to arms control treaty issues, however 

it had become overwhelmed with the CTR administrative 

work: preparing cables, translating documents for delivery 

to Ukrainian ministry offices, scheduling and participating 

in meetings, making payments for delivered goods, and 

meeting equipment shipments at Ukrainian points of entry. 

Established in 1992 to coordinate communications between 

nations on arms control treaties and to assist and monitor 

inspection team arrivals and departures, now three years 

later it was being asked to handle a significant increase in 

work load, virtually all due to CTR. In May, Connell met with 

the embassy’s deputy chief of mission, the political-military 

officer, and the arms control representative to discuss future 

staffing requirements of the CTR program. During that 

meeting, Connell promised he would recommend that DOD 

augment the staff at the embassy.125 Another difficulty arose 

when American equipment arrived at Ukrainian ports and 

road entry points at odd times. No American officials were 

there to meet the shipment or sign for it. As a consequence, 

the American equipment would sit for weeks, even months 

in the Crimean port, awaiting customs clearance. There were 

also problems with maintaining the few items of equipment 

that had already arrived and been delivered to the Ministry 

of Defense. The U.S. had committed to Ukraine that it would 

maintain equipment for up to three years, but there were no 

mechanisms to do the work, beyond having each American 

equipment supplier maintain each item. A perception 

grew that there was a lack of control and coordination in 

implementation of CTR programs in Ukraine.

These were serious issues. In late October, John Connell 

and a 10-person American delegation arrived in Kiev for 

four days of meetings with Colonel Serdyuk, chief of the 

Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative Control Center, 

and senior Ukrainian military officials on implementation 

issues.126 The Ukrainians wanted a schedule of delivery on 

ordered American equipment and better information on 

Colonel Nikolai Denysyuk and John Connell

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
126

With Courage and Persistence

logistics, specifically regarding regular maintenance. Connell 

agreed to their requests. They wanted a list of recent, specific 

equipment ordered by Defense Nuclear Agency acquisition 

specialists in Washington. Connell agreed. They requested 

data on the actual cost of the equipment. In this instance 

Connell refused, saying that figure would remain with the 

American government. Finally, Colonel Serdyuk and his 

delegation asked for construction of a new warehouse and 

equipment yard at the large military depot at Uman in central 

Ukraine. Connell saw merit in combining Ukraine’s request 

for a new warehouse and equipment yard with the U.S. need 

for a firm to meet shipments at Ukrainian points of entry, to 

clear customs, and then arrange for transport to Uman. That 

same firm could also be contracted to provide maintenance 

for all the large equipment items being sent out and used in 

missile fields. This discussion would lead to a CTR logistics 

support contract, which became one of the most enduring 

aspects of CTR assistance for the next 12 to 15 years. At the 

time Connell deferred the decision on this issue until the 

next joint meeting, slated for Washington in early December.

The week before the meeting, Gloria Duffy flew to Kiev 

to brief the president, premier, foreign minister, senior 

military officials and Rada committees on CTR assistance 

to Ukraine. Then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and 

Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction in the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, she found that Ukrainian 

expectations had turned cynical. Valery Shmarov, who had 

become Ukraine’s Defense Minister, publicly declared the 

United States had not provided the disarmament assistance 

it promised to Ukraine. 

“This assistance,” Shmarov said, “is totally unsatisfactory 

– it practically has not started. Ukraine is paying for the 

[dismantlement] process almost entirely out of its own 

budget.”127 According to their calculations, Shmarov said 

Ukraine had only received $4 to $5 million in equipment 

from the United States. Economic conditions in Ukraine had 

continued to deteriorate. The week Duffy arrived to brief 

President Kuchma, the exchange rate at the U.S. Embassy was 

96,000 Ukrainian hryvnia to one U.S. dollar. The street rate 

was even higher at 104,000 Ukrainian hryvnia to the U.S. 

dollar.128 Against this backdrop, Duffy tried to smooth ruffled 

feelings and she reported that DOD had obligated more than 

$100 million to Ukraine for specific CTR equipment, training 

and services. While only a small portion, approximately 

$4 million, had been spent on equipment and services in 

Ukraine during 1994, she assured the president and other 

government officials the aid would be forthcoming. Duffy 

explained the current CTR project categories and funds 

obligated for Ukraine:129

n Export Controls: $7.26 million

n Government-to-Government Communications: 

$2.4 million

n Emergency Response Equipment: $5 million

n Defense and Military Contacts: $3.9 million

n MC & A and Physical Protection: $12 million

n Science and Technology Center: $10 million

n Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination: 

$185 million

n Industrial Partnerships: $40 million

While virtually all this money was in the form of promises, 

the list indicated that, in contrast to American CTR assistance 

planned for Belarus and Russia, in Ukraine the projects 

and assistance would be focused on strategic nuclear arms 

Gloria C. Duffy

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
127

elimination ($185 million) and industrial partnerships ($40 

million). Both categories showed Secretary Perry’s influence.

A new direction: American integrating 

contractor

In November Ukrainian Defense Minister Shmarov flew 

to Washington for consultations with Secretary Perry. The 

situation in Ukraine was changing rapidly. On November 15, 

diplomats from 14 nations and the European Union met in 

Kiev and pledged to provide Ukraine with $234 million in 

additional disarmament assistance.130 The following day, the 

Rada voted to ratify the Nonproliferation Treaty by a margin 

of 301 to 1.131 Ratification was contingent upon the five 

nuclear power states – United States, Russia, Great Britain, 

France and China providing Ukraine with written security 

guarantees.132 Those guarantees were forthcoming. The 

Rada’s NPT Treaty ratification meant that Russia would lift its 

objections and the START Treaty signatories would exchange 

instruments of ratification within weeks, and the treaty 

would enter into force. Five nations were signatories to the 

START I Treaty: United States, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan 

and Belarus. Once the treaty entered into force, each nation 

had to meet all quotas for eliminating weapons and delivery 

systems within seven years.

At the Pentagon, Shmarov explained to Perry that Ukraine 

was not financially capable of eliminating the missiles and 

bombers under the START Treaty without additional American 

assistance. Secretary Perry, aware of the many difficulties 

in acquiring and delivering CTR-purchased equipment to 

Ukraine, suggested that the two nations might consider using 

large American firms, experienced in carrying out large-scale, 

complex construction projects, as “integrating” contractors 

for required START Treaty elimination work in Ukraine. That 

way, elimination work could be organized and managed on 

a larger scale and completed within the treaty’s technical 

requirements and phased deadlines. Shmarov agreed, 

insisting that Ukrainian firms be employed as subcontractors 

and that the scope of the work be determined by the Rada 

and National Security Council of Ukraine. At that time, 

work entailed deactivating and eliminating SS-19 missile 

complexes. Perry listened, and then suggested that together 

they move forward to define the scope of work.133

Shmarov and Perry authorized their respective delegations 

to meet in Washington in early December to work on all 

aspects of the “integrating” contractor concept. Colonel 

Serdyuk led a large Ukrainian military delegation consisting 

of generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels and civilians. Duffy 

led the American team, which included General Lajoie, 

John Roberto, Colonel Jim Reid, John Connell and others. 

The Ukrainian delegation began with a set of principles that 

would define the scope of work as articulated by Defense 

Minister Shmarov to Secretary Perry. The Ukrainians 

proposed that the U.S. finance an integrating contractor 

who would organize and manage the complete elimination 

of 13 SS-19 regiments, including 130 SS-19 missiles, 130 

fixed missile silos, 13 unified command posts and associated 

infrastructure, within seven years. A second principle was that 

all elimination work involving secret equipment or secret 

missile configurations at the missile complexes would be 

carried out by subcontracted Ukrainian firms, with qualified 

technicians and specialized equipment. The U.S. would pay 

for this work. In turn, the American delegation asked about 

Ukrainian plans for deactivating and dismantling the SS-24 

missiles, silos and unified command posts. Colonel Serdyuk 

deferred discussing the future of the SS-24 missiles, citing 

forthcoming decisions by the president, National Security 

Council, and the Rada.134

Two weeks of discussions led to signing of a joint 

statement of the principles that would guide selection of 

an integrating contractor. The selection would be done 

cooperatively and jointly, with source selection committees 

for both the American integrating contractor and Ukrainian 

subcontractors. Colonel Serdyuk and the Ukrainians claimed 

the scope of the dismantlement work was so large that the 

American integrating contractor should be required to 

work with Ukrainian firms. The U.S. delegation agreed this 

request would be incorporated into a statement of principles 

and included in the request for proposals statement. The 

Ukrainians insisted the integrating contractor abide by 

national ecological protection laws during the elimination 

work. The U.S. side said the integrating contractor would 

	 H Integrating Contractor

	 H U.S. - Ukraine Agreement

	 H Ukraine’s Comprehensive Plan
128

With Courage and Persistence

be under control of the U.S. government but that the firm 

selected would follow Ukraine’s Comprehensive Plan and 

would be required to meet all schedules and elimination 

protocols in the START Treaty. The two sides agreed in the 

joint statement to institute a selection process that would 

identify and select the American integrating contractor and 

key Ukrainian subcontractors by July 1, 1995.135

For the United States and Ukraine, this decision to 

turn to an “integrating” contractor became one of the 

most significant developments in the entire CTR assistance 

program to eliminate strategic nuclear missiles and bombers. 

The experienced American firms who would be bidding for 

this contract would be capable of working with obscure 

U.S. government acquisition, contracting, and accounting 

laws and regulations. They knew how to work with national 

and local laws abroad. Additionally, they had experience 

hiring and working with local firms and citizens. Given the 

direction from Secretary Perry and Minister Shmarov and 

the consensus within the defense ministries, the two groups 

agreed to establish a working group of technical experts 

who would develop a statement of work for an integrating 

contractor. They also agreed to develop a joint plan for 

advertising the work to American contractors and coordinate 

schedules for identifying, evaluating and then selecting 

a contractor. Finally, they set the final week of January for 

joint technical teams to travel to Ukraine and tour an SS-19 

missile silo, command post and a training command post to 

determine the scope of work, develop technical documents, 

and coordinate tasks. Throughout 1995, John Connell would 

lead the complex multinational source selection process.

As these developments unfolded in spring 1995, 

Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Shmarov announced that 

two additional SS-19 missile complexes, with 40 ICBMs, 

and 40 silos would be removed from military alert status. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry and Ukrainian Vice Premier Shmarov at Pervomaysk, April 1995

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
129

Dismantlement teams from the 43rd Rocket Army removed 

missiles from the silos and extracted 2,753 tons of oxidant 

and 1,129 tons of heptyl and amyl from the missiles. 

These toxic fuels were transported to storage sites and 

placed into the new storage tanks. During the year, 43rd

Rocket Army specialists prepared and sent 420 nuclear 

warheads to Russia. The Ukrainian government paid the 

salaries of the rocket army’s personnel and funded all these 

dismantlement activities.136

Perry’s second visit to Pervomaysk

On April 1, 1995, Secretary Perry and a small American 

delegation arrived in Pervomaysk to witness elimination of 

an SS-19 missile and meet with Defense Minister Shmarov, 

Colonel Serdyuk and General Mikhtyuk. Accompanying 

Perry were Carter and Smith. The two delegations watched 

as General Mikhtyuk commanded army specialists to 

lift the large SS-19 missile out of its silo and place it on a 

missile transporter vehicle in preparation for defueling into 

large steel defueling tanks. The tanks were manufactured 

by a Ukrainian firm under a U.S. CTR contract. Once in the 

tanks, the toxic fuels would be transported in Ukrainian 

military vehicles to a special rail facility, constructed and 

equipped with Nunn-Lugar funding. On that cold, crisp 

day, as they stood in front of the SS-19 missile, everyone 

recognized it would be a long, arduous process of working 

together to eliminate all of the 43rd Rocket Army’s strategic 

weapons systems.137

In brief remarks, Perry acknowledged the progress made 

by the two countries. Already an American firm, MorrisKnudson, was working at Dnipropetrovs’k to build an SS19 neutralization facility and storage yard. Two Ukrainian 

enterprises, K.B Yuzhnoe and Yuzhmash, designed the new 

neutralization facility. Already a Ukrainian firm, IvanoFrankovsk, was building and delivering steel storage tanks 

to Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky, headquarters of the 

army’s rocket divisions, for defueling the SS-19 missiles. 

By now American cranes, plasma cutters, excavators, tools, 

and other materials were arriving in Ukrainian ports and 

being shipped to the military depot in Uman. At this 

time an American contractor, Hughes Technical Services 

Company, set up offices in Uman. Its job was to provide 

consolidated logistics support for all the American CTRpurchased equipment arriving in Ukraine. Within the 

past four months, the two nations’ defense ministers and 

ministries had agreed on a major new initiative to hire an 

American integrating contractor, one with responsibility 

for organizing and managing elimination of Ukraine’s 

entire SS-19 missile force.

Secretary Perry reserved his highest praise that day at 

Pervomaysk for two U.S.-Ukrainian firms that were building 

prefabricated housing for the 43rd Rocket Army personnel. 

The Ukrainian firm, Fregat, now worked with Bill Harbert 

Inc. to build homes in Pervomaysk for retiring Strategic 

Rocket Forces officers. Perry praised their work as one of 

the first industrial partnerships between American and 

Ukrainian business firms. “This program,” Perry explained, 

“simultaneously had the effect of making possible the 

closing of the missile base, ending production of new 

weapons in the former Soviet missile factory and providing a 

new economic opportunity for the workers in the factory.”138

By singling out joint U.S.-Ukrainian business partnerships, 

as opposed to the number of rockets eliminated, Perry was 

speaking directly to the Ukrainian public, and indirectly to 

the American and Ukrainian CTR program managers. As the 

effort went forward, the Secretary wanted the program to 

incorporate as many Ukrainian firms as possible. Then he 

signed an amendment to CTR implementing agreement that 

included an additional $20 million in assistance for strategic 

nuclear arms elimination projects in Ukraine, increasing 

the total U.S. commitment under the Nunn-Lugar CTR 

agreements to $297 million.139

In the following years, Ukrainian defense officials 

expanded their requests for U.S. CTR assistance significantly 

to encompass new programs for eliminating SS-24 missiles 

and launch complexes, Tu-160 strategic bombers, Tu95 heavy bombers, Tu-22 bombers, air-launched cruise 

missiles and assorted infrastructure. The high tide of 

all these eliminations, from 1995 to 2002, as detailed in 

the next section, continued to transform U.S.-Ukrainian 

relations.
130

With Courage and Persistence

Endnotes

1 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, pp. 611.B. 782-783. See also, 

Colonel General (retired) V.A. Mykhtyuk , Commander 43rd Rocket 

Army, “Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” located 

in DTRA, Chapter 2, pp. 9-12.

2 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B. 782.

3 Krasnaya Zvezda, 7 April 1993 in FBIS-SU, 8 April 1993.

4 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B. 785.

5

 Mikhtyuk, “Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” Chapter 2, p. 6.

6

 Ibid.

7

 For a description of the 43rd Rocket Army see, Martin J. 

DeWing, “The Ukrainian Nuclear Arsenal: Problems of Command, 

Control, and Maintenance,” CNS Working Paper no. 3, Monterrey 

Institute of International Studies, (October 1993), pp. 1-30.

8

 Mikhtyuk, “Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” Chapter 1, p. 29.

9

 Ibid., Chapter 2, p. 6.

10 Bohdan Nahaylo, “The Shaping of Ukrainian Attitudes 

towards Nuclear Arms,” in RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 2, no. 8 

(February 1993), pp. 21-45. Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 2, pp. 10-11.

11 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, pp. 611.B. 807-808.

12 Arms Control Reporter, 1993, p. 611.B. 803. Mikhtyuk, “Status 

of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 2, pp. 9-12.

13 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 2, p. 6.

14 Steve Coll and R. Jeffery Smith, “Ukraine Could Seize Control 

over Nuclear Arms,” Washington Post, 3 June 1993. Michael R. 

Gordon, “Russia faults U.S. on Shifting Ukraine’s Arms,” New York 

Times, 7 June 1993. See Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Ambitions, (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow 

Wilson Center Press, 1995), pp. 104-105.

15 John W.R. Lepingwell, “Ukraine, Russia, and the Control of 

Nuclear Weapons,” RFL/RL Research Report, vol. 3, no. 8 (February 

1994), pp. 4-20.

16 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 149.

17 For Kravchuk’s statement see, Budapest Pesti Hirlap, 3 May 

1993 in FBIS-SU, 5 May 1993. See also, Arms Control Reporter, 1993, 

p. 611.E.2.50.

18 Stephen Foye, “End of CIS Command Heralds New Russian 

Defense Policy,” RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 2, no. 27 (July 1993), 

pp. 45-50.

19 Celestine Bohlen, “Yeltsin Promises Ukraine Security Guarantees,” New York Times, 18 June 1993, at http://www.nytimes.

com/1993/06/18/world/yeltsin-promises-ukraine-security-guarantees.html?scp=3&sq=yeltsin&st=nyt accessed on 13 September 2011. 

Also, Foye, “End of CIS Command,” RFE/RL Research Report, pp. 

45-46.

20 Foye, “End of CIS Command,” RFE/RL Research Report, pp. 

48-50.

21 Chrysie Freemen and R. Jeffery Smith, “Ukrainian Premier 

Urges Keeping Nuclear Arms,” Washington Post, 4 June 1993. For a 

discussion of the political context see, Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 

104-106.

22 Reuters, 7 July 1993. Michael Dobbs, “Ukraine Claims All 

Nuclear Weapons on Its Territory; Parliament’s Move Linked to 

Ratification of START Treaty, U.S. Raid on Baghdad,” Washington 

Post, 3 July1993, at http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/72165298.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=-

Jul+3%2C+1993&author=Michael+Dobbs&pub=The+Washington+Post+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=A.24&-

desc=Ukraine+Claims+All+Nuclear+Weapons+on+Its+Territo 

ry%3B+Parliament%27s+Move+Linked+to+Ratification+of+STAR

T+Treaty%2C+U.S.+Raid+on+Baghdad accessed on 13 September 

2011.

23 Lepingwell, “Negotiations over Nuclear Weapons: The Past as 

Prologue?” RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 3, no. 4 (January 1994), pp. 

5-6.

24 Roman Solchanyk, “The Ukrainian-Russian Summit: Problems and Prospects,” RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 2, no. 27 (2 July 

1993).

25 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, 

Chapter 2, p. 7.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Martin Sieff, “Russians Criticize Ukraine Handling of Nuclear 

Arms,” Washington Times, 10 December 1993.

29 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 2, pp. 9-10.

30 Izvestiya, 29 June 1993, in FBIS-SU, 29 June 1993. Izvestiya, 

16 July 1993, in FBIS-SU, 16 July 1993.

31 “Ukraine Dismantling Nuclear Missiles,” United Press International, 2 August 1993.

32 Paul D’Anieri, “Ukrainian Defense Policy and the Transformation of the Armed Forces,” in Paul D’Anieri, Robert S. Kravchuk, 

and Taras Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine: Westview Series on the 

Post-Soviet Republics, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 256-257. 

See also, Lesya Gak, “Denuclearization and Ukraine: Lessons for the 

Future,” Nonproliferation Review, (Spring 1994), pp. 106-135.

33 Kravchuk, “Economic Crisis and Reform,” in Anieri, Kravchuk, 

and Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, pp. 166-205.

34 Each week the SSD/CTR administrative office in the U.S. 

Embassy, Kiev reported on the fluctuations in the exchange rate. See 

ACIU, Kiev Weekly Activities Report, 17 December 1993.

35 Interview, William G. Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine 

(1993-1998), with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 1 February 2006. Miller explained that in the fall 1993, 

many analysts in the U.S. State Department questioned Ukraine’s 

future as a state.

36 For Tarasyuk statement see, Radio Rossii (Moscow), 1 

January 1993, in “START I Ratification Conditions Stated,” FBISSOV-93-004, 7 January 1993.

37 Michael Gordon, “U.S. Says Ukraine Has Begun Dismantling 

Nuclear Missiles,” New York Times, 28 July 1993. For a discussion of 
131

the Clinton Administration’s decision to change its policy toward 

Ukraine see, Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 106-107. And also, Strobe 

Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy, (New 

York: Random House, 2002), pp. 79-82.

38 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 107-110. Gak, “Denuclearization 

and Ukraine,” Nonproliferation Review, pp. 106-135.

39 Nahaylo, “The Massandra Summit and Ukraine,” RFE/RL 

Research Report, vol. 2, no. 37, 17 September 1993, pp. 1-6. Quote 

on p. 6.

40 Interview, Miller, 1 February 2006.

41 Yaro Bihun, “Former U.S. Ambassador William Miller reflects 

on his Kyiv assignment,” Ukrainian Weekly, 29 March 1998.

42 William J. Clinton, “Remarks to the 48th Session of the 

United Nations General Assembly in New York City,” 27 September 1993, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: 

William J. Clinton, 1993, vol. 2, pp. 1,612-1,618.

43 James E. Goodby, Europe Undivided: The New Logic of Peace in 

U.S.-Russian Relations, (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of 

Peace Press, 1998), pp. 65-91. Interview, Ambassador James Goodby, U.S. Ambassador for the Safe, Secure, and Dismantlement Talks 

(1993-1994), with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 March 2005.

44 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 110-118.

45 “Agreement Between the United States of America and 

Ukraine Concerning Assistance to Ukraine in the Elimination of 

Strategic Nuclear Arms, and the Prevention of the Proliferation of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Kiev, Ukraine, 25 October 1993. 

For context see, Goodby, “Testing the Utility of Nuclear Restraints 

after the Cold War,” in Europe Undivided, pp. 65-91.

46 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 110-115. Goodby, “Testing the 

Utility of Nuclear Restraints after the Cold War,” in Europe Undivided, pp. 82-86.

47 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 114-117. Gak, “Denuclearization 

and Ukraine,” Nonproliferation Review, pp. 121-125.

48 Talbott, The Russia Hand, p. 111.

49 Talbott, The Russia Hand, p. 112.

50 Talbott, The Russia Hand, p. 113.

51 See “Trilateral Agreement, January 14, 1994,” published in 

Arms Control Reporter 1994, pp. 611dST,194-198. For context and 

analysis see, Lepingwell, “The Trilateral Agreement on Nuclear

Weapons,” RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 3, no. 4 (28 January 1994), 

pp. 12-20.

52 Goodby, “Testing the Utility of Nuclear Restraints after the 

Cold War,” in Europe Undivided, pp. 86-90.

53 Lepingwell, “Trilateral Agreement,” Arms Control Reporter 

1994, pp. 611dST194-198.

54 Arms Control Reporter 1994, pp. 611dST194-197. Lepingwell, 

“Trilateral Agreement,” RFE/RL Research Report, pp. 12-20.

55 Talbott, The Russia Hand, pp.113-114.

56 John F. Harris, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, 

(New York: Random House, 2005), pp. 209-211.

57 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 3, p. 17.

58 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 3, pp. 16-19.

59 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 3, p. 18.

60 “Kravchuk submitted a Draft Resolution to RADA,” 25 January 

1994, in Arms Control Reporter, 1994, pp. 611bST1994.

61 RADA drops its conditions for ratifying START,” 3 February 

1994, in Arms Control Reporter, 1994, pp. 611bST194-198.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid. The Rada failed to ratify the NPT Treaty in February. It 

waited until November 1994, thus holding up entry into force for 

the START Treaty.

64 “Russian and Ukraine held the first round of talks on implementing the Trilateral Agreement,” pp. 8-9. February 1994, Arms 

Control Reporter, 1994, p. 611bST194-198. See also, Goodby, “Testing the Utility of Nuclear Restraints after the Cold War” in Europe 

Undivided, p. 88.

65 Arms Control Reporter, 1994, pp. 611bST211-212.

66 Interview, Colonel General Vladimir Alexeyevich Mikhtyuk, 

Commander 43rd Rocket Army, and Deputy Minister of Defense, 

Republic of Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 25 February 2002.

67 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 3, pp. 31-32.

68 Interview, Colonel Aleksandr I. Serdyuk, National Space Agency, Republic of Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Kiev, Ukraine, 7 February 2002.

69 Dunbar Lockwood, “Ukraine Begins Transfer of Strategic 

Nuclear Warheads,” Arms Control Today, April 1994, p. 20. The first 

shipment left Ukraine for Russia on March 6th, with a second shipment of March 9th. See, Mikhtyuk, V.A., “Status of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 3, pp. 31-32. Also, Interview, Serdyuk, 7 

February 2002.

70 Mikhtyuk, V.A., “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 3, p. 31.

71 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A 

New Security Strategy for America, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings 

Institution Press, 1999), p 2.

72 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 2, p. 20. Dr. Perry’s statement was recorded by General 

Mikhtyuk who participated in the briefing and tour of the SS-24 

missile complex.

73 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 2, pp. 20-21.

74 “Agreement Between the United States of America and 

Ukraine Concerning Assistance to Ukraine in the Elimination of 

Strategic Nuclear Arms, and the Prevention of the Proliferation of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Kiev, Ukraine, 25 October 1993. 

This was the basic umbrella agreement.

75 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Concerning the Provision of Material, Services, and Related Training to 

Ukraine in Connection with the Elimination of Strategic Nuclear 
132

With Courage and Persistence

Arms,” 5 December 1993. This was the first major implementing 

agreement.

76 See, “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Expert and Technical Committee 

of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Concerning the Provision 

of Assistance to Ukraine Related to the Establishment of an Export 

Control System to Prevent the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass 

Destruction from Ukraine,” 5 December 1993. “Agreement Between 

the Department of Defense of the United States of America and 

the Ukrainian State Committee on Nuclear and Radiation Safety 

Concerning the Development of a State System of Control, Accounting, and Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials to Promote 

the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons of Proliferation from Ukraine,” 

18 December 1993. “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense 

of Ukraine Concerning the Provision to Ukraine of Emergency 

Response Equipment and Related Training in Connection with the 

Removal of the Nuclear Warheads from Ukraine for Destruction in 

the Course of Elimination of Strategic Nuclear Arms,” 18 December 1993. “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 

Concerning the Provision to Ukraine of Material and Services for 

the Establishment of a Government-to- Government Communications Link,” 18 December 1993.

77 DOD News Release, Office of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Public Affairs), 21 March 1994. The new implementing 

agreement was: “Agreement Between the Department of Defense 

of the United States of America and the Ministry of Machine 

Building, Military-Industrial Complex and Conversion of Ukraine

Concerning the Conversion of Enterprises of the Military-Industrial 

Complex,” 21 March 1994.

78 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 1-7, 76-77. Mikhtyuk, 

V.A., “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 2, pp. 

21-22.

79 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, p 5.

80 Secretary Perry and General Radeskii signed the CTR implementing agreement, and the other officials signed a protocol on the 

terms of fulfillment.

81 The best single brief biography was published by the OSD 

History Office, “Secretaries of Defense William J. Perry,” at http://

osdhistory.defense.gov/SODs/perry.html accessed on 13 September 

2011.

82 William J. Perry, “Preventive Defense,” Foreign Affairs 75, no.6 

(November/December 1996). See also Carter and Perry, Preventive 

Defense. In the mid-1990, Secretary Perry used another phrase, 

“Defense by Other Means,” widely in speeches and Congressional 

testimony. See, Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means: The Politics of 

US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, (Westport: 

Praeger, 2001), pp. 1-23.

83 Biography of William J. Perry at http://osdhistory.defense.gov/

SODs/perry.html accessed on 29 December 2011.

84 Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 118-122.

85 Testimony, Ashton Carter, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

International Security Policy, U.S. Congress, House Appropriations 

Committee, 103rd Congress, 2nd session, 9 March 1994. See also, 

Ellis, Defense By Other Means, p. 122.

86 DoD Fact Sheet, Dr, Harold P. Smith, Jr., no date.

87 Harold P. Smith, Speech, “Defense By Other Means: Status of 

the Nunn-Lugar Program,” presented at 14th International Workshop on Global Security (Prague), 21-25 June 1997, published by 

Center for Strategic Research (Berlin, Germany), at www.csdr.org/

index accessed 28 December 2011.

88 Memorandum for Secretary of Defense, “Strengthening 

Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Implementation, Executive 

Summary, 3 May 1994. Department of Defense Directive Number 

5134.8, 8 June 1994, incorporating Change 1, 11 March 1996. 

Responsibility 3.17 of the new position was to “[m]anage execution 

and implementation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction assistance projects with the new independent states of the former Soviet 

Union.” The update in 1996, designated the position as Assistant to 

the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological 

Defense Programs (ATSD (NCB).

89 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for CTR (1994-1997), 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, West Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

90 DOD Fact Sheet, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army 

(Retired), no date.

91 Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 1 May 2000. See, Interview, Lajoie, 31 March 2004.

92 Ellis, Defense By Other Means, p. 122.

93 Joseph P. Harahan and Captain Robert J. Bennett, Creating the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (Washington, D.C., 2002).

94 Interview, Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, D.C., 26 May 2000.

95 Interview, Laura S.H. Holgate, Vice President for Russia and 

NIS Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 20 June 2002.

96 Interview, Dr. Harold P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs (1993-1998), with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 December 2001.

97 Interview, Lajoie, 31 March 2004.

98 Ibid.

99 Like all modern defense secretaries, Perry faced a range of 

international crises, congressional issues, and the necessity for 

departmental reforms. During his three year term (1994-1997), 

Secretary Perry sent U.S. military forces to Bosnia, Haiti, Korea, and 

the Persian Gulf. He managed the post-Cold War demobilization 

and reduction in military bases, weapon systems, and personnel. 

He led the politically sensitive NATO expansion effort and gave 

great support to NATO’s Partnership for Peace programs. Finally, 

Perry worked hard to find a solution to North Korea’s nuclear 

expansion efforts. In the context of all these issues the CTR program 

fit into Perry’s concerns about Russia and the other NIS states and 

President Clinton’s nonproliferation objectives.
133

100 Interview, Smith, 14 December 2001.

101 Interview, Colonel General (Retired) Yevgeny P. Maslin, Director, 12th Main Directorate, Russian General Staff, Russian Armed 

Forces, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Moscow, Russia, 

18 January 2005.

102 Interview, Lajoie, 31 March 2004.

103 Interview, Valery Nikolayevich Shmarov, Vice Premier of 

Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Kiev, Ukraine, 6 

June 2002.

104 Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, 20; 

Brackets added by editors.

105 Interview, Shmarov, 6 June 2002.

106 Interview, Holgate, 20 June 2002. Interview, Smith, 14 

December 2001.

107 See Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, “Reducing the Nuclear Threat 

through Joint Efforts,” in John M. Shields and William C. Potter, 

eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 151-167. Hryshchenko was the 

Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, but during the early 1990s 

he had served as the Head of the Arms Control and Disarmament 

Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

108 Interview, Shmarov, 6 June 2002.

109 Interview, William G. Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine 

(1993-1998), with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 1 February 2006.

110 Interview, Lajoie, 31 March 2004.

111 In December 1993 during the bilateral meeting on identifying Ukrainian requirements for the CTR Implementing Agreement 

on Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination, the negotiators included 

an annex, labeled “Emergency Support Annex.” This annex listed 

the types of equipment, training, and technical support that the 

Ukrainians requested and that the U.S. Defense department officials agreed to provide. See, Annex D to the “Agreement Between 

the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the 

Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Concerning the Provision of Material, Services, and Related Training to Ukraine in Connection with 

the Elimination of Strategic Nuclear Arms,” 5 December 1993.

112 DOD News Release, Office of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Public Affairs), 21 March 1994. See, “Amendment to the 

Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States 

of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Concerning the 

Provision of Material, Services, and Related Training to Ukraine 

in Connection with the Elimination of Strategic Nuclear Arms,” 5 

December 1993. This amendment was signed by William J. Perry, 

Secretary of Defense, and V. Radeskii, Ministry of Defense, 21 March 

1994.

113 The figure is contained in the agreement; see, “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America 

and the Ministry of Machine Building, Military-Industrial Complex 

and Conversion of Ukraine Concerning the Conversion of Enterprises of the Military-Industrial Complex,” 21 March 1994. For 

Ukrainian officer figures see, Memo, Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, Deputy 

Asst. Secretary of Defense and Special Coordinator for Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Assistance provided to Ukraine,” 29 March 1995. 

This memo contains a summary of the CTR support to Ukraine 

1993-1995.

114 Letter, Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense 

and Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction, Office 

of the Secretary of Defense, to Steve Rosenberry, CBS news, 21 April 

1995, with attachments.

115 DOD News Release, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), 14 December 1994.

116 Dr. William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense, “Building Industrial Partnerships in the Former Soviet Union,” Industrial College 

of the Armed Forces Conference Keynote Address, (Fort McNair, 

Washington, D.C.), 19 April 1995.

117 Memo, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Assistance to 

Ukraine,” 29 September 1994, no author or office identified.

118 USIS News Release, “Construction Bureau K.B. Yuzhnoye 

and Yuzmash and Neutralization Facility,” no date. USIA News 

Release, “Officials break ground for Ukrainian ICBM Neutralization 

Facility,” 14 November 1994. For a brief program description and 

funding see, Memo, Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, Deputy Asst. Secretary of 

Defense and Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Assistance provided to Ukraine,” 29 March 1995.

119 Interview, John Connell, Program Manager, Strategic Nuclear 

Arms Elimination, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 16 February 2001.

120 Memo, OSD, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Assistance to 

Ukraine,” 29 September 1994, no author or office identified.

121 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, 74-75.

122 Brief Resume, John C. Connell, Jr., February 2001.

123 Interview, Connell, 16 February 2001.

124 Ibid.

125 U.S. Embassy, Kiev, ACIU, Kiev Weekly Activities Reports, 19 

February, 26 February, 19 March, 26 March, 29 May 1994. These 

reports detail the administrative and logistical support that the 

officers and civilians in this small section were providing to the CTR 

Program.

126 This account of the requests and responses is from Colonel 

V.N. Blidar. He was a senior colonel in the Ukrainian Ministry of 

Defense who worked closely with Colonel General Mikhtyuk and 

Colonel Serdyuk. See Mikhtyuk, V.A., Report, “Status of the 43rd 

Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, Chapter 2, pp. 46-47.

127 Press Conference, Mr. Valery Shmarov, Minister of Defense, 

Reuters, 23 September 1994.

128 U.S. Embassy, Kiev, ACIU, Kiev Weekly Activities Report, 19 

October 1994.

129 Memo, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Assistance to 

Ukraine,” 29 September 1994, no author or office identified.

130 Ron Popeski, “West Gives Ukraine $234 Million in New 

Arms Aid,” Reuters, 11 November 1994, cited in Mark D. Skootsky, 

“An Annotated Chronology of Post-Soviet Nuclear Disarmament, 

1991-1994,” in The Nonproliferation Review, (Spring-Summer 1995).

131 Dunbar Lockwood, “Ukraine Accedes (Finally) to NPT: 

Opens Way to Start Reductions,” Arms Control Today, December 

1994.
134

With Courage and Persistence

132 Reuters, “Russia Welcomes Ukraine Backing Pact,” 16 November 1994.

133 For Minister Shmarov’s opinions see, David Storey, “Unhappy Ukraine Seeks More Direct U.S. Aid,” Reuters, 16 November 

1994. For an account of the Perry-Shmarov meeting see, Mykhtyuk, 

V.A., Report “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, Chapter 2, 

Section 4. “The Integrating Contractor,” pp. 33- 49.

134 Mykhtyuk, V.A., Report “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002”, Chapter 2, Section 4. “The Integrating Contractor,” pp. 

46-49.

135 Ibid. For a flavor of these negotiations see, Interview, Connell, 16 February 2001.

136 Mykhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002”, 

Chapter 3, pp. 8-9.

137 News Release, OSD Public Affairs, “U.S. Assists Ukraine with 

Nuclear Weapons Dismantlement,” 1 April 1995. For Secretary 

Perry’s account see, Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 5-6.

138 Perry, “Building Industrial Partnerships in the Former Soviet 

Union,” pp. 21-26.

139 News Release, OSD Public Affairs, “U.S. Assists Ukraine with 

Nuclear Weapons Dismantlement, April 1, 1995. See also, Interview, Smith, 14 December 2001.
135

CHAPTER 6

High Tide of Cooperation with Ukraine

Measuring Success

Government leaders and lawmakers in Russia, Ukraine 

and the United States watched intently as the 43rd Rocket Army 

began decommissioning and dismantling its missiles. Each 

nation had its own scale for measuring success. Throughout 

the operation, Russia measured success as the ability to 

secure and transport the 43rd Rocket Army’s nuclear warheads 

out of Ukraine to Russia. In the Trilateral Agreement of 1994, 

President Yeltsin committed his government to removing all 

of Ukraine’s strategic nuclear warheads to Russia, dismantling 

them and shipping nuclear materials to the United States 

for reprocessing. Yeltsin then declared his government 

would supply Ukraine with low-enriched uranium fuel rods 

for use in its nuclear power plants for the next five years.1

Although movement of the weapons and reprocessed fuels 

were shrouded in secrecy, both governments monitored 

operations closely. General Mikhtyuk, 43rd Rocket Army’s 

commander, reported the nuclear warheads were shipped 

via military trains within two and a half years. Shipments 

from the rocket army’s weapons depots began within weeks 

of signing the Trilateral Agreement and continued at a steady 

pace. In all, the 43rd Rocket Army shipped more than 1,326 

warheads from its nuclear storage depots: 675 warheads in 

1994, 477 in 1995 and 174 in 1996.2

 On May 31, 1996, 

the final train left Ukraine for Russia laden with the last of 

approximately 1,800 warheads, including more than 400 

weapons from the 46th Bomber Army.3

Ukraine’s government measured success by the arrival of 

trains bearing low-enriched uranium fuel rods from Russia. 

Throughout the 1990s, nuclear power was a critical source 

of electrical power for Ukraine. Trains began arriving at the 

power plants in 1995. Ukraine’s Soviet-era industrial base 

was energy intensive. The nation imported 90 percent of its 

oil and 80 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Ukraine 

paid or created debt accounts with Russian firms for these 

fuels. Nuclear power plants provided approximately 40 to 50 

percent of Ukraine’s electrical energy.4

 At no cost to Ukraine, 

Russia sent uranium fuel rods to their power plants for five 

years, 1995-1999. According to Volodymyr P. Horbulin, 

President Kuchma’s senior assistant for national security, 

“had this [nuclear fuel rod shipments] not occurred, Ukraine 

would have had serious energy problems.”5

 Every shipment 

was closely monitored.

Ukraine’s government measured success with the 

United States by the degree it followed through on its 

commitments to provide assistance in decommissioning, 

dismantlement, destruction and environmental restoration 

of the nation’s inherited strategic rocket and bomber armies, 

and infrastructure. It also measured success by American 

promises to assist Ukraine in its commitments, written into 

national legislation, to provide housing for retiring Strategic 

Rocket Forces officers and families. In perception and reality, 

Ukraine was a poor nation and the United States was wealthy 

and powerful. When American officials signed agreements 

and made commitments, all the implementation programs 

were closely monitored by Ukraine’s government, military, 

legislature, press and the public.

The United States measured success on several scales. On 

the nuclear warhead scale, the U.S. had the same measuring 
136

With Courage and Persistence

rod as Russia and Ukraine. When the Trilateral Agreement 

was signed in Moscow, President Clinton told Yeltsin and 

Kravchuk the United States would remain “deeply and 

conscientiously” involved in carrying out the agreement, 

making sure both parties’ interests were protected.6

 Senior 

administration officials, especially Vice President Al Gore 

and Secretary of Defense William Perry, monitored Russian 

and Ukrainian commitments and obligations, and they 

directly managed progress in Nunn-Lugar CTR assistance 

programs in Ukraine.7

 In the assistance programs, they 

measured success on a scale that monitored how quickly 

bilateral commitments moved from policy declarations 

to program implementation. In 1994, Perry expanded 

U.S. commitments to Ukraine in two new directions. He 

initiated a new defense conversion program to use American 

funds and private contractors to assist Ukrainian defense 

enterprises in converting from military to commercial work. 

Then, he committed the Defense Department to hiring 

an integrating contractor to manage CTR programs that 

eliminated SS-19 silos, enabling Ukraine to meet its START 

Treaty requirements.8

Congress monitored the administration’s performance 

in hearings, investigations and specific inquiries. In the 

formative years, Congressional oversight added enormous 

pressures. There were strong encouragements from Senators 

Nunn and Lugar to make new commitments faster. These 

new commitments were turned into specific programs and 

projects by Defense Department officials in OSD International 

Security, OSD Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Programs, 

the CTR Program Office and the Defense Nuclear Agency. 

Their work was measured on several scales. Congressional 

committees used a scale that evaluated the rate of obligations 

versus actual spending on projects. The assumption was that 

this measuring rod would drive defense officials to identify 

dollars against specific programs and projects. It was a budget 

method to see spending more clearly. The GAO, Congress’ 

investigative agency, used the same measurement: program 

obligations versus actual spending rates, as well as scales that 

examined specific problems, issues and outright failures. 

In their reports, Congressional investigators were critical of 

the program’s formative years, focusing on the lack of DOD 

management systems, inadequate long-range planning, lack 

of audits and examinations, and failure of the program to 

meet its obligation rates.9

 Under the law, the president had 

to certify to Congress that the foreign nations were reducing 

weapons in accordance with legislative intent. Following the 

1994 elections, Congress used this legislative requirement 

for presidential certifications as a way to pressure the Clinton 

administration.10

Foreign aid was never popular with Congress. Even with 

the powerful patronage of Senators Nunn and Lugar, the 

annual CTR appropriations bill proved difficult to maneuver 

through both houses of Congress. From the beginning, Nunn 

and Lugar worked from a different scale. They measured 

success over a longer perspective. The senators believed the 

massive nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals created by 

the Soviet Union during the Cold War had been transformed 

in the 1990s into a serious new international proliferation 

issue, one requiring long-term cooperative programs to 

reduce stockpiles and secure the weapons. Speaking at an 

international conference on CTR in 1995, Senator Nunn 

explained his perspective. “This program has, I believe, helped 

to focus the leadership of these newly emerging countries on 

the key problem of weapons of mass destruction at a time 

Coat of Arms of Ukraine Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation Great seal of the United States
137

when they have had many critical things to consider, when 

this was only one of many urgent problems.”11

Secretary Perry measured success using a similar longterm scale. He saw the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat 

Reduction program as a means to an end in which the 

United States, Russia, and other nation’s relationships could 

be transformed from tense, confrontational Cold War era 

relations, to normal state-to-state associations. Cooperative 

international programs that secured and reduced massive 

Cold War weapons arsenals, especially nuclear weapons, 

Perry insisted, had to become part of the department’s 

central mission. Accordingly, Secretary Perry’s measuring 

scale grew in size as he pushed his senior officers to make 

more commitments with the newly independent states and 

carry them out faster.12

Deactivating Ukraine’s SS-19 missile 

forces

The first major U.S.-Ukrainian projects involved SS-19 

missile forces. As early as June 1993, seven months before 

the Trilateral Agreement, General Mikhtyuk ordered the 

deactivation of two SS-19 missile regiments due to obsolete, 

inoperable parts.13 The service life of the SS-19 missile force 

was limited. In Kiev, President Kravchuk set up a ministeriallevel national security committee to examine all aspects of 

deactivating Ukraine’s strategic weapons systems. Consisting 

of senior officials and specialists from ministries of defense, 

machine industry, environment, finance, foreign affairs and 

the academy of science, this committee developed Ukraine’s 

“Comprehensive Program for the Staged Reduction 

and Elimination of the Ground- and Air-based Nuclear 

Weapons.”14 Approved in November 1993 by Ukraine’s 

Cabinet of Ministers, it stipulated that the 43rd Rocket Army’s 

SS-19 missiles, fixed silos and launch control centers would 

be the first strategic systems to be eliminated. In every 

subsequent negotiation with the United States, eliminating 

these SS-19 missiles and systems came first. Ukraine’s 

government, not the United States, set the order.

General Mikhtyuk’s 43rd Rocket Army had 13 SS-19 

regiments, each equipped with 10 SS-19 ICBM missiles 

and 10 fixed, steel-reinforced concrete silos. Code named 

“Stiletto,” the SS-19 was a liquid-fuel missile capable of 

launching six nuclear warheads, each with an explosive yield 

of 500 kilotons. Its range was 10,000 kilometers, bringing 

it into range of most targets in the United States. 15 In each 

regiment, SS-19 missiles were deployed in fixed silos widely 

dispersed across the Ukrainian countryside. Each missile silo 

was linked by buried cables to a regimental launch control 

center. The launch center was buried deep underground, 

shielded by steel and reinforced concrete blast doors and 

casements. The rocket army also had two SS-19 training 

silos used for maintenance, security, communications and 

safety training. In total, the 43rd Rocket Army had 130 SS-19 

missiles, 130 silos, 13 launch control centers and two training 

silos. General Mikhtyuk did not, indeed could not, deactivate 

all the rocket army’s SS-19 missiles at one time. The process 

of turning an operational missile complex into an inactive 

site was technically complex; requiring decommissioning, 

careful sequencing, and detailed planning of deactivation 

operations, specialized equipment, trained technicians and 

special external security measures. Decommissioning and 

deactivation, General Mikhtyuk decided, would proceed 

regiment by regiment.16

In the fall of 1993, Mikhtyuk directed the headquarters 

staff to draw up a comprehensive plan for eliminating the 

13 SS-19 missile regiments. They developed a plan that 

envisioned the staged deactivation of missiles, elimination 

of silos, inactivation of units, social protections (housing) 

for officers forced into retirement, and even proposals for 

reusing scrap materials from the rocket army’s infrastructure. 

General Mikhtyuk would control the entire process. When 

the general submitted his plan to the Ukrainian government, 

it was not adopted. Instead, Ukraine’s Council of Ministers 

endorsed the Comprehensive Program.17 Following Ukraine’s 

signature and ratification of the Trilateral Agreement in early 

1994, the Comprehensive Program became the national 

plan for deactivating and eliminating the Strategic Rocket 

Forces. Initially, they would eliminate the 130 SS-19 missiles, 

and delay the decision to eliminate 46 SS-24 missiles. Then, 

after a presidential and parliamentary decision, the bomber 

army would be eliminated, and possibly the SS-24 missiles. 

Two organizations had primary responsibilities. In the 

field, Mikhtyuk’s 43rd Rocket Army would deactivate the 

SS-19 missile regiments, sending special technical teams to 

each missile complex where they would separate warheads 

from the missiles and prepare them for shipment. Then, 

they would defuel the missiles in the silos, transporting the 

liquid rocket fuel and missile casing to division headquarters 

for temporary storage. Next, rocket army specialists would 
138

With Courage and Persistence

deactivate launch control centers, and finally General 

Mikhtyuk would decommission the regiment and all of its 

assigned personnel. Working with these procedures, the 

commander and the rocket army essentially decommissioned 

and deactivated itself.18

The second organization, the Ministry of Defense’s 

Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative Control Center, was 

responsible for dealing with the Russian Ministry of Defense 

and the 12th Main Directorate of the General Staff on the 

inventory, security and transport of nuclear warheads from 

Ukraine to Russia. Led by Lieutenant General A. Kryzko and 

Colonel A.I. Serdyuk, this center dealt exclusively with U.S. 

CTR policy and program officials. Colonel Serdyuk and his 

staff drafted all Ukraine’s national requirements, which were 

included in the bilateral U.S.-Ukraine CTR implementing 

agreements. Once American equipment began arriving and 

contracts with American companies began to be signed, 

the Kiev center officials served as lead-agency and program 

managers for Ukraine on all CTR programs and projects. 

Until the Ukrainian government changed this arrangement 

in May 1996, U.S. CTR officials worked directly with Colonel 

Serdyuk and the center’s officers.19

After January 1994 when the Trilateral Agreement was 

signed, events moved swiftly. General Mikhtyuk and his 

officers took the oath of allegiance to Ukraine. Minister of 

Defense Shmarov ordered implementation of the national 

schedule for eliminating all 130 SS-19 missiles, silos and 

launch control centers. Out in the missile fields, General 

Mikhtyuk directed headquarters and division planning staffs 

to develop a new rocket army plan “for removal of military 

guards duty from the silos, and from the unified command 

posts.”20 He wanted a comprehensive plan to control the 

deactivation process. Work would begin in late spring, 

following the thaw of ice and mud. “By our reckoning,” the 

general said, “the process of removal of the military guard 

from one silo took eight days.”21

It began when General Mikhtyuk issued three orders. 

First, he ordered removal of the liquid fuel components from 

Removal of SS-19 ICBM from silo

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
139

an SS-19 missile at a specific silo. That required a team of 

army specialists with military defueling trucks with tanks, 

pumps and hoses, maintenance vehicles, and fire protection 

units to form a truck convoy and travel out to the remote 

missile site. The second order directed detachment of the 

warhead from the missile at the silo site and transport to 

the rocket division’s nuclear storage depots. That order 

required another team of specially trained rocket army and 

industrial technicians, equipped with special equipment 

and vehicles to travel by convoy to the missile site. Strategic 

Rocket Forces’ safety technicians from the nuclear weapon’s 

manufacturing enterprises and design offices had to take part 

in warhead dismantlement operations. In this phase, special 

security teams accompanied the team to the silo site and 

then provided road security as they transported the warhead 

and components to the missile division’s nuclear weapons 

storage depots. 

The third order required that a plan of control over 

dangerous operations be implemented that involved officers 

in the regiment, division and army. A special rescue team 

was formed in each missile division. Safety and security 

were stressed throughout all operations. General Mikhtyuk 

directed that the general officer in charge establish an 

“everyday” plan, one with an assignment for every person 

taking part in the work. Before any dismantlement work 

could begin at any missile site, all units had to complete 

additional training, be certified, and plan out all issues 

involving interaction between specialists and the teams 

traveling to missile sites. A centralized work control center 

recorded all work at the missile sites. According to the 

general, “such detailed planning allowed fulfilling all of the 

work in strict regulated terms, and allowed us to guarantee 

work safety, and to exclude any accidents in the missile 

regiments, divisions, supply units and the army.”22

At the missile complex, the eight-day sequence began 

with technicians removing the warhead from the SS-19 

missile while it was in the silo. The second day, the missile’s 

liquid fuel, called heptyl, was discharged from the missile 

tanks. During the third and fourth days, the amyl fuels were 

discharged. Rocket army specialists worked inside the missile 

silo during the next two days, removing sensitive equipment 

and preparing the missile for removal. On day seven, the SSRoland Lajoie, General Vladimir Mikhtyuk and Laura Holgate 

(l.-r.)

National Archives - Still Picture Branch

National Archives - Still Picture Branch

Removal of SS-19 ICBM from silo
140

With Courage and Persistence

19 missile was removed from the silo by specialized cranes 

and placed on military transport vehicles. During the eighth 

and final day, the remainder of fuel was removed from the 

missile and the missile-transporter vehicle was driven, via 

convoy, back to the main missile base. Once these teams 

finished their work at the deactivated missile site, they would 

move on under orders, to each of the other nine missile sites 

in the regiment’s missile complex. Deactivation of a single 

regiment was labor intensive. Completing work in all 13 

regiments (130 SS-19 missiles), especially in bad weather 

conditions, took months, even years.23

General Mikhtyuk entrusted deactivation of the SS-19 

rocket forces to four deputy general officers: O. I. Bytsyuk, 

V.N. Bushuev, V.A. Filatov, V.N. Kobasa, and the missile 

division commanders, Major Generals V.V. Shvec and 

General A.A. Ilayshov. These general officers supervised the 

work of special military and technical teams carrying out 

SS-19 deactivation work in the missile fields during 1994-

1995. In those years, they deactivated eight regiments, 

defueling and removing 80 SS-19 missiles from their silos. 

In the same period, rocket army and industrial specialists 

prepared for shipment to Russia more than 70 percent of 

the army’s nuclear armaments. There were no accidents or 

security incidents. Work continued in 1996, 1997 and 1998, 

as the remaining five SS-19 missile regiments’ missiles, silos, 

and launch control centers were deactivated and the units 

decommissioned. During those years, two SS-19 training 

silos, one in Khmelnitsky and the other in Khartiv, were 

deactivated. As noted, the last warhead was shipped from 

Ukraine to Russia May 31, 1996. Slightly more than two years 

later, on June 5, 1998, the last of 130 SS-19 ICBM missiles 

was lifted from its silo, defueled and then transported to a 

temporary storage facility at division headquarters.24

U.S.-Ukraine CTR projects

Initially, General Mikhtyuk deactivated the SS-19 

regiments using the 43rd Rocket Army’s equipment. After all, 

the 43rd had been one of the largest rocket armies in the Soviet 

Union’s Strategic Rocket Forces, with five types of ICBMs, 

launchers and command centers. At full strength, the army 

had 35,000 men and several hundred, if not thousands, of 

items of equipment: trucks, cranes, missile transporters, 

missile fuel trucks, maintenance trucks, special-warhead 

security transport vehicles, testing equipment, special tools 

and other items of equipment. The 43rd Rocket Army had 

been manned and equipped to operate on continuous alert 

as a modern, sophisticated strategic rocket force. It was not 

equipped to deactivate and eliminate itself rapidly. American 

equipment, purchased and delivered with CTR funds, could 

assist General Mikhtyuk and his officers deactivating the 

SS-19 missile force, provided it arrived in the field and was 

maintained in operational order. When Ukrainian and 

American program managers met in Kiev for 10 days in late 

October 1993, they agreed on a broad array of equipment: 

railroad cranes, mobile cranes, all-terrain vehicles, cutters and 

emergency communications equipment, along with support 

services, training and maintenance, to be acquired and 

delivered to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and then to the 

43rd Rocket Army. They also agreed on the type of equipment 

needed to expand Ukraine’s emergency response capabilities 

and necessary items for developing a national system for 

nuclear material controls, accounting and physical protection. 

All these specific requirements were incorporated into the first 

CTR implementing agreement, signed December 5, 1993 in 

Kiev by Gloria Duffy and Lieutenant General A. Kryzko, Head 

of the Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative Center.25

Two months later in February 1994, General Redetskiy, 

Ukraine’s minister of defense made an emergency request 

to U.S. Ambassador Miller for new equipment to assist 

General Mikhtyuk’s 43rd Rocket Army in deactivating the 

SS-19 missiles. U.S. officials agreed they would use NunnLugar funds to purchase and deliver emergency access 

equipment, communications equipment, truck batteries, 

small cranes, power saws and other tools. They also 

requested 2,000 metric tons of gasoline, diesel and hydraulic 

fuels.26 Ukraine’s economy was in a desperate condition; tax 

revenues were so low that government ministries had little 

or no funding. In March 1994 when Secretary Perry visited 

Pervomaysk, Generals Radeskii and Mikhtyuk briefed him 

on the process of deactivating the SS-19 regiments. At that 

time, Minister Radeskii requested the U.S. purchase 60 large 

storage tanks for storing toxic liquid rocket fuels, heptyl and 

amyl. Perry agreed. Radeskii also requested the U.S. CTR 

program contract with an American firm to build an SS-19 

neutralization plant for purging the rocket’s metal skin and 

then shred the missiles for residual precious metals. Perry 

also agreed to this.27

One year later, Secretary Perry returned to Pervomaysk 

and the situation had changed. When General Mikhtyuk 
141

briefed Perry’s delegation on the rocket army’s status, he 

explained they had deactivated half the SS-19 regiments, 

and had dismantled, packaged and shipped more than 

half of the army’s nuclear warheads to Russia.28 Defense 

Minister Shmarov stated Ukraine was meeting its 

commitments under the Trilateral Agreement, yet they 

were still awaiting delivery on most of the long promised 

American-purchased dismantlement equipment. United 

States CTR program managers had problems acquiring, 

shipping and delivering requested equipment to Ukraine. 

Those few items that did arrive at Ukraine’s ports in the 

Crimea remained on the docks for weeks, months or longer. 

Even then, Colonel Serdyuk’s staff in Kiev had problems 

getting American equipment approved by customs officials 

and local tax collectors, then delivered to the defense 

ministry’s military equipment depot. Also, the American 

integrating contractor for SS-19 silo eliminations, which 

Perry and Shmarov had agreed to in November 1994, 

was still months from being selected and setting up shop. 

Everyone, especially the American CTR policy officials, was 

frustrated. Yet despite these problems, there were signs the 

U.S.-Ukrainian large-scale cooperative program was about 

to take a decisive turn. 29

By April 1995 U.S. defense officials – Ashton Carter, 

Gloria Duffy, Harold Smith, General Roland Lajoie, and 

the CTR Program Office – had reached agreement with the 

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the U.S. National Security 

Council and Congress on eight major projects for Ukraine. 

Seven of these projects would directly aid SS-19 deactivation 

and dismantlement operations.30 They were:

n CTR heavy construction equipment for SS19 missile-complex deactivation and nuclear 

warhead removal operations

n CTR logistics support for shipping, receiving, 

maintaining and repairing U.S. construction 

equipment

n CTR integrating contractor for SS-19 silo 

eliminations (130 silos) 

n Construction and equipping of an SS-19 missile 

neutralization and elimination facility (130 

missiles to be eliminated)

U.S. CTR equipment in Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
142

With Courage and Persistence

n Construction of a new SS-19 liquid propellant 

storage facility

n Planning, managing and eliminating SS-19 

missile systems infrastructure (facilities, buildings 

and cables)

n Construction of SS-19 SRF officer housing 

(prefabricated houses and apartments)

n Planning and funding DoD-MoD defense 

conversion projects

Note. Three of these projects had begun in 1994 with identification 

of construction equipment; selection of a CTR logistics support 

contractor, and selection of the American contractor for 

construction of the neutralization facility.

In defining these projects, American CTR officials 

assumed they and the Ukrainian defense officials would 

be responsible for deconstructing the entire SS-19 strategic 

missile force. Conceptually, this was a significant change 

from previous years when the United States would negotiate, 

purchase, then deliver American equipment; or the U.S. 

would commit to funding renovations on a specific building. 

Now they accepted responsibility for planning, managing 

and carrying out complete destruction of the 43rd Rocket 

Army in Ukraine. The entire effort required a systems 

engineering approach, one that stressed planning, managing, 

implementing, and accounting for all aspects of the largescale, multi-year, multi-million dollar program. It was never 

easy. Different cultures, different languages, managerial 

styles, and bureaucratic approaches would test all Americans 

and Ukrainians working on these multiple projects. 

John Connell, Chief of the Strategic Nuclear Arms 

Elimination Division at the Defense Nuclear Agency, and 

his small staff were the American program managers for 

these SS-19 missile projects. They traveled constantly 

to Ukraine for meetings, negotiations and site visits. 

Accompanied by acquisition experts, they also went 

across the United States, visiting U.S. contractors, signing 

contracts, expediting deliveries and fixing problems. Early 

in the process, Connell’s agency, the Defense Nuclear 

Agency, awarded a small contract for technical services 

to Science Applications International Corporation. This 

support group provided technical evaluators, acquisition 

experts, treaty specialists and administrative personnel to 

the CTR program’s government managers in Washington. 

They were invaluable, often traveling with program 

and project managers to sites where they supported 

implementation projects. 

Another small but important contract in the summer of 

1994 provided CTR Logistics Support (CLS). Transformation 

of the American effort in Ukraine from an equipmentprovided operation to a systems-based elimination program 

meant logistics would become central to the entire operation. 

Bob Jagger of the Hughes Technical Services Company, the 

CLS program manager moved quickly to set up and staff an 

office in Kiev, in Moscow and other capital cities. CLS workers 

would facilitate arrival of heavy construction equipment 

being shipped from the United States. Barrett Haver, a former 

INF Treaty inspector, went to Kiev in September 1994, rented 

an office and waded into the problems with arrival of the 

American equipment. In the first few months, there were far 

more problems than solutions.31 Haver worked for Connell, 

but virtually all his work in Ukraine was with Colonel Serdyuk 

and officials at the Ministry of Defense. There were dozens of 

joint meetings to work out processes for what would happen 

when American equipment arrived in Ukraine.

Jointly, they developed and coordinated with Connell 

and U.S. government policy officials, agreements for customs 

declarations at the ports, and legal waivers stating the U.S. 

government or its entities would not be subject to customs 

duties as stipulated by U.S.-Ukraine CTR umbrella agreements. 

Jointly, they also developed letters of verification for state 

and local tax officials. New inventory forms and procedures 

were created, ones accounting for the location and condition 

Barrett Haver (r.) with Ukrainian workers

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
143

of the equipment. At one of the early meetings, Defense 

Minister Shmarov told Connell they wanted American heavy 

equipment arriving at Ukraine’s ports to be transported to 

a large military equipment repair depot in Uman. Connell 

agreed. Consequently, he and Jagger decided to place a small 

CLS office in Uman. Mark Beha, a Hughes manger fluent in 

Russian, flew to Ukraine in February 1994 to set up the office. 

Located approximately 250 kilometers south of Kiev, Uman 

was a small isolated city. “That first trip to Uman,” Beha 

recalled, “I almost refused the job when I saw the facility.”32

“The job just looked almost insurmountable,” Beha 

said, ”to turn that facility, which we had been directed to 

use, into an operational logistics and maintenance facility.”33

The condition of the former Soviet military depot was 

deplorable. It was, however, characteristic of facilities across 

the region. Working in the field, U.S. project managers and 

contractors were challenged by the deteriorating conditions 

they found in military and industrial facilities in Ukraine, 

Russia and the other nations, year after year. There were other 

major difficulties for the American project manager. Uman 

was a classified Ukrainian MOD facility, which meant every 

American employee had to be escorted by military officials at 

all times from the gate to the office inside the facility. Time 

consuming and arduous, this requirement proved to be very 

difficult to carry out in practice. Nevertheless, Beha threw 

himself into the project, often working 90-100 hours a week. 

Beginning in April 1995, American heavy equipment began 

to arrive at ports in Odessa, Crimea. There were all sorts of 

equipment items, from heavy road graders, large excavators, 

road tractors, trailers, large cranes, to huge railroad cranes; 

weighing up to 225 tons. At the ports, Beha recalled, “initially 

it was a nightmare to clear customs.” Some shipments 

took weeks, others months; a few more than a year to get 

Ukrainian customs approval for American equipment to 

leave the port and be transported to the military depot in 

Uman. Once they received equipment, U.S. and Ukrainian 

officials did a joint inspection and inventory, annotating 

discrepancies, then prepared and signed a letter transferring 

custody to the defense ministry. The American contractor 

was the authorized agent of the U.S. government to sign all 

documents transferring CTR-purchased equipment to the 

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.34

Ukrainian workers at SS-19 launcher silo complex

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
144

With Courage and Persistence

Most, but not all of the American equipment arrived 

during the next two years, 1995-1996. In all, there were 

approximately 300 items of heavy equipment. To transport 

road graders, heavy cranes, trucks and other items from the 

depot to missile sites, Ukrainian defense ministry officials 

organized large truck convoys that traveled out from Uman to 

Pervomaysk, Khmelnitsky, Vinnitsa and Dnieprepetrpovsk. 

To train the 43rd Rocket Army technicians and local 

contractors on how to operate the equipment, U.S. company 

representatives traveled to Ukraine. By June 1996, when 

intensive work began in the missile fields to eliminate the SS19 silos, there were two CTR logistics support satellite offices, 

each staffed with approximately 20 locally hired Ukrainian 

maintenance specialists, located at missile division bases at 

Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky. Their job was to work with the 

43rd Rocket Army officers, American integrating contractor 

managers and local Ukrainian firms to keep American heavy 

construction equipment operational and maintained. This 

concept worked well and became the standard approach 

for all subsequent CTR projects, in not only Ukraine, but 

in Kazakhstan and Russia. Without question, Ukraine was 

the proving ground for both concepts; using a contractor 

to carry out critical logistics work, and using American 

integrating contractors to plan, organize and manage SS-19 

silo elimination projects across the nation.35

The SS-19 Integrating Contractor

In September 1995, Bechtel Corporation, a large American 

international construction and engineering firm, won a $25 

million contract to be the SS-19 integrating contractor.36

During the previous nine months, American and Ukrainian 

officials worked together to define and negotiate the scope of 

the contract. John Connell, Doug Norman, David Freeman 

and others traveled to Kiev frequently, working out the 

complex requirements with Ukrainian Defense Ministry 

officials, Colonel Alexander Serdyuk, Colonel I.M. Sosedko, 

Lieutenant Colonels A.G. Drobot and U.V. Ovcharenko. The 

comprehensive contract required the American integrating 

contractor to plan and manage elimination of 130 SS-19 

missile silos in 13 SS-19 regiments, 13 unified command 

posts and two training silos. Bechtel’s project manager 

explained the contract’s first annex, the presidential 

schedule, had been approved by Ukraine’s National Security 

and Defense Councils. Besides hiring subcontractors and 

overseeing detonation of the silos, the integrating contractor 

had to plan, schedule and organize disassembly and removal 

of the missiles, missile fuels, and command post facilities. 

Bechtel would then manage elimination of administrative 

buildings, electric supply reservoir, refrigeration plant, 

guard houses, fuel and water storage facilities, wire fences, 

connecting tunnels, underground communications lines, 

pipelines, electric boxes, antennas and communication 

systems. All 130 SS-19 silos would be detonated to a depth 

of six meters and, after lying open for 90 days to allow 

verification by satellite imagery as required by the START 

Treaty, the silo launch tubes would be filled in with rubble 

and covered with soil. Finally, the entire missile complex 

would be graded and restored to agricultural fields or forest, 

depending on its original state.37

Colonel Serdyuk and Ukrainian defense ministry 

officials insisted, and American CTR officials agreed, that the 

integrating contractor use Ukrainian firms as subcontractors 

to carry out most of the disassembly and elimination work. 

Since Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces had two rocket armies 

equipped with SS-19 missiles in its active forces, Ukraine’s 

parliament stipulated that the national government would 

not reveal sensitive equipment or classified procedures. 

As a consequence, all sensitive work on Ukraine’s SS-19s 

would be performed by subcontractors recommended by the 

Ministry of Defense’s Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative 

Control Center. These subcontractors would be paid by the 

integrating contactor.

When these requirements had been negotiated and agreed 

to, the scope of work was so sweeping that policy officials in 

both nations decided to draw up a new CTR implementing 

agreement to determine the legal foundation and specific 

obligations of each party. Colonel Serdyuk and Gloria Duffy 

signed the new agreement June 27, 1995 in Kiev.38 Three 

months later, after a vigorous competition and joint selection 

process, Bechtel won the SS-19 integrating contractor award. 

Later, General Mikhtyuk wrote that “introduction of the 

integrating contractor concept ... completely changed the 

existing mechanism and the type of Ukrainian-American 

cooperation in the sphere of nuclear disarmament.”39

J. Randall Regan, Bechtel’s CTR program manager for 

Ukraine, arrived in Kiev in early October 1995, just three weeks 

after contract award. An experienced manager of international 

projects, Regan knew he had to hire, plan, schedule and 

orchestrate the first of 60 SS-19 silo eliminations beginning in 
145

early spring 1996. He immediately began to hire ex-patriots 

and put out bids for Ukrainian subcontractors. He met 

with General Mikhtyuk, who explained in his authoritative 

manner, that he wanted Bechtel’s Ukrainian subcontractors 

to hire ex-rocket army men. Only rocket officers, the 

general explained, had experience working in SS-19 missile 

complexes, and silo work was very dangerous.40 Regan agreed 

it was dangerous work, but insisted that he had to follow 

the U.S. government’s federal acquisition regulations, which 

required full and open competition from any qualified 

firm. Dave Freeman, the senior American contracting officer 

from the Defense Nuclear Agency, insisted that Bechtel had 

to follow the complex acquisition procedures, despite the 

irrefutable fact that no Ukrainian firms were aware of these 

regulations and no one in Ukraine did business with the 

government or its ministries, competitively. Regan told the 

general: “Because of the acquisition regulations we have to 

bid this work. You give us a selected amount of eligible and 

licensed contractors, three, four, five or six, and we’ll bid the 

work.”41 General Mikhtyuk replied the winning contractor 

would hire ex-rocket forces men because, “they know what 

to do.” Into this tense developing dilemma stepped two 

American officials, John Connell and Doug Norman.

Connell was the CTR country manager for Ukraine. He 

was the senior U.S. representative on the joint U.S.-Ukrainian 

committee defining scope of work for the integrating 

contractor. He headed up the source selection committee, 

and now he was the contracting officer responsible for its 

implementation. As a senior acquisition specialist in program 

management, he became the key U.S. government official in 

Ukraine. In the fall and winter months of 1995-1996, Connell 

traveled to Ukraine frequently, always meeting with Bechtel’s 

program manager Randy Reagan, Ambassador William Miller, 

Colonel Serdyuk, and at times, General Mikhtyuk. A serious 

man, Connell prepared for each discussion meticulously, 

stressing willingness of the United States to finance the 

dismantlement program while insisting on following 

bilateral implementing agreements and federal law. For all 

bidders on the subcontracts, he insisted on fair competition. 

He demanded that the Ukrainian firms be licensed, staffed 

with experienced specialists and prepared to adhere to 

integrating contractor safety rules and accounting policies. 

Conversely, he demanded Ukrainian subcontractors be paid 

fairly and promptly. As American CTR country manager and 

arbitrator of disputes, he could quietly say “no” and hold to 

that decision decisively. As the American effort in Ukraine 

transitioned from making policy declarations and signing 

implementing agreements to carrying out actual projects in 

the field, Connell’s influence and leadership emerged.42

The other key American was Doug Norman, a U.S. 

embassy official, who was extraordinarily knowledgeable on 

technical characteristics of SS-19 and SS-24 rocket systems. 

Able to discuss detailed missile technical questions with 

General Mikhtyuk and his senior commanders in Russian, 

Norman quickly grasped the flow of the rocket army’s process 

for dissembling the missiles. In most large-scale, complex 

construction projects, the senior project manager has detailed 

knowledge, amassed from years of experience, of the weapon 

system and its peculiarities. In Ukraine, no American program 

manager had accumulated that level of technical mastery on 

Soviet-designed and equipped strategic rocket forces. Norman 

had. Connell would lead the meetings and Norman would 

serve as a technical advisor, able to explain difficult issues and 

propose solutions to Ukrainian military officers, American 

company managers, and U.S. government CTR officials. From 

1995-1999, there was no analyst who contributed more to 

facilitating CTR in Ukraine than Norman.43

The grease that reduced friction in this large-scale 

cooperative threat reduction effort was trust and mutual 

respect. Frankly, the trust that developed between Ukrainian 

defense officials, military commanders and staffs, and 

American government and integrating contractor managers 

was not based on money. Instead, it developed in hundreds of 

meetings over discussions about terms of the implementing 

agreements, details in the presidential program, explanations 

for dismantling missile complexes, reviews of projected 

schedules, and discussions of standards to be used evaluating 

the performance of individual projects. Major General 

Vladislav Nikolavich Bushaev was the chief engineer for the 

43rd Rocket Army. He planned and engineered elimination 

of all 130 SS-19 silos and 13 launch control centers. A 35-

year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, Bushaev 

was a serious, tough, military engineer who knew the rocket 

systems thoroughly. During elimination of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, he rose from colonel to major general and the rocket 

army’s deputy commander. When asked to evaluate working 

with the Americans, Major General Bushaev concluded: 

“There were many fine specialists from both countries. As 

for the Americans, especially the first team – Connell and 

Norman, they knew many of the issues extremely well; some 
146

With Courage and Persistence

I am ashamed to say, better than we did. Consequently, they 

were always easy to talk and work with.”44 Bushaev said they 

worked out technology issues in 1995, and then began silo 

eliminations in 1996.

First SS-19 silo elimination, Pervomaysk, 

January 1996

At some point in the fall 1995, Secretary Perry’s and 

Defense Minister Shmarov’s staffs determined the first SS19 silo elimination would be held in early January 1996. 

They invited Russian Defense Minister Pavel Gravchev, 

and Commander of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces 

General I.D. Sergeev, to join them for a series of trilateral 

and bilateral meetings in Kiev on January 4-5, 1996.45

Everyone accepted, and on the first day Russian, American 

and Ukrainian defense officials met in Kiev with President 

Kuchma and his senior ministers. Ukraine’s Defense 

Minister Shmarov briefed that the 43rd Rocket Army and 

Ukrainian armed forces had deactivated 130 SS-19 missile 

complexes, and had shipped more than 70 percent of the 

nuclear warheads to industrial complexes in Russia. Perry 

explained that the first phase of officer housing had been 

completed, with construction of 203 prefabricated houses 

in Pervomaysk and 135 apartments in Khmelnitsky. Then, 

Minister Shmarov announced that, as scheduled, the first 

SS-19 silo blast would take place the following day in the 

Pervomaysk missile division.46

SS-19 site 110 was quite remote; located more than an 

hour’s drive from Pervomaysk. The trip for the three defense 

ministers and senior military officials began with a short flight 

from Kiev to Uman, where they planned to board helicopters 

for a short flight to the silo site. In foul winter weather, the 

Ukrainian Air Force plane took off from Kiev with Secretary 

Perry, General Gravchev, General Sergeev, Minister Shmarov, 

U.S. Ambassador Miller, Secretary Horbulin, Ukraine’s 

National Security and Defense Council, Colonel Serdyuk, 

Chief of the Strategic Nuclear Forces Administrative Control 

Center, Ash Carter and others. As they approached the Uman 

airport, the pilot made a blind descent to the runway through 

heavy snow and fog. Landing askew, the wingtip clipped 

a snow bank throwing the defense ministers, generals, 

Russian Minister of Defense Grachev, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Shmarov and U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry (l.-r.), June 1996

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
147

ambassador, and others to the floor and under tables. The 

aircraft nearly flipped over and crashed.47 Mark Beha, CTR 

contractor watched as the plane skidded down the icy runway, 

hitting several snow banks, and sending up huge plumes 

of snow. “It scared everyone to death,” he remembered, 

“sleet and icy rain was coming down hard.”48 Quickly, they 

cancelled the helicopter and the three defense ministers and a 

few others piled into a large CLS suburban vehicle and drove 

through the ice storm to the site. There, Perry, Grachev and 

Shmarov turned a key that blew up the first SS-19 missile silo. 

The silo blast created worldwide publicity and sent powerful 

signals to the Russian and Ukrainian governments that the 

United States intended to meet its commitments.49

Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar went to Ukraine 

in April to witness the second SS-19 silo explosion. General 

Mikhtyuk gave them a detailed briefing and tour of the 

missile complex. He explained the process for deactivating 

missiles and equipment, and removing the missile complex 

from military alert status. He explained that General Bushaev 

and Randall Reagan of Bechtel had worked out a schedule 

to eliminate 60 SS-19 silos in 1996, and another 70 in 1997 

and 1998. General Mikhtyuk introduced the U.S. Senators to 

the rocket army officers and specialists carrying out the work, 

and the civilian contractors planning the blast. Then, Nunn 

and Lugar turned keys that blew up the SS-19 silo.50

Secretary Perry, Russian Defense Minister Grachev and 

Ukrainian Defense Minister Shmarov returned to same 

missile site in Ukraine in June 1996. Ash Carter had the idea 

for the two defense ministers to go back to silo 110. The SS-19 

missile and its warhead were gone, of course, but so were the 

large steel blast doors, security fences and the silo itself, which 

had been filled with ruble and covered over. The entire missile 

complex had been graded and restored as an agricultural 

field. The fields had been plowed and planted. The large party 

flew to the site without incident, and as Carter explained, they 

“walked to the spot where the lid of the missile silo had been, 

and the three defense ministers planted sunflowers, sowing 

more seeds of peace.”51 Once again, publicity was enormous 

generating support in Congress, the Ukrainian Rada and 

Russian Duma.

While this was Secretary Perry’s last visit to Ukraine, four 

trips in two years clearly signaled that the U.S.-Ukraine CTR 

program was a top priority in the U.S. Defense Department. 

Every month, Secretary Perry met with his senior CTR policy 

and program managers and reviewed the status of each 

nation’s projects and programs. He testified to Congress, spoke 

publicly at international defense forums and conferences, 

and supported the program with President Clinton and 

the National Security Council. Despite evidence of Perry’s 

support, some Ukrainians feared the American assistance 

that had been promised in the Trilateral Agreement would 

cease or dry up. The final nuclear warhead had been shipped 

to Russia the same week in June that the defense ministers 

had returned to silo 110. Consequently, Ukraine’s president, 

ministers, parliament and press would closely monitor all SS19 silo eliminations in the summer of 1996 and beyond.

SS-19 silo eliminations in 1996, 1997, 

1998

The presidential schedule called for 60 SS-19 silos to 

be eliminated in 1996, 50 in 1997, and 20 in 1998. It also 

projected that during these years, the American integrating 

contractor would plan and carry out dismantlement of two 

SS-19 training silos, one SS-18 silo and 13 SS-19 launch 

control centers. All sites would be restored within a year of 

Senators Nunn and Lugar turning keys to eliminate an SS-19 silo

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
148

With Courage and Persistence

dismantlement. Randy Reagan, Bechtel’s program manger 

planned to begin eliminating SS-19 silos in late spring 1996, 

when the ice thawed and snow removal could begin.52 He 

sent Don Milicevic, Bechtel’s SS-19 field project manager to 

Khmelnitsky, headquarters of the 19th Rocket Division. The 

division had 10 regiments of SS-19 missiles, a headquarters 

area for maintenance, security, communications, training and 

administration, and approximately 5,000 men. Milicevic was 

a Ukrainian-American construction engineer, with experience 

working on numerous international projects. Fluent in Russian, 

he moved into the 43rd Rocket Army’s hotel in Khmelnitsky, 

and began work on the SS-19 silo elimination project. The 

project, itself, had to follow the presidential schedule on where 

to begin, how to access the site, how to dismantle missile 

silos, and what to do with salvaged materials. Consequently, 

Milicevic had to work closely with Major General V.V. Schvec, 

the 19th Rocket Division Commander. From the beginning, 

the two men worked well together.53

In the missile fields, silo destruction had already begun. 

During the fall and winter months of 1995, as Bechtel was 

planning and organizing the project, and as American CTRpurchased equipment was arriving in Ukraine, John Connell 

persuaded the Defense Nuclear Agency to issue a small $1 

million silo dismantlement contract to the Uman Military 

Repair District.54 Colonel Nikolai Denysyuk, the depot 

director, explained they were responsible for carrying out 

preliminary dismantlement work at 20 SS-19 silo sites.55

That meant they prepared the sites, acquired and delivered 

dismantlement equipment, secured each site, then removed 

secret equipment, taking out the head works and supporting 

equipment. They did not destroy the missile silos. Colonel 

Denysyuk recalled the depot’s procurement officers had to 

buy equipment from “all over the former Soviet Union.”56

They traveled to Russia to purchase specialized tires, and they 

went to St. Petersburg to purchase parts for military rail cars 

and army trucks. The Uman depot also contracted for services 

with Russian military design bureaus, firms that designed the 

original SS-19 silos. Consequently, when Bechtel’s project 

managers arrived in Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky, some 

destruction work had already been completed. 

In Khmelnitsky, Bechtel’s Milicevic began by interviewing 

retiring senior rocket officers to work as superintendents at 

silo destruction sites.57 Following instructions based on 

American regulations, he interviewed three retired officers 

to work as the company’s superintendent at each site, 

selecting one who then would work with Colonel Bushaev. 

Within the rocket army, Colonel Bushaev had established 

and trained small, specialized engineering teams who 

would work in the silo areas where volatile missile fuels and 

sensitive components were located.58 Next, Milicevic and 

Regan issued bids for Ukrainian subcontractors and began 

hiring local firms. A Donetsk construction and mining firm, 

Shahspecstroy, received a contract to carry out silo blasting 

work. By late July, this Donetsk firm had approximately 

140 people working at missile sites.59 A Ukrainian civil 

engineering and construction firm, Research Innovative 

Technologies Implementation Enterprises – Stroom RITIE, 

received a contract to dismantle site buildings and structures, 

and to prepare the area for site restoration. The firm’s director 

general, Oleg Blanar explained the company had assembled 

a team of experts – engineers, former rocket officers, 

economists, accountants and ecologists, who had a good 

working knowledge of SS-19 missile systems and contracting 

procedures.60 “We won the bid,” Blanar said,” based on our 

price and technical support.”61 By late May, Bechtel’s project 

managers had contracted with 10-12 other Ukrainian firms 

and were ready to begin eliminating silo complexes in the 

missile fields. Because this project had great significance, Jim 

Reid, John Connell and the other CTR contracting officers 

and managers followed these developments closely.

The 1996 work plan, which had been coordinated 

and approved by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and Colonel 

Serdyuk’s Administrative Center, was to eliminate 40 silos 

in the Khmelnitsky missile division and 30 silos in the 

Pervomaysk missile division. Initially, all work was delayed 

due to the administrative center’s failure to execute contracts 

for environmental surveys and secure permits from local 

governments. These delays threatened to hold up silo 

elimination work for several months.62 Suddenly everything 

changed. In May 1996, President Kuchma appointed 

Colonel General Oleksander Kuzmuk as Minister of Defense. 

At the same time, the president named General Mikhtyuk to 

be a new Deputy Minister of Defense, responsible for the 

elimination of all strategic missile and bomber forces.63

In addition, Mikhtyuk was assigned responsibility for 

conversion of strategic forces infrastructure, for carrying 

out general control of all work, and for interacting with 

representatives of government ministries, central state 

organizations, and foreign governments and their entities. 

With this sweeping decree, Colonel Serdyuk’s administrative 
149

center lost its authority and General Mikhtyuk and the 43rd

Rocket Army became the focal point for implementing all 

U.S.-Ukrainian CTR plans and programs. The United States 

had no influence, or even knowledge, of this major Ukrainian 

defense reorganization.64

While American CTR program managers were 

apprehensive that the Ukrainian defense ministry reshuffle 

would delay and complicate the SS-19 project, it did not. 

Once work began in late June, silo elimination followed the 

presidential schedule and the 43rd Rocket Army’s work plan. 

In Khmelnitsky, Major General Schvec, commander of 19th

Rocket Division, met with Milicevic every day to review the 

schedule and go over issues concerning site access, work plan 

or safety.65 Ukrainian subcontractors began working at the 

initial silo sites. General Bushaev, the rocket army’s senior 

engineering officer visited each work site every day.

Dismantling and eliminating a single SS-19 missile site 

required considerable work, which began with workers 

removing the large, steel-reinforced blast door. They then 

arc welded the steel door parts into small blocks for resale 

as scrap metal. Next, workers blasted the silo equipment 

ring and removed steel from the silo. Then they prepared 

and blasted the lower equipment rooms and the 28-meter 

diameter silo launch tube to a depth of 8 meters. Following 

this silo work, workers stripped the missile complex’s large, 

concrete communications antenna off its embedded steel 

rebar and then blasted the antenna apart with explosives. 

Finally, another team of subcontractors destroyed all the 

structures, buildings and fences on-site. After a period of 90 

days, they filled in the silo hole with ruble. Materials at the 

missile site that could be salvaged were set aside, and then 

transported to the missile division headquarters for storage 

and possible resale. 

At each missile site, Bechtel employed Ukrainian 

superintendents, who worked with 43rd Rocket Army officers, 

controlling the daily schedule. Actual dismantlement work 

was carried out by Ukrainian subcontractors. The Ukrainian 

Director General of Stroom RITIE Oleg Blanar (c.) with retired missile officers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

General Vladimir I. Mikhtyuk

43rd Rocket Army

New Responsibilities
150

With Courage and Persistence

firms hired former rocket army officers familiar with the 

complex missile systems. General Mikhtyuk went to every 

site, meeting with 43rd Rocket Army personnel and the 

teams of subcontractors. The dismantlement subcontractor 

teams usually worked at a single site for 40-44 days before 

moving on to the next missile complex.66 Depending on 

the work required, teams used the American CTR heavy 

equipment – heavy road graders, dump trucks, cutters, 

large excavators, road tractors, trailers, large cranes, and all 

manner of communications gear, which had been shipped 

to Ukraine and turned over to the Ministry of Defense. 

In a complex transfer arrangement, the defense ministry 

signed the equipment over to Bechtel for the duration of 

dismantlement work. Upon completion, it reverted to the 

ministry. In the field, CTR contractor maintenance teams 

kept equipment functioning and in repair.67

The work was quite intense. In Khmelnitsky, Bechtel’s 

project manager recalled that he worked 12 hours a day, 

7 days a week for months on end.68 By late summer 1996, 

Bechtel had teams of Ukrainian subcontractors working at 

17 silo elimination sites in the 19th Missile Division, and 

another set of subcontractor teams were dismantling eight 

silo sites in the 46th Missile Division. By the end of year, 

Bechtel, the Ukrainian subcontractors, and the 43rd Rocket 

Army, had met the presidential schedule objective of 

eliminating 60 SS-19 silo sites in 1996. Although announced 

and incorporated into the schedule, few thought this would 

actually happen. It was an accomplishment. One observer 

recalled that it was “completely unenvisioned.”69

When compared to the CTR effort in Russia or any other 

nation, elimination of 60 SS-19 missile silos in Ukraine 

in 1996 was extraordinary. As work was underway in the 

missile fields, General Mikhtyuk asserted his authority. A 

powerful general officer, Mikhtyuk reorganized the rocket 

army’s headquarters and departments to concentrate on 

deactivating the missile complexes and eliminating silos.70

He instituted a new system of responsibility, controls 

and reporting. He negotiated new agreements with local 

governments. He worked directly with John Connell, 

Doug Norman and other American CTR officials. In Kiev, 

Defense Minister Kuzmuk worked with the Rada’s security 

committees to secure approval of an order clarifying access 

to Strategic Rocket Forces sites and facilities.71 Prior to this 

order, defense ministry regulations stipulated that any 

person working at a strategic missile complex had to have 

45 days of training on the missile systems. For American 

and Ukrainian contractors this requirement had been a 

major impediment.

Then, in October 1996 General Kuzmuk persuaded the 

Cabinet of Ministers to issue a decree clarifying exemptions 

from taxes and fees for contractors who were carrying out 

ICBM elimination work in Ukraine.72 Next, the Defense 

Minister tackled the issue of American construction 

equipment being held up in Ukrainian ports. General 

Kuzmuk worked directly with the Foreign Ministry and 

Customs Bureau to clarify the special arrangement under 

the U.S.-Ukrainian CTR framework agreement. Each of these 

issues – access, taxes and customs – had become major 

problems, often holding up and delaying U.S. CTR assistance 

to Ukraine. Their resolution was a significant achievement 

for the Ukrainian government, and served as a template for 

other nations receiving assistance. 

Explosion of a SS-19 missile silo

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
151

General Kuzmuk explained that, “when we removed the 

bureaucratic obstacles, I tasked Colonel General Mikhtyuk 

to work out the schedule for the state’s program on the 

disarmament of the strategic offensive arms.”73 Mikhtyuk 

and the army planning staff developed a new detailed plan 

for eliminating the nation’s strategic rocket and bomber 

forces, with U.S. assistance that would last from 1996 

through 2001, the final date for Ukraine to meet all START 

Treaty reduction requirements. After review, General 

Kuzmuk presented the plan in all its details in a three-hour 

briefing, which he gave personally, to President Kuchma 

and the members of the National Security and Defense 

Council. Kuchma approved the plan and schedule, signing 

a decree giving the defense minister executive authority.

As the elimination work unfolded, the defense minister 

followed the dismantlement program closely, receiving daily 

reports and quarterly briefings from General Mikhtyuk, meeting 

with senior American program officials, and traveling out to 

missile complexes to periodically examine the elimination 

work. At international security meetings, he met with Defense 

Secretary Perry, and his successor William Cohen. Reflecting 

on the years when he served as Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, 

1996-2001; General Kuzmuk commented, “It is not a secret 

that nuclear disarmament and elimination of strategic nuclear 

forces were not accepted positively [in Ukraine] by everyone. 

So, at that time we needed courage.”74

In 1997 the silo elimination work continued at a strong 

pace, with 50 SS-19 silos being eliminated. In 1998, the final 

20 SS-19 silos and missile complexes were eliminated. The 

CTR program funded every aspect of this work. Ukrainian 

subcontractors preformed the bulk of the work. Randy 

Regan said that by midyear 1997, Bechtel had more than 

more than 100 Ukrainian firms under contract working on 

all the various elimination projects and other programs. 

He estimated that, “98 percent of the work is being done 

by Ukrainian firms, and 98 percent of the people are 

Ukrainians.”75 The Yulia Company, based in Vinnitsa, was 

a Bechtel subcontractor working in the field eliminating 

missile complexes. Yevgeny Grigorievich Korolchuk, Yulia’s 

project manager, explained that one major contract was to 

dismantle and eliminate buildings, structures and equipment 

in the 3rd Regiment in the Khmelnitsky missile division. The 

work took 10 months. “All told,” Korolchuk said, “we had 

270-320 people working on the project, with roughly 50 

working at each site, and nearly 60 on the command post.”76

They lived in field camps provided by Bechtel. As the work 

proceeded, Yulia had work teams dismantling five silos 

simultaneously. Korolchuk recalled that Generals Mikhtyuk 

and Bushaev visited the sites frequently.

Igor Yefimovich Kravets, Yulia’s business manager, said 

it was clear that “Bechtel was our customer and we were 

the subcontractor.”77 When the work was completed, the 

company was paid monthly by Bechtel’s project manager. 

Project manager Korolchuk recalled that, “we never missed 

a single deadline for six years.”78 The company won other 

contracts, growing to 400 people by 1999-2000. Many 

workers and managers were former-SRF officers and military 

men. Korolchuk explained that “for me as project manager 

and supervisor, I learned a lot about safety measures while 

working with Bechtel. We understood what safety really 

means...we did not have a single accident. Secondly, we 

learned about efficiency, planning and quality control. 

Ukrainian Minister of Defense General Oleksander Kuzmuk

DefenseImagery.mil
152

With Courage and Persistence

Thirdly, they taught us about business.”79 In the late 1990s 

this construction firm established its reputation throughout 

Ukraine. “We became well known,” Kravets explained, 

“mainly because we had worked on a large international 

project. We did quality work and completed it on time, too, 

which helped promote our name and image.”80

As the elimination work unfolded, Bechtel’s role as 

integrating contractor emerged more forcefully. The initial 

CTR implementing agreement specified the integrating 

contractor would manage assistance and services for 

disposing of the SS-19 liquid propellants. The amount 

was quite large: 100,000 metric tons of amyl, and 3,800 

tons of heptyl.81 Since the fuels were toxic and volatile, 

they had to be stored in steel tanks. For three years, 1994-

1996, 43rd Rocket Army engineers and Russian nuclear 

specialists traveled out to each of the 130 SS-19 missile 

complexes, separated the warhead from the missile, 

lifted the SS-19 missile from the silo, and transferred the 

toxic liquid fuels into trucks on-site. Then, Rocket Army 

personnel convoyed toxic fuels and missiles to storage 

sites located at the missile division headquarters, either at 

Pervomaysk or Khmelnitskiy. The fuels were transferred 

into temporary storage tanks, while the missiles sat in their 

canisters in storage yards. Bechtel had responsibility for 

planning, organizing and transporting the fuels, missiles 

and components from these temporary storage areas to 

Ukraine’s national central storage site. 

Eliminating SS-19 toxic fuels, missiles, 

and rocket motors

In 1994-1995, the U.S. CTR program contracted 

for construction and delivery of 60 large steel tanks for 

temporary storage of the heptyl rocket fuel, and purchased 

58 intermodal tank containers for transporting the fuels over 

Ukrainian railroads to a central national storage facility.82 In 

1995, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry directed the heptyl fuel be 

sent from missile division storage areas to a central storage 

facility located in Shevchenko, a city in eastern Ukraine. John 

Connell secured agreement from Washington, and directed 

Bechtel to plan and contract for expansion of the Shevchenko 

storage facility. Once that work was completed, Bechtel 

scheduled movement by rail of more than 3,800 metric tons 

of heptyl fuel from missile division storage facilities to the 

new expanded Shevchenko facility and other governmentdesignated fuel storage depots. By July 1998 all toxic missile 

fuels had been transported and stored in the depots.83

By the time the fuel had arrived at Shevchenko, General 

Mikhtyuk had several discussions with John Connell, General 

Roland Lajoie, Jim Reid, and American CTR officials on toxic 

fuels final disposition. Ukrainian chemical specialists had 

recommended using a process of catalytic hydrogenation, 

developed by an American firm Thiokol, to convert heptyl 

to a surfactant for resale. Thiokol had developed a modular 

conversion plant which could be shipped to Ukraine. Once 

in-country the new plant, with new equipment installed, 

would convert toxic missile fuel into a surfactant product. 

In fact, the American missile fuel firm had already received a 

CTR contract to install and operate a similar plant in Russia. 

Discussing this issue, General Mikhtyuk met with Paul 

Boren, Doug Norman, and John Connell. The Americans 

offered to pay for transporting Ukrainian heptyl to Russia 

for processing or to set up facilities in Ukraine to burn the 

fuel. After consideration, Ukraine opted to sell the heptyl 

fuel to Russia. U.S. CTR managers agreed to transport it 

from Ukraine to Russia and to contract for the Shevchenko 

facility’s neutralization and dismantlement.84

Next the SS-19 missiles had to be transported. There 

were 130 SS-19 missiles stored in missile canisters, sitting 

in temporary storage areas in Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky. 

These missiles had to be moved by rail in special railcars 

across Ukraine to a new national neutralization and 

disassembly facility in Dnipropetrovs’k. Bechtel had 

responsibility for planning, scheduling, transporting and 

delivering all 130 SS-19 missiles in their canisters from the 

missile division’s temporary storage areas in Pervomaysk 

and Khmelnitsky to a new SS-19 neutralization and 

dismantlement facility in Dnipropetrovs’k. Movement 

Intermodal Tank Container

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
153

would be by rail. As preparations were getting underway, 

Ukraine’s government announced it had agreed to send 19 

SS-19 missiles to Russia as payment of oil and gas debts.85 As 

a consequence, Bechtel arranged for shipment of 111 SS-19 

missiles and canisters to the new facility. All missiles arrived 

from September 1996 through July 1998 in Dnipropetrovs’k. 

Later Bechtel managed shipment from missile divisions to 

the storage facility at Dnipropetrovs’k via rail of 133 SS-19 

aggregate instrument block units, which were the missile’s 

guidance and warhead launching sections.86

In Dnipropetrovs’k the American firm responsible for 

contracting, managing, and operating the new storage and 

dismantlement facility was Morris-Knudson of Cleveland, 

Ohio. In September 1994, this American firm, which had 

extensive experience designing and building international 

projects, won a CTR contract to plan, organize and manage 

renovations of a large, unused former missile factory in 

Dnipropetrovs’k.87 The Ukrainian government designated 

the missile factory building, and U.S. CTR program officials 

agreed the American contractor would use Ukrainian design 

and construction firms to renovate and equip the building 

and adjacent storage yard. When equipped, the new facility 

would be capable of neutralizing residual toxic fuels inside 

the SS-19 missiles, dismantling and destroying the missiles 

through shredding, separating and recovering the precious 

metals, and cutting up the missile canisters.

Following a subsequent contract competition, MorrisKnudson became the integrating contractor responsible 

for facility design, construction, equipment purchase and 

installation, testing, logistical support, and operations.88 A 

few weeks after initial contract award, Wayne H. Holcombe, 

an experienced Morrison-Knudson program manager, 

arrived in Kiev and participated in a series of meetings with 

Ukrainian defense and industrial ministry officials. He 

worked closely with Stanislav Konikov General Director of 

KBuznoy, a Ukrainian missile design firm in Dnipropetrovs’k. 

In addition, three other Ukrainian managers, S. Konukov, 

director of Yuzhnoy, an industrial design institute, V.C. 

Alekseev, director of Yuzmash, a large machine manufacturing 

plant, and Vladmir Sokol of Yuzhnoy, were instrumental in 

providing technical assistance and political support with the 

government at critical times.89

Working with Holcombe, Yuzhnoy’s engineers redesigned 

the former missile factory to accommodate moving the 

SS-19 missiles in their canisters from the rail yard into the 

factory, placing the missile into a special purging chamber, 

moving it from the chamber into a shredding area, and then 

after shredding taking the metal parts to an extraction area. 

Once the design was approved by government ministries, the 

equipment was purchased or taken from government stocks 

in the United States. Then Holcombe put out competitive 

bids, and a local construction firm, United Engineering 

Company, was subcontracted to do the work.90

Gene Hicks, Morrison-Knudson’s site project manager, 

supervised this Ukrainian construction firm and other smaller 

subcontractors.91 They gutted the former missile factory, 

repaired and sealed the walls, and cleaned the entire interior. 

They also installed new cranes, purge chambers, cutters and 

shredders, hydraulic pumps, and safety and communications 

systems. They constructed three staging areas: a large concrete 

pad for receiving missiles and canisters, another a pad for predisposition of shredded missile parts and components, and 

a third paved pad to be used as a foundation area for large 

mobile Anderson incinerators. Due to the toxicity of missile 

fuels, environmental inspections by state and local officials 

covered every aspect of the neutralization and liquidization 

process. Inspectors continuously sampled factory purging 

chambers, and the ambient air, ground water, and soil. 

During the 20-month construction project, Hicks had to 

meet the project’s cost and schedule requirements in a business 

culture that had functioned well in the Soviet command 

economy. Plus, the neutralization facility was located in the 

midst of a huge missile design and manufacturing complex 

that was still producing missile parts for space launches and 

foreign military sales. Security became a major issue. Access 

to the former missile manufacturing building by American 

Inside CTR renovated warehouse at Dnepropetrovsk, 1998

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
154

With Courage and Persistence

project managers and Ukrainian subcontracting firms 

was frequently delayed for the vaguest of security reasons. 

Frustrated, Hicks shut down the entire project one day, telling 

everyone there would be no pay for no work. Ukrainians did 

not believe this ultimatum since in the past Soviet system 

there had been frequent work stoppages, but with no loss of 

wages. Supported by CTR program managers in Washington, 

the American project manager did not relent. After two days, 

access was granted to the site for all workers.92

Next, Hicks insisted that Ukrainian firms meet U.S. 

and company standards for on-the-job safety, with all 

workers wearing hard hats, special boots and safety glasses. 

He provided the equipment. Ingrained in the American 

work culture, these safety standards were not shared by all 

Ukrainian workers. Finding some men without hard hats and 

safety glasses, Hicks fired them. “I remember when we fired 

the first person. He told me: ‘You can’t do this. Nobody fires 

anybody here. We have a job forever.” As he left the site, the 

Ukrainian told the American, “I’ll be back.” The next morning 

when he came back, Hicks told him, “You’re not hired here. 

Go home. You are not getting paid.” Plant security escorted 

him off the job. Hicks remembers that the “message went 

through all of our subcontractor organizations rapidly.”93

Expectations of safety on the job were just one of many 

issues that surfaced on this construction project. Language 

was problematic. Every document had to be translated 

into two languages. There were frequent meetings in Kiev 

and other cities, each meeting had to have translators and 

people recording decisions to document project instructions, 

schedules and issues. A simple, recurring, straightforward issue; 

for example; payments for the workers became problematic. 

Under Ukrainian banking laws, Morrison-Knudsen did not 

qualify to have a local bank account, so Hicks would send 

a detailed invoice stating each worker’s performance against 

a contract line to the corporation’s headquarters in Ohio. In 

turn, the American corporation’s finance department would 

purchase an international wire transfer in U.S. dollars and send 

the workers’ pay to a local bank in Dnipropetrovs’k. Every two 

weeks Hicks and his deputy would go to the bank and pick 

up the payroll. It took a while. As they waited, bank officials 

counted out $25-30,000 in $100 bills. Then, the American 

project managers would load sacks of dollars into their 

pickup and drive to the work site. Assembling the Ukrainian 

subcontracting firm’s managers, Hicks and his deputy would 

count out the wages for each worker. Since payday was every 

two weeks, Hicks believed paying the workers in dollars had 

CTR Elimination projects across Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
155

significant advantages. Ukraine’s currency, first the ruble and 

then the hryvnia, had been devalued through unchecked 

inflation. 94 Paying wages in American dollars produced 

results, with Ukrainian firms hiring better workers; workers 

followed construction schedules and they met American 

contractors’ safety standards. 

When asked if Ukrainian subcontracting firms paid their 

workers, Hicks replied that it was part of his job to insist 

on American standards. John Connell and Mary Ann Miles 

demanded Ukrainian workers must be paid for their services.95

When Miles visited the SS-19 neutralization and disassembly 

facility in Dnipropetrovs’k, she always asked workers directly 

if they were getting paid. By April 1996 construction work 

on the SS-19 neutralization and dismantlement facility had 

been completed. Following delays in obtaining licenses 

and permits, the new facility opened for operations on July 

26, 1996. The initial train carrying SS-19 missiles arrived at 

the new SS-19 neutralization and dismantlement facility in 

Dnipropetrovs’k in October. Over the next two and a half 

years, this facility liquidated 111 SS-19 missiles and canisters.96

The process of dismantling missiles was interesting. 

According to Miles, once the missile trains arrived in 

Dnipropetrovs’k, the SS-19 missiles in their special canisters 

were transferred by a large overhead crane from the railcars 

to a holding yard. Then, single SS-19 missiles were moved on 

rails into the building, where they were placed into a special 

chamber. Using hot water, steam and nitrogen, the missile skin 

was neutralized of its residual heptyl gases. Following testing 

for any toxic gases, technicians drilled holes in the missile 

motors in accordance with START’s elimination protocols. 

Next, they moved the purged SS-19 missile to a holding 

area outside, where it sat until treaty inspectors arrived from 

the United States to verify the missiles had been destroyed 

in accordance with the treaty. Following that inspection, 

the missiles were dismantled, the motors cut up into scrap, 

the missiles’ metal skin shredded and precious metals 

removed. All scrap and metal pieces were collected and sent 

to Ukrainian facilities for processing and resale. When sold, 

proceeds went to finance construction of new apartments for 

the strategic rocket officers. Using this dismantlement process, 

Ukrainian facility workers were able to neutralize and destroy 

five to six missiles per month.97 The final SS-19 missile was 

destroyed February 26, 1999. In 1998, Morrison-Knudson 

received another contract to renovate an adjacent building 

to neutralize and salvage 181 SS-19 missile aggregate block 

units. This work was completed by September 2000.98

SS-19 missile complexes: eliminating the 

infrastructure and restoring the land 

By design, the SS-19 was an operational weapon system 

in which the 130 fixed missile silos had been deployed 

in a widely dispersed pattern across hundreds of square 

kilometers of Ukraine countryside. Each regiment had 10 

Table. 6-1. Missile Base Infrastructure Elimination

Year Cabling Recovered

 (Kilometers)

Metal Scrap Recovered

 (Metric Tons)

 Paraffin

(Metric Tons)

1996 17,839 16,898 773

1997 17,920 16,623 497

1998 6,572 6,098 195

1999 9,193 8,513 238

2000 2,167 3,935 102

2001 2 3,306 95

Source: Report, 43rd Rocket Army, “Elimination of Strategic Offensive Weapons in Ukraine in the name of World Peace,” 2002, 

Vinnitsa, Ukraine.
156

With Courage and Persistence

SS-19 missile silos and each missile complex was linked via 

underground cables to an underground regimental launch 

control center. The regimental launch control centers were 

connected by thousands of kilometers of buried cables to all 

the other regimental launch control centers, to the missile 

division’s command posts, and to the Strategic Rocket Forces 

command centers in Moscow. These underground cables 

were dug up, recovered and salvaged for resale. Additionally, 

in the Khmelnitsky and Pervomaysk missile divisions 

there were nuclear weapons storage sites and SS-19 liquid 

propellant handling areas, designated as unified fill facilities. 

Also, located at the 43rd Rocket Army’s arsenal in Mikhaylenky 

were a number of non-deployed missiles, called training 

spares, and miscellaneous items of missile equipment that 

had never been used in the field. All these items: the cabling, 

storage sites, propellant handling, missile spares, unified fill 

facilities and other ancillary structures, were part of the SS-19 

missile system’s infrastructure.99 In the basic CTR umbrella 

agreement, U.S. officials agreed to assist Ukraine eliminating 

the missile system’s infrastructure, although the policy 

commitment was imprecise and somewhat undefined. If 

the scope of the work was undefined, then American CTR 

officials working in Ukraine found these commitments 

fell into a category that one frustrated program manager 

described as a “daily discovery.”100 As program requirements 

increased substantially, some grew contentious.

One infrastructure requirement that was not contentious 

was digging up and recovering the thousands of kilometers 

of underground cabling. These cables linked the missiles 

to regimental, division, army, and strategic rocket force 

command posts. The 43rd Rocket Army also had hundreds 

of kilometers of communications cables and wires, as well 

as power cables to each of the 130 missile complexes and 

13 missile command posts. Bechtel was responsible for 

planning, organizing and managing all work associated 

with eliminating these cables and electronic wires. The 43rd

Rocket Army compiled annual statistics on cables recovered 

and metal scrap salvaged. They illustrate the scope of 

infrastructure needed to field and operate a modern strategic 

rocket army.

Restoration of the land where missile silos and buildings 

had been located became a matter of contention between 

Restoration work in SS-19 missile silo area

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
157

the two governments. U.S. CTR program officials agreed 

to technical remediation, while Ukrainian governmental 

ministries wanted full scale agricultural-biological 

restoration. The cost differences were substantial. Among 

government ministries, the two sides developed different 

technical standards for measuring final remediation. 

These differences were expressed in a lengthy meeting in 

Kiev, and during 1996-1997 they grew to be substantial. 

Complicating negotiations was a new set of national 

environmental laws enacted by the Ukrainian Rada. These 

new laws required environmental impact assessments 

and gave environmental and agricultural ministries 

new powers to influence evolving national standards 

for remediation of former military sites. In the missile 

field restoration work was delayed for months. No work 

was done in 1996, and none in the first half of 1997. Not 

until September did the Ukrainian ministries agree to 

a new process for carrying out environmental surveys, 

testing, grading and remediation. Only after that could 

the American integrating contractor proceed to hire local 

contractors to do the work.

U.S. CTR construction equipment was used extensively 

on this project. During the fall 1997, Ukrainian 

subcontractors completed terrain restoration on 25 SS19 missile silo complexes and two SS-19 launch control 

center sites. Each silo site was an approximately twokilometer square area. During 1998, work accelerated 

considerably with terrain restored at 84 SS-19 silo sites 

and 9 launch control centers. In the final increment of 

restoration work, 20 silos and two launch control centers 

were completed in 1999. By that time there was sufficient 

trust and cooperation to establish that the methods of 

restoring the land at the SS-19 missile complexes would 

become a template for doing the same at the SS-24 missile 

sites.101

This point was not lost on anyone from either nation. 

Systems of cooperation were invented, coordinated, 

approved and implemented to eliminate the entire SS-19 

missile force. These systems could also work for the next 

major project of eliminating the SS-24 missile forces. That 

major project awaited a decision by Ukraine’s president and 

national security and defense council.

SS-24 ICBM on display

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
158

With Courage and Persistence

Eliminating Ukraine’s SS-24 missile force

The SS-24 ICBM was a cold-launched, solid-fuel 

rocket capable of delivering 10 nuclear warheads over 

intercontinental distances. The Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces 

(SRF) fielded 46 silo-based SS-24 missiles in the 43rd Rocket 

Army, starting in 1989. Potentially, each of the missile’s 10 

warheads had a yield of 550 kilotons. Their range was 10 to 

11,000 kilometers, with estimated accuracy of within 500 

meters. Known as the RS-22 or SS-24 Scalpel, this missile 

was the latest and most modern of all the SRF rockets. It 

was fielded in two versions: fixed silo-based and rail-mobile. 

Following collapse of the Soviet Union, the SS-24 missiles 

were located at missile bases in Ukraine at Pervomaysk (46) 

and in Russia at bases in Tatishchevo (10), Kostrama (12), 

Bershet (9) and Krasnoyarsk (12).102

All SS-24 missiles in Ukraine were fixed, silo-based 

missiles. The Russian bases had rail garrisons where they 

stored and maintained the missile trains. All these SS-24 

missiles came under provisions of the START I Treaty. To meet 

treaty deadlines, Ukraine’s missiles had to be eliminated by 

December 2001. However, since the SS-24 missile system had 

been designed and produced at the large Ukrainian missile 

design and manufacturing complex in Pavlograd, Ukraine’s 

leaders were reluctant to order the missiles decommissioned 

and eliminated. In January 1994 President Kravchuk signed 

the Trilateral Agreement; however the next administration, 

Leonid Kuchma’s government directed the Minister of 

Defense in 1994-1996 to keep the SS-24 missiles on alert. 

General Mikhtyuk and the 43rd Rocket Army complied, but by 

January 1997 the success of the SS-19 silo eliminations and 

the promise of additional U.S. CTR elimination assistance, 

caused the government to reconsider its policy. 

In early January 1997, a senior Ukrainian governmental 

committee from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, 

Industrial Policy and Security Services recommended that 

any further delay in the political decision to deactivate the 

SS-24 missile complexes could have serious economic, 

ecological and political consequences.103 Four months 

later, on May 10, 1997 President Kuchma and the National 

Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to 

decommission SS-24s.104 The next week, Ukraine’s president, 

defense and foreign ministers, and senior officials flew to 

Washington for a series of meetings with Vice President 

Gore, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and other senior 

cabinet secretaries. They were participating in the inaugural 

meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Commission, known as the 

Gore-Kuchma commission. Modeled after the successful 

Gore-Chernomyrdin commission with senior cabinet 

ministers of the U.S. and Russia, this new commission met 

for two days in Washington, May 15-16. In the commission’s 

joint statement, Vice President Gore declared the United 

States supported security assurances for Ukraine as stated 

in the NATO-Ukraine cooperation document. The U.S. had 

sponsored Ukraine’s participation in NATO’s Partnership 

for Peace program, it had supported and financed the 

forthcoming major NATO exercise in Lvov, and it appreciated 

Ukraine’s “robust” participation in Bosnia in NATO’s 

international peacekeeping operations.105

Three weeks before the Gore-Kuchma commission met in 

Washington, Secretary Cohen and Defense Minister Kuzmuk 

signed a document adding $47 million in CTR assistance 

to Ukraine for SS-19 silo dismantlement projects.106

Consequently in the commission’s joint statement, Vice 

President Gore publicly acknowledged President Kuchma’s 

decision to deactivate the SS-24 missile complexes, and he 

declared the U.S. would support that effort in the future. U.S. 

technical experts, Gore said, would travel to Kiev “as soon 

as possible” and begin planning with Ukrainian defense 

officials to carry out the initial SS-24 dismantlement projects.

In providing some perspective on this SS-24 commitment, 

Gore explained that the “scope and size” of the bilateral U.S.-

Ukrainian defense and military cooperation programs was 

one of the largest in Europe.107 The United States pledged 

to use its influence to support “full implementation” of 

Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma and U.S. Vice President 

Albert A. Gore in Washington D.C., May 1997

National Archives - Presidential Materials Division
159

commitments made in the Trilateral Agreement of 1994, 

including commitments for compensation to Ukraine for 

the value of nuclear materials in the weapons withdrawn 

from Ukrainian territory. The day after the meeting, Kuchma 

and Gore met with President Clinton in the oval office. They 

discussed the range of security and economic issues taken up 

by the bilateral commission of ministers, and Clinton said 

he was “quite encouraged” by the number of cooperative 

programs. Clinton had signed the Trilateral Agreement he was 

a strong advocate of the Nunn-Lugar assistance programs. In 

fact, during the meeting, Clinton and Kuchma engaged in a 

discussion of technical details on how to dispose of the solid 

rocket fuel.108

These bilateral meetings, statements and commitments 

demonstrated that the relationship between Ukraine and the 

United States had changed decisively between 1994 and 1997. 

In January 1994, Ukraine’s government had been pushed 

and pulled into the Trilateral Agreement by a combination 

of a ruinous economy, strong-arm diplomacy, promises of 

American assistance, and Russian commitments of nuclear 

fuel rods. Promises and commitments among nations were 

always subject to change, indeed many were never fulfilled. By 

May 1997, Ukraine’s economy was still weak, but major new 

assistance programs for eliminating strategic nuclear weapons 

had been developed, implemented, and were working. Russia 

was supplying Ukraine, as promised, the nuclear fuel rods for 

its electricity production. Ukraine, for its part, had withdrawn 

all its nuclear warheads, safely and securely, to Russia. 

Unanticipated, but welcome, was Ukraine’s participation 

in NATO – in its training and peacekeeping programs, and 

in joining its international peacekeeping forces in wartorn Bosnia. Instead of dealing exclusively with post-Soviet 

issues like inherited nuclear forces, collapse of its militaryindustrial complex, and the Black Sea Fleet, now the nation 

had engaged with the United States, European nations and 

NATO on a range of security, economic, and diplomatic issues 

and programs. For Ukraine, a reorientation was underway. 

Foreign security assistance programs, like cooperative threat 

reduction, were influencing Ukraine’s government and public 

as they sought a place in the region, Europe, and the world.

SS-24 silo parts

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
160

With Courage and Persistence

Five weeks after the Washington meeting, President 

Kuchma signed a decree on July 5,1997 assigning the defense 

and industrial policy ministries primary responsibility for 

planning, preparing and eliminating the SS-24 missile 

complexes.109 From the beginning, Ukrainian and American 

defense officials acknowledged that dismantling and 

eliminating the SS-24s would be considerably different from 

the SS-19s. The two missile systems had major differences. 

First, the SS-24 was a solid-fuel rocket that had to be moved 

in a special canister inside a large missile transporter vehicle. 

The vehicle containing the missile was extremely heavy, 

weighing approximately 105 tons. Since their deployment 

in the late 1980s, these missiles had never been lifted out of 

their concrete silos. All maintenance on the missile had been 

performed in the silo. Consequently, Generals Mikhtyuk and 

Bushaev insisted the 43rd Rocket Army’s heavy lifting cranes 

would need to be inspected, and possibly repaired. At the SS24 missile complex, the concrete foundation surrounding the 

silos would have to be inspected, and if weather damaged, 

repaired to handle the heavy cranes. Also, roads to and from 

the silos and the missile base would have to be inspected and 

repaired, with numerous bridges and culverts reinforced. 

Since there was no existing facility in Ukraine to 

disassemble and destroy the SS-24s, General Mikhtyuk 

indicated that new temporary missile storage facilities would 

have to be constructed at the missile division’s headquarters. 

Last but hardly least, Mikhtyuk said two new facilities in 

Pavlograd would have to be constructed and equipped: a 

new SS-24 disassembly and storage facility and a new SS-24 

solid-propellant disposition facility. Complicating the entire 

complex program was the fact that Russia’s Strategic Rocket 

Forces retained SS-24 missiles in its inventory. By international 

agreement between Ukraine and Russia, the missile system 

and its technologies and operating processes were classified. 

ICBM and Silo Elimination process

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
161

No Americans could work directly on classified systems or 

technical equipment. Therefore, planning and defining all 

work to eliminate the SS-24 missiles, silos, and infrastructure 

required months of negotiations and discussions in Ukraine 

and the United States to flesh out specific requirements, 

equipment and projected scope of work for the American 

integrating contract.110

From July through December 1997, General Mikhtyuk 

and ministry officials hammered out issues with U.S. CTR 

officials, especially Jim Reid, John Connell, Doug Norman, 

Roland Lajoie and Harold Smith. They focused on what 

would be the scope of work in eliminating the SS-24 missile 

complexes, what the U.S. CTR program would support, and 

what would be the role of Ukrainian subcontractors. In dozens 

of intense meetings from Kiev to Pavlograd, the two sides 

worked out virtually all requirements for decommissioning, 

dismantling, transporting and eliminating the SS-24 missile 

system. By December 1997, the United States had committed 

to financing and carrying out four major SS-24 projects.111

In the SS-24 silo elimination program the first contract 

went to Bechtel Corporation in September 1997. Like 

the earlier SS-19 silo elimination contract, this one 

designated Bechtel as the integrating contractor. That 

meant it had responsibility for the project’s planning and 

management, its systems engineering, infrastructure repair 

and maintenance, decommissioning support to the 43rd

Rocket Army, managing the environmental review process, 

silo and site dismantlement, site restoration, equipment 

maintenance and repair, railroad rolling stock repair and 

maintenance, and training.112 American equipment, the 

bulldozers, cranes, graders, plasma cutters and dump 

trucks, used in dismantling and restoration of the SS-19 

missile complexes would be transferred to the SS-24 silo 

elimination program. Planning began in the fall and winter 

of 1997-1998. In June 1998, Bechtel was awarded the main 

contract for SS-24 silo eliminations. Since the 46 missiles 

were located in five regiments assigned to the 46th Rocket 

Division, with its headquarters in Pervomaysk, Bechtel’s 

project managers established their offices in a series of 

trailers not far from the base.

Major General Oleksander Iliashov commanded the 46th

Rocket Division, which once had 5,500 men. Although by 

1997 the rocket division was much reduced, General Iliashov 

directed his planning staff to organize and carry out the work 

of decommissioning the SS-24 missile complexes. General 

Mikhtyuk directed that the work begin in July 1998. It did, 

and over the next three years, 1998-2001, all 46 SS-24 missiles 

were decommissioned and removed from missile complexes 

by 43rd Army technicians and Ukrainian contractors. General 

Bushaev and his engineering teams worked at every missile 

extraction. The rocket army used its own equipment to lift 

the missiles in their canisters out of the silos. Missiles and 

canisters were then placed on large military trucks, called 

missile transporters, and driven in military convoys to new 

temporary storage facilities, built with CTR funding, at 

Pervomaysk and Mikhailyenki. 

Since the SS-24 missiles and canisters were extremely 

heavy, each weighing more than 105 tons, the roads leading 

from the silos to the missile base had to be inspected and 

repaired, with numerous bridges and culverts reinforced. 

Table 6-2. Major SS-24 Elimination and Disposal Projects

SS-24 Silo Elimination - Provide integrating contractor, equipment and services to assist in removing and transporting 

missiles, and to dismantle and restore 46 silos and five launch control centers, and the infrastructure.

SS-24 Temporary Missile Storage - Provide integrating contractor, equipment, and services for constructing storage 

facilities at Mikhailyenki and Pervomaysk.

SS-24 Disassembly and Storage Facility – Provide integrating contractor to prepare a facility in Pavlograd, develop 

procedures, and carry out disassembly and storage of the SS-24 missiles.

SS-24 Solid Propellant Disposal – Provide integrating contractor to design, manage and operate facilities, equipment, 

services to remove and dispose of propellants from 55 first stages, 54 second stages, and 54 third stages.

Source: “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002. See chapter 3, page 21-24.
162

With Courage and Persistence

Some of the missile sites were quite remote, more than 75 

kilometers from the missile base. Special permits for the 

missile convoys traversing the roads had to be obtained from 

local provinces. Rocket army personnel moved the missiles 

in military road conveys from the missile complexes to new 

storage garages. Bechtel, using its subcontractors, assisted 

with road inspections, repairs and permits. Working with 

General Iliashov and his military division’s planners, Gene 

Hicks, Bechtel’s project manager, planned, scheduled and 

carried out elimination of the SS-24 silos over the summer 

of 1998, in accordance with START I. Using Ukrainian 

subcontractors extensively, the first SS-24 missile complex 

was eliminated in September 1998. 113

During the next three years, Bechtel project managers 

worked closely with General Iliashov and the 43rd Rocket 

Army as all 46 SS-24 missile silos and five launch control 

centers were dismantled, destroyed, made available for treaty 

inspectors. The land was then restored through remediation.114

During that time civil engineers and local construction firms 

repaired roads, rebuilt bridges and culverts, and railroad 

track beds. By December 2002 all missile complexes had 

been remediated. New temporary storage garages for missile 

and rocket motors were built at the 46th Missile Division’s 

base in Pervomaysk and at the 43rd Rocket Army’s arsenal at 

Mikhailyenki. In September 1997, Morrison-Knudson was 

selected as the integrating contractor for construction of new 

storage garages, responsible for project management, systems 

engineering, planning, environmental review, subcontractor 

training, equipment and maintenance.115

Ukrainian subcontractors -- Yulia Company, StroomRITIE Company, United Engineering Company, and others, 

did the actual work building storage garages, building and 

grading approach roads and preparing the surrounding 

site areas. They built storage garages for four SS-24 missiles 

at Pervomaysk by June 1998, and garages for 16 SS-24s at 

Mikhailyenki Arsenal by December 1998.116 MorrisonKnudson received a subsequent competitive-bid contract 

to build additional garages to store 16 SS-24 missiles at the 

same arsenal. That project was completed in July 2000, again 

using local contractors.117 Virtually every aspect of these 

SS-24 projects, the silo eliminations, road and rail repairs, 

temporary storage facilities and site remediation worked 

well. Project costs, schedules, performance, coordination, 

cooperation, and delivery met or exceeded projections. In 

the U.S., retired Brigadier General Thomas E. Kuenning Jr., 

new director of the CTR program, characterized the SS-24 

program in Ukraine as CTR’s “model project.”118

General Iliashov agreed. He thought the work was done 

professionally, and that the U.S. government’s commitment 

to build housing for the displaced strategic rocket officers 

had a long-lasting positive influence.119 Like Major General 

Bushaev, General Iliashov had high standards as a career 

rocket army officer, but he singled out the U.S. program 

managers for their respect, compassion and willingness to 

solve problems such as housing and heating, that influenced 

the lives of rocket officers and their families after the 

missiles were gone. Gene Hicks, Bechtel’s project manager 

working with Ukrainian subcontractors in the missile fields, 

saw the lasting influence of American business methods 

and practices. Bechtel had more than 200 subcontracting 

firms working on multiple projects.120 These subcontractors 

needed special skills and licenses for the sensitive work 

involved, and they had to meet criteria consistent with U.S. 

Elimination work of SS-24 silo in Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
163

law and the program’s umbrella agreements. Stroom, one 

of the largest Ukrainian firms, had 60 separate contracts 

with Bechtel and Morrison-Knudsen.121

Hicks estimated that on any one day there were 250-

300 men dismantling the SS-24 missile complexes and 

another 400-500 repairing roads and railroads across the 

country. During the summer, that number increased by 

another 200-300 people.122 Consequently, the American 

project manager indicated that during peak construction 

months the workforce was between 850 and 1,100 men. 

Wayne Holcombe, Morrison-Knudsen’s program manager, 

estimated the number of workers building the storage 

garages was approximately 500 men. On other contracts, 

workers from local firms dug up more than 1,000 kilometers 

of buried cables and bundled everything for resale. During 

1999 approximately, 8,500 metric tons of steel were 

separated, bundled and reprocessed for resale. In the SS-24 

project’s four years, Ukrainian subcontractors repaired 450 

kilometers of roads, 71 bridges, 1,173 kilometers of railroad 

lines and 99 rail switches.123

“Our subcontractors,” Hicks said, “learned to do business 

the western way – safety, quality and schedule.”124 Oleg 

Blanar, Stroom’ s director, agreed: “I think it was a wonderful 

business school for us ... Our views regarding safety, personnel 

safety and environmental protection changed dramatically 

as a result of our work with the U.S. companies.”125 Stroom 

grew from 50 to 60 workers on its first SS-19 contract, to 

more than 400 during the SS-24 silo elimination, road 

and rail repairs, and storage garage construction work. 

When the work was completed in 2002, Bechtel, MorrisonKnudsen, and the Ukrainian subcontracting firms had 

amassed more that two million accident free man-hours. 

Holcombe, Morrison-Knudsen’s program manager had three 

major construction projects underway simultaneously in 

Pervomaysk, Mikhailyenki and Pavlograd. He credited three 

parties for completing the job quickly and safely: Ukrainian 

firms like Stroom, for their construction skills, hard work and 

ability to meet schedules and deadlines; General Mikhtyuk 

who acted decisively in resolving bureaucratic delays and 

local issues; and the American CTR program and project 

managers for their flexibility and responsiveness.126

To some people this judgment might appear biased, 

however Holcombe had years of experience working on 

other large-scale international projects for the American 

government. He credited CTR managers, John Connell, Mary 

Ann Miles, and contract specialists, Ed Archer and Herbert 

Thompson, for their detailed knowledge of each program 

and their flexibility. Most significantly, he also credited 

their responsiveness to requests for changes, glitches, and 

intractable problems that arise in every large project. Project 

managers traveled from Washington to Ukraine once every 

four to five weeks, checking on every project and contract, 

meeting with the Ukrainian counterparts and remaining in 

country for 7-10 days.127 In Washington they were in constant 

contact with American contractors in the field.

To cite just one example of many, Holcombe recalled that 

the initial contract for constructing SS-24 storage garages 

at the Mikhailyenki Arsenal stipulated they would be built 

in accordance to a pre-existing design. When he went to 

the arsenal to discuss a tentative construction schedule, 

he learned there were no designs at all. Contacting Miles, 

the project manager in Washington, Holcombe got verbal 

approval to include in the contract an immediate provision 

for designing the storage garages. It was Christmas Eve.128

Gene Hicks, Bechtel’s’ hard-bitten, ex-pipefitter, and now 

the SS-24 silo project manager, agreed with Holcomb’s 

assessment, saying he had never experienced such flexibility 

in a government-managed project. Hicks thought eliminating 

all the 43rd Rocket Army’s missile systems through U.S.-

Ukrainian cooperation was significant for two other reasons. 

First, it demonstrated it was possible to safely eliminate 

all “the weapons of mass destruction from a country.” But 

equally important to Hicks was the “assistance and training 

provided through that program to the Ukrainian people. Not 

the bureaucrats, but the everyday man and woman on the 

streets.”129

SS-24 disassembly and new storage 

facility in Pavlograd

During 1998, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense informed 

the U.S. CTR program managers that the new SS-24 

Disassembly Facility would be built in Pavolgrad. Located 

in eastern Ukraine, this formerly secret city was home 

to the nation’s largest missile design and production 

complex. The SS-24 missiles had been manufactured in the 

Pavlograd missile factories. Morrison-Knudson won the 

initial contract in September 1997, as well as a subsequent 

one in 1999, to renovate and equip an unused factory for 

disassembling the solid rockets. The Ministries of Defense 
164

With Courage and Persistence

and Industrial Policy identified the Pavolgrad Chemical 

Plant and the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant as the industrial 

enterprises that would work with the American contractor 

in developing the disassembly procedures.130 Essentially, 

the missiles would be separated into three sections of rocket 

motors, and then stored in a secure and environmentally 

safe area. The actual facility work was straightforward, 

renovating an existing factory building structurally, adding 

fire suppressions systems, sensors, alarms, and other safety 

equipment. Morrison-Knudsen contracted with local firms 

to carry out the renovations, install the new equipment and 

provide maintenance and infrastructure support.131

The main subcontract on the SS-24 disassembly project 

went to the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant directed by Alexander 

Romanov. The plant had manufactured SS-24 rocket motors, 

mixing and curing the highly explosive solid rocket fuel. It was 

highly technical, dangerous, secretive work. Romanov was the 

powerful director general of the huge missile manufacturing 

plant; he refused to allow any Americans to observe the SS-24 

missile disassembly process at any stage, citing the UkrainianRussian treaty agreement on restricting rocket technologies. 

Romanov’s decision left the U.S. government’s integrating 

contractor up in the air; it was paying for the SS-24 missile 

disassembly but not seeing any of the work. Under the CTR 

Umbrella Agreement, the United States had the right to 

conduct audits and examinations of any project performed 

within the nation. The contactor, Morrison-Knudsen had 

to honor that U.S. government commitment and it wanted 

to monitor the disassembly process for safety and liability 

concerns. After considerable discussion and delay, Wayne 

Holcombe, John Connell, and Alexander Romanov crafted 

an agreement, which was subsequently endorsed by senior 

officials in the U.S. and Ukraine. Morrison-Knudsen would 

subcontract with another Ukrainian firm in Pavlograd, the 

KBuznoy missile design institute, to examine the entire 

disassembly process and recommend specific points where 

the line could be stopped, secret materials covered, and the 

American contractor’s representatives could enter the plant 

and observe if the work had been accomplished. In 1998, 

this agreement was signed by the directors of Yuzmash and 

Yuzhnoy, and the project manager for Morrison-Knudsen.132

The SS-24 program in Pavlograd was carried out in five 

separate CTR projects. First, the new SS-24 disassembly 

facility, described above, had been constructed inside 

the factory complex of the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant. 

Morrison-Knudsen, the integrating contractor for that project, 

received three separate contracts to manage the process of 

disassembling 531⁄2 SS-24 missiles. These missiles included 

the 46 SS-24s that had been deployed in the field, then 

stored in the new temporary garages at the missile divisions 

and the repair armory, and finally shipped across country by 

rail to the new disassembly facility in Pavlograd. Included 

in the new facility were seven and a half missiles located in 

the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant; missiles that had never been 

sent to the field. Ukrainian subcontractors disassembled the 

first SS-24 missiles in 1998, and completed the final missile 

disassembly in 2002.133

All rocket motor stages were sent to the new disassembly 

and storage facility in Pavlograd. The next project, 

elimination of SS-24 missile components accountable 

under the START Treaty, required the integrating contractor 

to work with Pavlograd Mechanical Plant officials in 

designing a process to separate the items, transport them 

SS-24 disassembly facility, Pavlograd, Ukraine

SS-24 ICBM stages in CTR storage facility, Pavlograd, Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency Defense Threat Reduction Agency
165

to a separate building, then prepare that building for treaty 

inspectors who would be conducting their examination. 

Following examination by U.S. START Treaty inspectors, 

the SS-24 components were destroyed, with any valuable 

parts or metals salvaged for resale. This project involved 

renovating another factory building at the Pavlograd 

Mechanical Plant complex, the Component Elimination 

Facility. The integrating contractor, again MorrisonKnudsen, carried out the work through other contracts 

with a series of local Ukrainian firms.134

A third project involved renovating a Pavlograd Chemical 

Plant facility for receipt of the separated rocket motor 

cases, inspection and testing for safety. This project had 

numerous delays and interruptions. Morrison-Knudsen was 

awarded this contract, as well as a subsequent one, to design 

and renovate a large, environmentally controlled storage 

building to warehouse the SS-24 loaded motor cases. The 

rocket motors were sensitive to moisture, water and electrical 

sparks. Later, in June 1999 when there were major delays 

in planning and equipping the solid propellant disposal 

facility in Pavlograd, the contract was expanded to include 

construction of four new storage buildings to warehouse 

all the SS-24 rocket motor stages. Using a Ukrainian firm 

who manufactured prefabricated, fire retardant, aluminum 

buildings, Morrison-Knudsen purchased the prefabricated 

materials and contracted with local Ukrainian construction 

firms to erect four new storage buildings within the Pavlograd 

Chemical Plant complex. Following completion in 2001, 

163 motor stages were warehoused in these new storage 

buildings. The U.S. anticipated the CTR program would 

fund the integrating contractor to operate and maintain 

these storage facilities until the SS-24 rocket motors could be 

eliminated in the new SS-24 Propellant Disposal Facility.135

Without a doubt, the most difficult project was designing, 

building, and initially operating the SS-24 Solid Propellant 

Disposal Facility in Pavlograd. From the first negotiations, 

Ukrainian and American policy and technical officials could 

not agree on the process for disposing of solid rocket fuels. 

Feasibility studies in 1996 and 1999 by the Ukrainian design 

bureau, Yuzhnoy, recommended using a high-pressure 

water washout process to remove the propellant from SS24 rocket motors, and then an industrial process to convert 

the separated materials into explosive materials for resale to 

the commercial mining industry. The amount of propellant 

in each missile was substantial, approximately 100 metric 

tons in the three rocket motor states. U.S. experts disagreed 

with Ukrainian feasibility studies, questioning the design 

bureau’s recommended process technically and raising safety 

concerns. By this point, there were dozens of CTR-funded 

projects throughout Ukraine.

This one emerged in 1999-2000 as one of the most 

difficult. Numerous senior meetings between American 

and Ukrainian officials did not resolve the contentious 

issues. American CTR program managers in Washington 

consequently declared that the SS-24 propellant disposal 

facility was a high-risk program, and they adopted a threephased approach. Phase I would be design of the facility, 

securing permits and licenses, testing the blasting agents to 

be used in the water-washout process, establishing safety 

margins, and testing the technical parameters of separating 

the four types of propellants used in the SS-24 rocket 

motors. Phase I also included constructing equipping and 

operating the pilot plant. In June 2000, Morrison-Knudsen, 

now Washington Group International, and the Thiokol 

Corporation were awarded sole-source contracts to carry 

out Phase I: constructing and operating a pilot plant for the 

SS-24 propellant disposal facility. From the beginning, the 

project was plagued by difficulties.136

Local provincial officials held up work permits. The 

directors of the Pavlograd Chemical Plant and Machinery 

Plant, who were the new pilot plant’s principal Ukrainian 

subcontractors, demanded exorbitant wage rates for their 

skilled workers. In addition, there were delays in installing 

equipment and delays in getting access to the pilot plant. 

Once operations started, there were frequent work stoppages. 

Delays and stoppages eroded trust and cooperation; 

Schedules slipped. In February 2001, General Kuenning 

issued a stop work order, halting construction at the pilot 

plant. Two months later, the Ukrainian government changed 

its oversight of the chemical plant, placing the pilot plant 

under direction of the National Space Agency. Work resumed 

in May, only to be stopped again in November due to a 

series of unexplained delays and continuing problems.137 By 

January 2002, construction of the pilot plant project was 14 

SS-24 propellant disposal

High risk program
166

With Courage and Persistence

months behind schedule. Six months later, in June 2002 an 

explosion in the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant injured four 

workers and sent glass fragments flying across the plant floor. 

The blast shattered windows up to five kilometers away.138

Shut down for several months during the investigation, the 

pilot plant resumed operations and was working on a much 

delayed schedule by December 2002.

Then in the following spring, DOD policy officials 

conducted a major reexamination in of the entire CTR 

program. This review determined the Ukrainian SS-24 

pilot plant was too risky and projected costs were too 

high to continue funding. A third point declared that 

since all SS-24 missile stages were housed in safe, secure 

storage facilities, the U.S. government did not see the 

separated rocket motors as a threat to nuclear proliferation. 

Consequently, the U.S. suspended funding for the SS-24 

propellant disposal facility project and shifted the projected 

funds to other CTR projects.139 Defense Department policy 

officials recommended the Ukrainian government consider 

destroying the loaded rocket motor stages through a process 

of open burning at a cost of approximately $6 million, 

versus $100 million for construction, equipping, testing 

and operation of a new fuel conversion plant. In Kiev, 

President Kuchma’s government objected strongly, declaring 

they had agreed to separate the missiles based on the U.S. 

commitment to build and operate the conversion plant. The 

U.S. did not agree and the matter remained unresolved.140

Elimination of non-deployed SS-19s, SS17s, and the launch control centers

When Ukraine became a nation in 1991, it inherited one 

of the Soviet Union’s foremost ICBM design and production 

complexes. By the mid-1990s, this large complex located 

in Pavlograd included the Pivdenne Design Bureau 

(formerly Yuzhnoy), which had designed the SS-24 and 

SS-18 missiles and systems, and the Pivdenmash Machine 

Building (formerly Yuzhmash), which manufactured a 

series of Soviet ICBMs, including the SS-19s, SS-24s and 

SS-18s. Located in the same complex were the Pavlograd 

Chemical Plant, Pavlograd Mechanical Plant and the 

Khartron Production Association, which produced the 

guidance systems. Thousands of workers, many of them 

skilled engineers and designers worked in the design 

and production complex. Since there were no orders for 

the strategic rockets, rocket motors or guidance systems, 

senior managers of these huge enterprises turned their 

energies to designing and marketing a variety of missiles 

to be used in space launches for the commercial satellite 

industry. President Kuchma created the National Space 

Agency specifically to encourage and coordinate this 

national industrial capability internationally. Throughout 

the 1990s, the Ukrainian government tried to sell nondeployed strategic missiles, but with limited success.

It was in this context that the Ukrainian government 

asked the United States for assistance in 1997 to eliminate 

a small number of non-deployed SS-19 missiles and other 

ICBMs that had been manufactured, but never sent to 

the Strategic Rocket Forces. The work would be done in 

Pavlograd in the SS-19 neutralization and disassembly 

facility. In Washington, the CTR Policy Office recommended 

that Congress approve the request based on the principle 

that eliminating the missiles would reduce the potential for 

proliferation of ICBM missile technologies. Congress agreed, 

and in September 1998 Morrison-Knudsen received a 

contract to eliminate up to 15 SS-19 non-deployed missiles, 

one SS-18 non-deployed missile, 15 SS-17s, seven SS-11s, 

and two launch control centers used for training. Ukraine’s 

Ministry of Defense managed the actual elimination work, 

using local firms while the American contractor-provided 

equipment, logistics, maintenance, training and safety 

planning. The work took approximately two years, starting 

in November 1998 and concluding in November 2000.141

18 months later the Ukrainian government requested 

American CTR assistance again, this time to eliminate an 

ICBM missile stages slated for elimination, Pavlograd, Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
167

additional 31 SS-19 non-deployed missiles. These SS-19s had 

been stored in a Pavlograd missile plant while the government 

tried to sell them to civilian corporations or an international 

consortium as space launch vehicles. Unsuccessful, they 

decided to eliminate the missiles, with U.S. assistance. 

Following the same decision and authorization process, the 

Defense Department awarded a small contract in May 2002 

to Washington Group International, an investment group 

that had purchased the Morrison-Knudsen Corporation. The 

actual work on eliminating the SS-19 missiles was organized 

and supervised by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.142

Upon a request from the government, the work was delayed. 

Then suddenly in October 2003, President Putin announced 

that Russia had purchased 30 SS-19 missiles from Ukraine.143

U.S. officials were caught unaware. In his announcement, 

Putin said, in fact, the missiles were already in Russia, with 

the last shipment arriving in March 2003. According to the 

Russian president, Russia had purchased the 30 SS-19s for 

approximately $50 million in cash or debt relief. The Russian 

Deputy Chief of Staff for the Strategic Rocket Forces said the 

SS-19 missiles would be functional through 2030.144

Eliminating 43rd Rocket Army’s Nuclear 

Weapons Storage areas 

In June 1995 Gloria Duffy, U.S. Department of Defense, 

and General Kuzmuk, Ukrainian Minister of Defense, 

signed a $10 million implementing agreement to eliminate 

infrastructure related to the strategic nuclear systems. 145 In 

Kiev, the defense ministry nominated specific projects such 

as elimination of intercontinental ballistic missiles facilities, 

or destruction and restoration of obsolete nuclear storage 

areas, and any items that had been used to directly support 

the operation of nuclear weapons. A year later, in June 1996, 

Secretary William Perry signed an amendment authorizing 

up to $23.4 million for these projects.146 By that time several 

projects had been nominated by Ministry of Defense officials 

and evaluated by the Defense Department’s CTR program 

office. John Booker, CTR program manager and Major 

General V.N Bushaev, Ministry of Defense, and a small team, 

traveled to each site and determined the scope of work. In 

1997, Bechtel won a competitive contract to be the integrating 

contractor for eliminating nuclear weapons storage areas 

at the missile division headquarters in Pervomaysk and 

Khmelnitsky. The contract included deactivation of a 

radioactive waste pit at Makariv. Bechtel’s program manager, 

Kamran Alsani, contracted with scientists and engineers at the 

Central Design Institute in Kiev to perform pre-elimination 

baseline environmental and radiological surveys. They 

had conducted similar scientific surveys following SS19 missile site eliminations and restoration. Scientists at 

the Kiev institute developed the methods for dismantling 

equipment and they ensured the work plan met Ukrainian 

environmental and safety standards.147

When the actual work began in late 1997, two officials, 

one from each nation provided managerial oversight. Booker, 

the U.S. government’s CTR contract officer, worked closely 

with Colonel Igor Mityayev, the 43rd Rocket Army’s program 

representative.148 They traveled to each site, examined 

the processes for decontaminating and disassembling 

equipment, dismantling buildings, sealing bunkers, and 

carrying out technical restoration of weapon storage areas 

and a radioactive waste pit. As in virtually all CTR projects, 

Ukrainian subcontractors did the work at the site. Biweekly 

status and monthly cost performance reports provided 

Booker with the data to carry out managerial oversight and 

review. Booker contracted with the U.S. Army Center for 

Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Aberdeen, 

Maryland to provide technical support for assessing quality 

assurance. Colonel Mityayev reported directly to General 

Mikhtyuk, so the Ukrainian government had oversight on 

any issues or developments in these projects. In fact, there 

were few issues and the project was completed without 

incident. By June 2001 these nuclear weapons storage areas 

had been eliminated and the sites remediated.149

The second part to this infrastructure project was 

demilitarization of the SS-19 Unified Fill Facilities at 

Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky. These facilities had been 

built in 1994 using CTR funds and had provided temporary 

storage facilities for the liquid rocket fuel extracted from 

SS-19 missiles being removed from the missile complexes. 

From 1994 to 1998, the liquid heptyl and amyl fuels in these 

temporary storage facilities were loaded into large steel 

tanks and shipped via rail to a large national fuel storage 

depot in Shevchenko. In 1999 John Connell decided that 

an infrastructure elimination project should be initiated 

to inspect the now empty fuel storage tanks, repair them 

if necessary, neutralize them of any residual amyl, heptyl 

or sodium nitrate gases, and then dissemble the steel 

tanks, salvaging any pieces for resale. Securing approval 
168

With Courage and Persistence

from Washington, Booker issued the request for proposals, 

received the bids, conducted evaluations and awarded 

the contract. Bechtel won the contract and subcontracted 

with local Ukrainian firms, Stroom and Yulia, who carried 

out the work from 1999 through 2001. The salvaged steel 

was sold and the proceeds returned to the Ministry of 

Defense. This project led to another infrastructure project: 

demilitarization and elimination of eight liquid missile 

storage facilities – essentially old toxic heptyl storage tanks, 

abandoned railroad tank cars and assorted ground sites 

where heptyl fuels had been stored. Booker secured approval 

for preliminary site surveys and environmental surveys in 

2002. In 2003, however, U.S. Defense Department policy 

officials reexamined the entire CTR program and decided 

to cease funding this infrastructure project.150

In 2001, General Mikhtyuk, Deputy Minister of Defense 

for Eliminations, requested the United States consider a CTR 

project to neutralize and eliminate the infrastructure at the 

national nuclear warhead storage site located at the Raduga 

military base.151 Decades before, the Soviet Union’s Strategic 

Rocket Forces had constructed a large, secure base to store 

and maintain nuclear warheads and weapons in Ukraine. 

The Raduga site was quite large, 76.5 hectares, with 50 

buildings and two massive nuclear storage bunkers. Connell 

and Booker defined the $5 million project as assisting 

Ukraine to dismantle the national nuclear stockpile site by 

providing equipment, services and training. Following the 

usual process, a contract was awarded in 2002. Bechtel won 

the contract, and as the integrating contractor, employed 

Stroom and Ukrainian scientific firms and institutes to carry 

out the work. They completed dismantlement work at the 

Raduga site by 2004.152 During that year, Ukraine provided 

a list of four additional former nuclear sites, located on 

military bases at Lutsk, Stryy, Khmelnitsky and Medzhibozh. 

These sites were quite small. Upon evaluation, CTR program 

managers considered only the site at Stryy as a valid project 

for assistance. For neutralization of the other sites, the U.S. 

offered Ukraine dismantlement equipment provided from 

Defense Department stocks, and some diesel fuel.153

Eliminating Ukraine’s Strategic Bombers 

and Air-Launched Cruise Missiles 

“For a very long time, we were unable to figure out what to 

do with these aircraft,” recalled Vladmir Horbulin, Secretary 

of the National Security and Defense Council.154 Ukraine had 

inherited 19 Tu-160 Tupolev bombers, 25 Tu-95MS Tupolev 

heavy bombers, and 1,068 air-launched cruise missiles. These 

were modern long-range aircraft, with sophisticated weapons. 

The Tupolev Tu-160 bomber was a modern, supersonic, 

swept-wing heavy bomber capable of flying intercontinental 

distances at high altitudes at speeds of 2,000km/hr or Mach 2, 

and launching up to 12 Kh-55 long-range cruise missiles and 

12 Kh-15 shorter-range missiles. In design and performance, 

the Tu-160 was compared to the U.S. B-1B strategic bomber. 

As the Soviet Union’s most modern strategic bomber force, 

the Soviet Air Force placed its first operational Tu-160 unit, the 

184th Regiment, 46th Air Army, at Priluki Air Base in Ukraine. 

A second unit, the 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Regiment (six 

Tu-160s) was based at Engels Air Base in Russia.155 Following 

the devolution of the Soviet Union into 15 separate nations, 

the Russian Air Force kept the Tu-160 bomber regiment at 

Engels active, and had several other active regiments of Tu95 heavy bombers in its long-range aviation service. For the 

Ukrainian Air Force and the government, the decision of what 

to do with the inherited Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers was 

much more difficult. 

According several sources, a single Tu-160 bomber was 

worth approximately $300 million.156 If Ukraine wanted to 

sell these aircraft there was only one buyer, Russia. Following 

signing of the Trilateral Agreement in Moscow in January 

1994, Russian and Ukrainian officials conducted more than 

20 rounds of meetings and negotiations over four years (1994-

1998). They discussed terms for the bomber’s sale, but there 

were no agreements. During protracted negotiations, Russian 

military experts traveled to Ukraine and went to Priluki 

Tu-160 bomber

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
169

Air Base to make several inspections of the bombers. Their 

conclusions, reported in the press, found the condition of the 

strategic bombers was deteriorating.157 When no deal could 

be negotiated, the government of Ukraine began discussions 

on eliminating the bombers, with U.S. CTR assistance. 

According to Horbulin, the strategic bombers were expensive 

to maintain, costing the Ukrainian Air Force approximately 

$1.3 million annually.158 Finally Ukraine acted. In December 

1997, General Kuzmuk, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, met with 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Cohen in Brussels at the annual 

NATO summit meeting. They signed a formal agreement 

stating that if Ukraine requested assistance to eliminate its 

strategic aviation complexes, the U.S. would send its experts 

to discuss the technical aspects of the project.159 Within the 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Air Force and National Security 

Council, the protracted negotiations with Russia had run out 

of time. Lieutenant Colonel Victor F. Kuzminskiy, a Ukrainian 

Air Force officer who had worked with the strategic bomber 

forces for years, described the situation:

They (strategic bombers) were still operational. 

Psychologically, the leadership of the MOD and 

the Air Force came to the realization that it was 

impractical for Ukraine to maintain and use the 

Tu-160s and Tu-95s. Moreover, it didn’t make any 

sense – these were strategic nuclear bombers, but 

the nuclear weapons had already been shipped to 

Russia. The aircraft were large and very expensive; 

their maintenance cost the state a small fortune. 

The Tu-160 had a fuel capacity of 171 metric tons. 

To fly it within Ukraine made no sense at all. It used 

a lot of fuel and a lot of expensive lubricants. We 

flew it less and less often until we finally stopped 

altogether. 160

As promised, Secretary Cohen sent a large American 

delegation to Kiev in mid-January 1998. Led by Assistant 

Secretary of Defense Harold Smith, retired Brigadier General 

Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., Colonel Jim Reid, John Connell, 

Doug Norman and others, they met with General Mikhtyuk, 

Lieutenant General Victor I. Strel’nikov, First Deputy 

Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Vladmir Horbulin, 

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, 

and representatives from Ukraine’s defense and foreign 

ministries.

As the meeting opened, Smith announced the current 

leaders of the U.S. CTR program would be changing. 

Secretary of Defense Perry and Ash Carter had already 

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Ukrainian Minister of Defense General Oleksander Kuzmuk

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
170

With Courage and Persistence

resigned, returning to university positions. Smith said that 

he and General Lajoie, director of the CTR Program Office, 

would also be resigning in the coming months. General 

Kuenning would be heading the department’s CTR program 

office and become the principle official for all U.S.-Ukraine 

assistance projects in the future. Further, Smith explained 

that the program office would be merged into a new Defense 

Department organization, the Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, effective November 1, 1998. As an Air Force officer, 

Kuenning had served in the Strategic Air Command as an 

intercontinental ballistic missile officer, rising to command 

strategic missile wings and strategic air forces. As a senior 

military officer, Kuenning had international experience 

serving as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO and as 

the director of the U.S. arms control inspection organization, 

the On-Site Inspection Agency. Consequently, the general 

brought to the CTR program knowledge of strategic weapons 

systems, experience in NATO, familiarity with complex arms 

reduction treaties and experience dealing with military 

leaders of the region.161

With these announcements, Smith, General Kuenning, 

General Mikhtyuk and the delegations turned to discussions 

defining the elimination process for strategic bombers and 

cruise missiles. When these initial sessions, which lasted 

a week, proved successful, they were followed in February 

and March with more detailed technical discussions, visits 

to the air bases at Priluki, Uzin, the repair depot at Belaya 

Tserkov, and then issuance of the request for proposals to 

contractors in April. Simultaneously, Ukraine’s Ministry 

of Defense developed and coordinated a comprehensive 

bomber elimination plan. President Kuchma signed a decree 

on May 14, 1998 authorizing the “Comprehensive Tu-95MS 

and Tu-160 Strategic Bomber Reduction and Elimination 

Program.”162 By June, bids for the CTR-funded bomber 

elimination project had been received, evaluated, and the 

contract awarded to an American firm, Raytheon Technical 

Services Company. The $7 million contract made Raytheon 

the integrating contractor, responsible for planning, 

managing and coordinating with the Ukrainian Air Force 

and Ministry of Defense all aspects of the strategic bomber 

elimination program.163

The project stipulated the elimination of 44 bombers – 

19 Tu-160s and 25 Tu-95MSs, and 1,068 air launched cruise 

missiles by December 2001. Working with Susan Malcolm, 

the U.S. government’s contracting officer, Barret Haver, 

Raytheon’s program manager in Ukraine, began hiring 

subcontractors in the summer 1998. To conduct the baseline 

environmental survey of the air bases and repair depot, 

Haver contracted with Professor Eduard Prokhach, Director 

of the Kharkiv Scientific Research Center on Military Ecology. 

Prokhach’s team of environmental scientists surveyed the 

military bases and repair depot and concluded the primary 

sources of contamination were oil products and heavy 

metals. The surface areas at the air bases were not affected, 

but the ground water was significantly contaminated.

“People were drawing out nothing but kerosene from the 

wells,” Prokhach recalled. Near the Uzin Air Base, when his 

team tried to take a sample from one of the wells, “the owner 

was against it, and the other residents came over and started 

protesting (at us). It turned out they took turns drawing 

kerosene from that well ... they were filling up their mopeds 

directly from it.”164 To stop this practice, Raytheon hired a 

local company to pump the wells dry, extracting the kerosene 

and selling it. Subsequent surveys by the Ukrainian Geology 

Institute of the National Academy of Sciences pointed to 

other areas that needed remediation. Also in the summer 

months, Ukrainian subcontractors, Stroom, BARZ and 

Ukrainian Air Transport Carrier, began preparing elimination 

areas for dismantling the bombers. Work proceeded quickly, 

and the first two Tu-160 bombers were eliminated in the fall 

of 1998.165

Two issues surfaced. First, the Ukrainian Air Force’s 

detailed instructions for cutting the Tu-160 bomber into parts 

did not agree with the U.S. contracting officer’s interpretation 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency seal

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
171

of elimination protocols in the START Treaty. The treaty 

spelled out that the strategic bombers’ fuselage had to be 

cut at specific points. Then the cuts and separated fuselage 

would be observed on-site by START Treaty inspection teams 

or satellite imagery. The Ukrainian Air Force insisted it 

was too expensive to meet those exacting requirements, so 

they planned to sever the bombers at four points and then 

have inspection teams determine if the bombers, with their 

fuselage severed through completely and wings cut off, could 

be certified as destroyed. When the American START Treaty 

inspection team arrived at Priluki, they examined the severed 

Tu-160 bomber, referred to the treaty’s elimination protocols 

and declared that the cuts had not been made correctly.

The Ukrainian Air Force, however, did not relent from its 

position that in fact the bomber had been destroyed. The Air 

Force asked the Foreign Ministry to petition the international 

START Treaty commission in Geneva to consider whether 

Ukraine’s procedures for severing the strategic bombers 

would be acceptable in the future. In an exceptional 

decision, the START Treaty’s commission modified the 

treaty’s elimination protocols, accepting Ukraine’s scheme 

for cutting the planes.166 The second problem concerned the 

rate at which the Ukrainian Air Force released bombers to 

the American contractor to be destroyed. After the first two 

Tu-160 bombers, the pace slowed appreciably. For Raytheon, 

the project’s schedule fell behind, first by weeks, then by 

months.167 Unbeknownst to the American contractor, or to 

the CTR contracting officer, there was a subtext to the delay, 

one that was revealed in the summer of 1999.

In late July, General Kuzmuk, Minister of Defense, 

announced that Ukraine had offered to transfer to Russia 

eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95 strategic bombers and an 

unspecified number of cruise missiles in return for partial 

debt relief for its natural gas bill of $1.8 billion. Kuzmuk 

explained that Russia had pledged to convert the bombers 

to conventional weapons. According to Oleksander Chaliy, 

Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, neither 

the transfer nor conversion of the bombers would violate the 

START Treaty. Negotiations on the specific price for the aircraft 

and missiles in the following months resulted in valuation 

of $25 million per bomber and $10 million for the airlaunched missiles. In the final deal, concluded in November, 

Ukraine agreed to send 11 strategic bombers, eight Tu-160s 

and three Tu-95s, and 581 Kh-55 cruise missiles to Russia in 

return for a $285 million reduction in Ukraine’s natural gas 

debt. The first two Tu-160s flew from Priluki to Engels that 

month. Ukraine’s remaining strategic bombers and missiles 

would be destroyed at Priluki, Uzim and Belaya Tserkov by 

the Ukrainian Air Force, working with Raytheon.168

For some Americans, Ukraine’s sudden decision to 

transfer the bombers for debt relief was akin to poisoning the 

well with kerosene. It left a bitter taste. Minor issues turned 

into major disputes. When the Commander Kevin Bickell, 

U.S. CTR contracting officer, sought firm commitments on 

the number of bombers to be dismantled and eliminated, 

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and Air Force officials were 

not forthcoming. General Kuenning wrote letters, made 

telephone calls and traveled to Kiev. U.S. Ambassador Steven 

F. Pifer had discussions with Defense Ministry officials. John 

Connell had frequent meetings with General Mikhtyuk. 

Stalled, the project fell further behind.

Consequently, when Major Don Parman became the 

new CTR program officer in late July 2000, he found the 

project mired in an acrimonious relationship, seriously 

behind schedule and unproductive. In Washington, he asked 

the American CTR country manager what exactly was his 

mission? Connell replied, “I want you to cut up airplanes. 

And I want you to cut up the weapons that go with them and 

help eliminate this threat. The sooner you do it, the better. 

And be on the lookout for other systems that fall in the 

same category.”169 When Parman returned to Ukraine he met 

with Air Force officials and learned they had been promised 

gasoline for their trucks, but it had later been denied because 

aircraft had not been released to the American contractors 

for dismantlement. As the CTR contracting officer, Parman 

authorized purchase and delivery of the fuel; one month 

Elimination of Tu-160 bomber

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
172

With Courage and Persistence

later the Ukrainian Air Force released several bombers to 

the contractor for elimination. Three months later the Air 

Force released a complete schedule for dismantling and 

eliminating all remaining bombers and missiles.170

All elimination work was done at Ukrainian air bases 

Priluki, Uzin and Belaya Tserkov. It went quickly. Within 

six months, Ukrainian subcontractors had dismantled 

and eliminated 11 Tu-160s, 27 Tu-95s and 483 Kh-55 airlaunched cruise missiles. Jack Sajevic, Raytheon’s new project 

manager, explained that decommissioning each bomber 

took three to four weeks, with Ukrainian subcontractors 

removing the jet engines, draining the hydraulic systems 

and removing all interior equipment.171 Then, large cutting 

cranes griped the fuselage and ripped through it, making the 

four cuts required by the START Treaty. The wings were then 

cut off. After two weeks, the period set aside for observation 

and inspection required by the START Treaty, the teams 

dismantled the aircraft completely, shredding the parts for 

any valuable metals and waste products. The entire process 

took 80 days for a single bomber. Normally, Raytheon’s onsite manager would have subcontractor teams dismantling 

and cutting three or four aircraft simultaneously. 

One of the Ukrainian firms, Ukraine Cargo Airlines, 

received a contract from Raytheon to dismantle both the Tu160 and Tu-92MS bombers. Led by a senior engineer, the 

Ukrainian firm hired more than 150 machinists, engineers and 

technicians, many of them former Ukrainian Air Force officers 

to carry out the work.172 This same firm also had contracts 

with the Air Force, removing sensitive and secret systems prior 

to the aircraft being released to the American contractor. The 

firm’s president, Andre Kukin recalled that they had more 

than 10 separate contracts to liquidate the bombers, aircraft 

engines and cruise missiles. Following this work, Kukin 

explained that his company, Ukraine Cargo Airlines, bid and 

received contracts from the United Nations and the European 

Union to fly cargo and materials to Africa on humanitarian 

missions.173 During the bomber eliminations, Ukrainian Air 

Force personnel were always present. Lieutenant Colonel 

Victor Kuzminskiy served as the service’s senior staff officer 

on the project. He remembered the day when they eliminated 

the first Tu-160 strategic bomber: “Let me tell you – as an 

aviator, it made me ill. Each time I left the air base, I had chest 

pains for several days afterward.”174

While the Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers were 

being eliminated, the Ukrainian Air Force asked U.S. officials 

if they would consider dismantling and eliminating excess 

Tu-22M Backfire bombers and air-to-surface missiles. In late 

October 2000, General Kuzmuk had requested assistance 

for the project from Secretary Cohen.175 Receiving copies of 

the request, Connell and General Kuenning approached Jim 

Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, with a question: Could the 

CTR program support this request? The question had a policy 

dimension. In negotiating the START Treaty, had the Tu-22 

Backfire bomber been defined as a Soviet strategic bomber 

and subject to elimination? If it was, it would eligible for CTR 

assistance. Reid and his staff determined, following research 

into the treaty negotiating record, that this version of the 

bomber, the Tu-22M equipped with Kh-22 nuclear air-tosurface missiles, had sufficient range to threaten U.S. naval 

vessels and consequently should be considered as a strategic 

heavy bomber. In December 2000 following Reid’s briefing, 

Secretary of Defense Cohen decided to support the project, 

directing Reid to notify Congress that existing CTR funds 

would be reprogrammed to fund the Tu-22 bomber and airto-surface missile eliminations in Ukraine.

As a consequence, the scope of the strategic bomber 

project with Ukraine expanded to include dismantlement 

and elimination of up to 40 Tu-44 Backfire bombers and 

230 Kh-22 nuclear capable air-to-surface-missiles. Initially, 

Raytheon’s contract was modified to include planning a 

process to eliminate eight aircraft and five missiles along 

with their existing strategic bomber elimination work. Then, 

after an open competition, Raytheon received a contract July 

2002 to plan and manage the elimination and disposal of the 

remaining 32 Tu-22M bombers and 225 Kh-22 air-to-surface 

missiles. This project supported the elimination of weapons 

CTR Project Manager Don Parman (c.)

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
173

systems located at military bases throughout Ukraine: Uzin, 

Priluki, Belaya Tserkov, Ozernoye, Poltava and Nikolaev. 

Using many of the same Ukrainian firms, the work proceeded 

without incident, ending with the final bomber elimination 

in December 2003. START Treaty inspectors or satellites 

confirmed the bombers had been eliminated in accordance 

with treaty protocols. Major Parman, the CTR program officer, 

certified the elimination of the air to surface missiles.176

Winding down, amidst new initiatives

Elimination of the Tu-22 bombers and the missiles was 

the last major strategic nuclear arms elimination project in 

Ukraine. By 2003-2004 Commander Mike Johnson was the 

CTR program manager for all projects in Ukraine, Kazakhstan 

and Belarus. Johnson’s portfolio included overseeing the final 

work in Ukraine, specifically the projects for eliminating the 

non-deployed missiles, maintaining continuous operations 

and security at the SS-24 storage warehouses, terminating 

and transferring the SS-24 Pilot Plant equipment, and 

completing all Tu-22 bomber eliminations. When the SS-24 

Propellant Disposition Facility’s Pilot Plant was cancelled 

in 2004, it meant that operation of the SS-24 storage 

warehouses under a CTR contract of $95 million annually 

was the only continuing active strategic nuclear arms 

elimination project.177 In addition, Commander Johnson 

worked with John Booker and Major Craig Martelle to wrap 

up the small, scattered projects in the weapons of mass 

destruction infrastructure elimination program.178

Martelle initiated a small project that established a joint 

U.S.-Ukrainian team to conduct a survey of the existing 

CTR-furnished equipment that had been used by American, 

Ukrainian and MOD contractors in all the elimination 

projects and to recommend disposition. Using the CTR 

Elimination of cruise missile, Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
174

With Courage and Persistence

Logistics Support manager’s records and policy direction, the 

joint team recommended transferring 317 equipment items 

to current CTR projects in Russia, including 10,000 liters of 

detselene fuel mixture. They transferred five vehicles and 100 

office and furniture items to the Defense Department’s new 

WMD-Proliferation Prevention Initiative’s Border Guard 

program in Ukraine. Some equipment and other items went 

to two projects in Pavlograd: the SS-24 Pilot Plant program 

and the SS-24 Missile Disassembly, Storage and Elimination 

facility. The joint team also recommended that other CTR 

equipment, including computer equipment, laboratory spare 

parts, a mobile shelter, shipping containers, light vehicles and 

363 metric tons of fuel, be transferred to Ukraine’s Ministry 

of Defense. General Kuenning, CTR Director, accepted all 

the team’s recommendations and directed the program 

managers to follow through with the transfers.179

Two new programs in Ukraine supported by CTR 

funds were the Defense Department’s WMD-Proliferation 

Prevention Initiative and the Biological Weapons Threat 

Agent Detection and Response program. President Bush’s 

administration had initiated an array of new programs after 

9-11 as part of its global war on terrorism. Robert Joseph, a 

senior official in the National Security Council, developed a 

concept for a multinational nonproliferation initiative that 

would be led by the United States, but would be consistent 

with each participating nation’s laws and courts and all 

existing international treaties and regimes. President Bush 

announced the Proliferation Security Initiative in Krakow, 

Poland in May 2003. Within two and a half years, 70 nations 

had enlisted in the new proliferation prevention program.180

Under this multinational program, Defense Department 

policy experts developed new CTR programs with 

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine to prevent 

transit across these nations of any WMD-related materials by 

terrorist groups or rogue states.181

Two years before the president’s announcement, U.S. 

Defense Department and Ukrainian Ministry of Economy 

and European Integration officials had signed in 2001 an 

implementing agreement establishing an export control 

system to detect and prevent transport out of Ukraine any 

materials or weapons of mass destruction. In Washington, 

CTR program managers, working with Ukrainian officials, 

used that legal agreement to develop a comprehensive fiveyear plan that would be operational by 2005. It would give 

the Ukraine government equipment and training to develop 

the capability to detect and interdict any WMD materials 

transiting the nation’s border with Moldova. In subsequent 

years the program would expand to cover maritime 

proliferation prevention on Ukraine’s borders with the Black 

Sea. Mark West, CTR program manager, estimated the new 

program’s five-year cost at $53.8 million.182

In the second new initiative, the BW Threat Agent 

Detection and Response (TADR) program, U.S. Defense 

Department officials discussed and planned a series of new 

cooperative projects with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. 

These programs would assist the government’s capability to 

discover if harmful biological materials had been diverted, 

or accidentally released, from the nation’s biological 

laboratories and institutes. The new programs, equipment 

and procedures would detect dangerous pathogens and 

establish national response networks. In 2005, Ukraine and 

American officials signed an implementing agreement, and 

program managers in both nations began defining specific 

requirements for new projects.183

U.S. and Ukrainian leaders participate in ICBM silo elimination

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
175

Ukraine disbands the 43rd Rocket Army

Disbanding the 43rd Rocket Army was a historic occasion. 

On August 20, 2002, dignitaries from many nations 

gathered at the army’s headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. 

Established in 1960, the rocket army was one of the largest 

and most decorated in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. 

General Mikhtyuk commanded the rocket army from 1991-

2001, the longest tenure of the army’s nine commanding 

generals. Amidst the history, heraldry and honors that day, 

there emerged from the international audience of generals, 

military officers and civilians a deep appreciation for the 

leadership, courage and integrity of General Mikhtyuk. He 

was retiring that day, along with the rocket army. As he ended 

his long service, only a few knew the entire story of Ukraine’s 

decision to dismantle and eliminate the 43rd Rocket Army, 

but everyone knew that the 43rd Rocket Army’s commanding 

general had influenced the course of Ukraine’s modern 

history. Ukraine had given up its inherited strategic rocket 

army and nuclear weapons, the United States had contributed 

$471 million in assistance, Russia had provided $5 billion 

in fuel rods and gas credits, but it was General Mikhtyuk 

who had planned and supervised every element of the 

rocket army’s decommissioning, dismantlement, destruction 

and disbandment. It took eight years. Summarizing his 

role, General Mikhtyuk declared tersely: “It was difficult, 

sometimes disappointing work, which took a lot of time and 

effort. But it was necessary.”184

Endnotes

1

 The exact terms of President Yeltsin’s commitments to Ukraine 

were contained in one of the six secret annexes to the Trilateral 

Agreement, January 14, 1994. For the influence of the U.S.-Russian 

HEU Agreement on the Trilateral Agreement see, James E. Goodby, 

“Testing the Utility of Nuclear Restraints After the Cold War,” in 

Europe Undivided, (Washington, D.C., 1998), pp 65-91. See also, 

Richard A. Falkenrath, “The HEU Deal and the U.S. Enrichment 

Corporation,” The Nonproliferation Review (Winter 1996), pp 62-66, 

and Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Russia: Overview of the U.S.-Russia 

HEU-LEU Program,” www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia 

2

 Report, General-Colonel Vladimir Alexeyevich Mikhtyuk, 

Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, Strategic Rocket Forces, “Status of 

the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 2003, report 

located at DTRA.. See Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile 

removal, transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction 

of the SS-19 missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 

1997, and 1998.”pp. 1-35

3

 The last increment of more than 1,800 warheads was shipped 

from Ukraine to Russia on May 31, 1996. See “Kuchma Issues 

Statement on Removal of Nuclear Weapons” UT 1 Television, June 

1, 1996 in FIBS-SOV-96, June 5, 1996. 

4

 “Nuclear Power in Ukraine,” World Nuclear Association, August 

2005, www.world-nuclear.org/info

5

 See Interview with Mr. Volodymyr P. Horbulin, Assistant 

to the President of Ukraine on National Security, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Kyiv, 

Ukraine, 15 March 2003.

6

 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand, A Memoir of Presidential 

Diplomacy, (New York, 2002) p. 113.

7

 As documented in Chapter 5, Secretary Perry went to 

Ukraine four times in 1994-1995, and throughout his tenure 

as Secretary of Defense he followed closely the implementation 

of the CTR program in Ukraine. For his direct experiences in 

Ukraine, see Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive 

Defense (Washington, D.C., 1999), pp 1-19. Vice-President Gore 

led the senior-level bilateral commission, known as the GoreKuchma Commission. For the commission’s joint statements on 

nonproliferation and other topics see, “U.S.- Ukraine Binational 

Commission, Joint Statement of Plenary Session,” May 16, 1997 

and “Joint Statement: Second Plenary Session, 22 July, 1998,” in 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine Profile, www.nti.org/e_research/ 

profiles/Ukraine.

8

 “West Gives Ukraine $234 Million in New Arms Aid,” Reuters, 

November 11, 1994, cited in Mark D. Skootsky, An Annotated 

Chronology of Post Soviet Nuclear Disarmament 1991-1994, in The 

Nonproliferation Review, Spring/Summer 1995; Dr. William J. Perry, 

Secretary of Defense, Keynote Address, 1995 Industrial College of 

the Armed Forces Conference, “Building Industrial Partnerships in 

the Former Soviet Union,” Proceedings, pp. 21-26. See also, Defense 

Dialog, “Remarks by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry,” April 

19, 1995.

9

 In the first five years there were a series of critical GAO reports. 

See, United States General Accounting Office, “Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union,” 

October 1994, GAO/NSIAD-95-7; and U.S. General Accounting 

Office, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program,” September 1996, GAO/NSIAD-96-222. 

In addition, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the 

Library of Congress developed a series of analytical reports on the 

CTR program. See, Amy F. Wolf, “Arms Control and Disarmament: 

A Catalog of Recent Activities, January 4, 1995. 

10 Joseph D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means, The Politics of USNIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation, pp84-88; 
176

With Courage and Persistence

For insights on how the Defense Department worked to meet 

Congressional demands in the mid-1990s see, Interview Colonel 

Bob Dickey, Deputy Chief, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

DTRA, Washington, D.C., May 26, 2000; Interview, Ms. Laura S.H. 

Holgate, Vice President for Russia and NIS Programs, Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2002; Interview, Dr. Harold 

P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and 

Biological Programs, 1993-1998, Washington, D.C., December 14, 

2001. All interviews with the author.

11 Senator Sam Nunn, “Changing Threats in the Cost-Cold War 

World,” in John S. Shields and William C. Potter, eds., Dismantling 

the Cold War, p. xii.

12 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A 

New Security Strategy for America, pp. 1-20, 65-91, Joseph D. Ellis, 

Defense By Other Means, pp.100-122. 

13 Izvestiya, 29 June 1993, in FBIS-SU, 29 June 1993; Izvestiya, 

16 July 1993 in FBIS-SU, 16 July 1993.

14 General Colonel (retired) Mikhtyuk, V.A., Commander 43rd

Rocket Army, Report: “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

Chapter 2, “Status, Issues and Changes in the 43rd Rocket army 

during 1993-1994,” pp. 12-13.

15 For the SS-19 configurations and technical specifications see, 

Federation of American Scientists, “UR-100N/ SS-19 STILLETO,” in 

www.fas.org./nuke/guide/russia/icbm

16 Interview, Colonel General V.A. Mikhtyuk, Commander 43rd

Rocket Army, and Deputy Minister of Defense, Republic of Ukraine, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, February 25, 2002. 

17 General Mikhtyuk., Report: “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002, “ Chapter 2, “Status, Issues and Changes in the 43rd

Rocket Army during 1993-1994,” p 28.

18 Ibid, p.29.

19 Interview, Colonel Aleksandr I. Serdyuk, National Space 

Agency, Republic of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 7, 2002; 

; Interview John Connell, Program Manager, CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, February 16, 

2001; Interview Colonel Valeriy Mikitivich Blidar, Head, Analytical 

Branch, Strategic Forces Administrative Control Center, Ministry of 

Defense, Kyiv, Ukraine, June 3, 2003. All interviews with the author.

20 Report, General Mikhtyuk, Report: Status of the 43rd Rocket 

Army, 1991-2002, Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”pp 27-30.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid, pp28-29.

24 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”

25 Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 

concerning the provision of material, services, and related training 

to Ukraine in connection with the elimination of Strategic 

Nuclear Arms, December 5, 1993. This was the first major CTR 

implementing agreement.

26 Reports, ACIU, Kiev Weekly Activities Report, 13-19 February 

1994, 20-26, 1994, 27 February–5 March 1994, 13-19 March 1994. 

These were internal reports sent from the U.S. Embassy, Kiev to 

Headquarters, On-Site Inspection Agency in Washington, D.C.

27 DOD News Release, Office of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Public Affairs), March 21, 1994. The new implementing 

agreement was: Agreement between the Department of Defense of 

the United States of America and the Ministry of Machine Building, 

Military-Industrial Complex and Conversion of Ukraine concerning 

the conversion of enterprises of the military-industrial complex, 

March 21, 1994.

28 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,”p.11-12.

29 All of these developments cascaded into a litany of 

complaints against the U.S. government and the CTR program in 

the spring of 1995. See, Interview, Valery Nikolayevich Shmarov, 

Vice Premier of Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, June 6, 2002, Kiev, Ukraine; 

Interview with Mark Beha, CTR Country Manager for Raytheon 

Corporation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 2002; Report, 

General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” 

see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, transport, 

environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 missiles 

in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998.”; 

Interview, Colonel General V. A. Mikhtyuk, Commander 43rd

Rocket Army, and Deputy Minister of Defense, Republic of Ukraine, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, February 25, 2002; Interview with 

William G. Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, 1993-1998, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

Washington, D.C., February 1, 2006.

30 Briefing, CTR Program Office, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

(CTR) Program Review,” May 20, 1997. 

31 Interview with Barrett Haver, CTR Program Manager, 

Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine, February 1, 

2000.

32 Interview with Mark Beha, CTR Country Manager for 

Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 

2002; Interview John Connell, Program Manager, CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, February 

16, 2001; and Interview with Barrett Haver, CTR Program Manager, 

Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine, February 1, 

2000. All interviews conducted by the author.

33 Interview with Mark Beha, CTR Country Manager for 

Raytheon Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 2002. Hughes 

Technical Services Company was acquired by Raytheon in 1997.
177

34 Ibid. See also, Interview with Barrett Haver, CTR Program 

Manager, Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, February 1, 2000.

35 Interview John Connell, Program Manager, CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, February 

16, 2001, and Interview with Mark Beha, CTR Country Manager 

for Raytheon Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 2002. All 

interviews were with the author. 

36 Briefing, CTR Program Office, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

(CTR) Program Review,” May 20, 1997. 

37 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998”; Interview with J. Randall Regan, CTR Country Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31, 2000; Interview 

with Gene Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project 

Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

38 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 

Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of Infrastructure 

for Weapons of Mass Destruction through Provision to Ukraine 

of Material, Services, and Related Training, June 27, 1995, Kiev, 

Ukraine.

39 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,” p. 7.

40 Interview with J. Randall Regan, CTR Country Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, January 31, 2000.

41 Ibid.

42 This evaluation of Connell emerges from the interviews with 

senior Ukrainian, American, and contractors. All saw Connell as 

one of the key figures from 1994-2002.

43 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,”p 33. See also, Interview, Ms. Laura S.H. Holgate, Vice 

President for Russia and NIS Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2002.

44 Interview with Major General Vladislav Nikolayevich 

Bushaev, Deputy Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, SRF, Republic 

of Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, February 25, 2002.

45 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 

6-7.

46 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,”p16.-16

47 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 6-7.

48 Interview with Mark Beha, CTR Country Manager for 

Raytheon Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 2002.

49 Reuters, “Perry Watches Ukraine Destroy Silo,” January 5, 

1996; Boys Klimenko, “Defense Ministers Witness Demolition 

of Missile Silo in Ukraine,” The Ukrainian Weekly, January 14, 

1996 cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine Profile, Missile 

Chronology, www.nti.org/e_reserch/profiles 

50 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,”p16.

51 Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, p 7. 

52 Interview with J. Randall Regan, CTR Country Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, January 31, 2000.

53 Ibid.; Interview with Don Milicevic, SS-19 Silo Elimination 

Project Manager, Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 22 February 

2002.

54 Interview with Barrett Haver, CTR Program Manager, 

Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 

1, 2000. 

55 Interview with Nikolai Denysyuk, Operations manager, 

Heavy Bomber Elimination Program, Raytheon Technical Services 

Company, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, Kiev, Ukraine, February 7, 2003. Colonel 

Denysyuk retired in 1997 as the director of the Uman Military 

Repair Depot and subsequently went to work for Raytheon in Kiev.

56 Ibid.

57 Interview with Don Milicevic, SS-19 Silo Elimination Project 

Manager, Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 22 February 

2002.

58 Interview with Major General Vladislav Nikolayevich 

Bushaev, Deputy Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, SRF, Republic of 

Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, February 25, 

2002.

59 Interview, Miscevic, SS-19 Silo Elimination Project Manager, 

Bechtel, Kiev, Ukraine, 22 February 2002.

60 Interview, Dr. Oleg Blanar, Director General, Stroom, RITIE, 

Inc, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, February 26, 2002.

61 Ibid.

62 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”pp. 15-20.
178

With Courage and Persistence

63 Interview with General-Colonel O. Kuzmuk, Minister of 

Defense, 1996-2001, Republic of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

February 5, 2003.

64 For the Ukrainian government’s rationale for the 

reorganization, see, Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd

Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, 

missile removal, transport, environmental survey, and silo 

destruction of the SS-19 missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 

1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998.” During the interview, Regan 

observed that the U.S. government had no advanced knowledge of 

these changes in the defense ministry. See Interview with J. Randall 

Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, January 31, 2000.

65 Interview, Miscevic, SS-19 Silo Elimination Project Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 22 February 2002.

66 Ibid.

67 Interview, Beha, CTR Country Manager, Raytheon 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, November 8, 2002.

68 Interview, Miscevic, SS-19 Silo Elimination Project Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, 22 February 2002.

69 Interview, Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31, 2000.

70 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.” pp. 17-18. 

71 Ibid., Chapter 3, 17-18; See Interview with General Kuzmuk, 

Minister of Defense, 1996-2001, Ukraine with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 5, 2003.

72 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,” Chapter 3, p.19.

73 Interview General Kuzmuk, Minister of Defense, 

1996-2001,Ukraine, February 5, 2003.

74 Ibid. 

75 Interview, J. Randal Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31,2000.

76 Interviews with Yulia Company Managers, Igor Yefimovich 

Kravets, Business Manager Mikhail Ivanovich Brovochenko, Chief 

Engineer, Yevgeny Grigorievich Korolchuk, Project Manager, 

Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination Project, in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 

February 25, 2002. All interviews by author.

77 Interviews with Yulia Company managers, I.Y. Kravets, 

Business Manager M.I. Brovochenko, Chief Engineer, and Y.G. 

Korolchuk, Project Manager, Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination 

Project, in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, February 25, 2002. All interviews by 

author.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid. 

81 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998,” Chapter 3. See Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program, Ukraine, 20 July 1999.

82 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program, Ukraine, 20 July 1999.

83 Ibid.

84 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”pp. 27-28.

85 President Putin announced that Russia had received the SS19 missiles from Ukraine. The missiles were empty, without fuel. 

The price was uncertain, either $50 million or that amount in the 

cancellation of oil and gas debts. See Izvestiya, 21 October, 2003. 

86 Briefings, CTR Program Review, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, July 7, 1999.

87 See Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program, Ukraine, 20 July 1999.

88 Ibid.

89 Interview with Wayne H. Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, 

Washington Group International, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 22, 

2002.

90 Report, S.A. Zimin, Group Manager, Washington Group 

International, “Neutralization Facility”, no date.

91 Interview with Gene Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement 

Project Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 26, 2002. 

Hicks joined Bechtel in 1997, after working for Morrison-Knudsen 

on the SS-19 project.

92 Interview, Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Project Manager, Pervomaysk, 

Ukraine, February 26, 2002

93 Ibid. All quotes taken from Hicks’ interview.

94 Interview, Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Project Manager, Pervomaysk, 

Ukraine February 26, 2002.

95 Interview with Mary Ann Miles, CTR International Project 

Manager, DTRA, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, March 2, 2003.

96 CTR Program Review, DTRA, July 7, 1999. See also Interview 

with Wayne Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, Washington Group 

International, Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2002.

97 Interview with Mary Ann Miles, CTR International Project 

Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, March 2, 

2003.

98 Briefings, CTR Program Review, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, July 7, 1999.

99 Ibid. 
179

100 Interview, Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31, 2000.

101 For the difficulty in the ministries reaching agreement see, 

Interview with Professor Eduard Prokhach, Director, Kharkiv 

Scientific Research Center of Military Ecology, Kiev, Ukraine, June 

6, 2002, and Interview, Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31, 2000. For the statistics on 

the work completed annually see, Ministry of Defense, Ukraine, 

Report, 43rd Rocket Army, “Elimination of Strategic Offensive 

Weapons in Ukraine in the Name of World Peace,” 2002, Vinnitsa, 

Ukraine. 

102 Reference Data, “SS-24 ICBM Scalpel”, www./fas.org/nuk/

guie/russia/icbm/r-36m.htm.

103 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”pp. 20-21.

104 Ibid., p. 21.

105 U.S.-Ukraine Binational Commission, Joint Statement: 

Inaugural Plenary Session, May 16, 1997, Washington, D.C., in 

Nuclear Threat Initiative County Overview: Ukraine, www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles.

106 See Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine Profile, Missile 

Chronology, May 5, 1997 “U.S. Grants Ukraine $47 Million to 

Dismantle SS-19 Silos”, www.nti.org/e_research/profiles. 

107 U.S.-Ukraine Binational Commission, Joint Statement: 

Inaugural Plenary Session, May 16, 1997, Washington, D.C., in 

Nuclear Threat Initiative County Overview: Ukraine, www.nti.org/e_

reserch/profiles.

108 For quote, see article cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine 

Profile, Missile Chronology, May 16, 1997 “Ukraine to destroy SS-24 

ICBMs with CTR Funding”, www.nti.org/e_research/profiles. For 

detail of Clinton-Kuchma discussions, see Ashton B. Carter and 

William J. Perry, Preventive Defense, p.76.

109 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”p 21.

110 Ibid, pp 21-24. 

111 Briefings, CTR Program Review, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, July 7, 1999.

112 Briefing, Bechtel Country Manager, “SS-24 ICBM Silo 

Dismantlement”, U.S.-Ukraine CTR Program Management Review, 

May 14-18, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.

113 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”, 22-24; Briefing, Bechtel Country Manager, “SS-24 ICBM 

Silo Dismantlement,” CTR Program Management Review, May 14-

18, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.

114 Commander Mike Johnson, USN, CTR Program Manager for 

Ukraine, “Ukraine, Program Management Review: Strategic Nuclear 

Arms Elimination, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Infrastructure 

Elimination,” Kiev, Ukraine, June 4, 2002.

115 Briefings, CTR Program Review, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, July 7, 1999.

116 Commander Mike Johnson, USN, CTR Program Manager for 

Ukraine, “Ukraine, Program Management Review: Strategic Nuclear 

Arms Elimination, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Infrastructure 

Elimination,” Kiev, Ukraine, June 4, 2002.

117 Ibid.

118 Interview with Gene Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo 

Dismantlement Project Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 

26, 2002.

119 Interview with Major-General Oleksander Iliashov, 

Commanding General, 46th Rocket Division, 43rd Rocket Army, 

Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, June 3, 2003; Briefings, CTR Program Review, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, July 7, 1999.

120 Interview, Regan, CTR Country Manager, Bechtel 

Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine, January 31,2000; and Interview, Hicks, 

Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project Manager, Pervomaysk, 

Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

121 Interview, Dr. Oleg Blanar, Director General, Stroom, RITIE, 

Inc, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, February 26, 2002.

122 Interview, Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project 

Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

123 For the statistics on the work completed see, Minister of 

Defense, Ukraine, Report, by 43rd Rocket Army, “Elimination of 

Strategic Offensive Weapons in Ukraine in the Name of World 

Peace,” 2002, Vinnitsa, Ukraine. 

124 Interview, Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project 

Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

125 Interview, Blanar, Director General, Stroom, RITIE, Inc, 

Vinnitsa, Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

126 Interview with Wayne H. Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, 

Washington Group International, Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2002.

127 I am grateful to many of the project managers for sharing 

their experiences. For a routine schedule by a CTR project manager, 

see Interview, Mary Ann Miles, CTR International Project Manager, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency March 2, 

2003. 

128 Interview, Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, Washington 

Group International, Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2002.

129 Interview, Hicks, Bechtel SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project 

Manager, Pervomaysk, Ukraine, February 26, 2002.

130 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”, p.21.
180

With Courage and Persistence

131 Briefing, Wayne Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, 

Washington Group International, “SS-24 Missile Disassembly, 

Storage Facilities, and Elimination,” PMR Conference, Kiev, 

Ukraine, June 4, 2002.

132 Interview, Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, Washington 

Group International, Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2002.

133 Report, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

“U.S. –Ukraine Overview of Implementation,” August 2001.

134 Ibid.

135 Interview, Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, Washington 

Group International, Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2002; Report, 

“U.S. –Ukraine Overview of Implementation,” CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, August 2001; Report, General 

Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 4, 

“Continuing Work by the 43rd RA on the missile removal, transport, 

environmental surveys, and silo destruction in the SS-24 Regiments 

during 199-2001,” pp6-7.

136 Report, CTR Program Office, DOD, CTR Annual Report to 

Congress, Fiscal Year 2002, p. III-29.

137 Report, CTR Program Office, DOD, to Congress, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal 

Year 2003, p.p. III 10-11. See also, Report, General Mikhtyuk, 

“Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 4, 

“Continuing Work by the 43rd RA on the missile removal, transport, 

environmental surveys, and silo destruction in the SS-24 Regiments 

during 199-2001,” pp 15-17. 

138 “Explosion at Pavlograd Mechanical Plant,” June 8, 2002, 

cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Country Overviews: Ukraine, www.

nti.org/e_research/profiles/Ukraine.

139 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, March 10, 2004. 

140 James H. Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, “Memorandum for Director, Treaties and 

Threat Reduction, OSD/Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,” 

March 22, 2007; Interview, Ambassador Carlos Pascual, U.S. 

Ambassador to Ukraine, 2002-2003, Kiev, Ukraine, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, June 5, 

2003.

141 Report, “U.S. –Ukraine Overview of Implementation,” CTR 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, October 2002.

142 Briefing, Wayne Holcombe, CTR Program Manager, 

Washington Group International, “SS-19 Non-Deployed Missile 

Elimination,” PMR Conference, Kiev, Ukraine, June 4, 2002.

143 “SS-19 Missile from Ukraine to Russia,” Izvestia, Moscow, 

Russia, October 21, 2003.

144 Ibid.

145 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 

Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of Infrastructure for 

Weapons of Mass Destruction Through Provision to Ukraine of 

Material, Services, and Related Training. Kiev Ukraine, June 27, 

1995. 

146 Amendment to the Agreement Between the Department 

of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of 

Defense of Ukraine Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of 

Infrastructure for Weapons of Mass Destruction Through Provision 

to Ukraine of Material, Services, and Related Training. Pervomaysk, 

Ukraine, June 4, 1996.

147 CTR Program Office, DOD, CTR Annual Report to Congress, 

Fiscal Year 2002, pp III-31. See also, News Release, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, “Unified Fill Facility/Nuclear Weapons Storage 

Area Projects Completed,” June 2002; and Report, CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, “U.S. –Ukraine Overview of 

Implementation,” October 2002.

148 For the linkage of these two men, I am indebted to General 

Bushaev. Interview with Major General V.N. Bushaev, Deputy 

Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, SRF, Republic of Ukraine, February 

25, 2002. 

149 CTR Program Office, DOD, CTR Annual Report to Congress, 

Fiscal Year 2002, pp III-31; Report, “U.S. –Ukraine Overview of 

Implementation,” CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, October 2002.

150 Report, “U.S. –Ukraine Overview of Implementation,” CTR 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, October 2002; see 

also CTR Program Office, DOD CTR Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal 

Year 2006, p 32.

151 Report, General Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” see Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”, pp.21-24.

152 Report, “U.S. –Ukraine Overview of Implementation,” CTR 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, October 2002.

153 CTR Program Office, DOD, CTR Annual Report to Congress, 

Fiscal Year 2006, p 32.

154 Interview with Volodymyr P. Horbulin, Assistant to the 

President of Ukraine on National Security, 15 March 2003.

155 FAS WMD Data Base, “Tu-160 BLACKJACK (TUPOLEV)” 

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/bombers. See also, “Tu-160 

Blackjack Strategic Bomber, Russia,” www.airforce-technology.com/

planes.

156 See news articles cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine 

Profile, Bomber Decommissioning and Transfer Developments, 

“Overview: Ukraine’s Heavy Bombers ,” May 1998, www.nti.org/

db/nisprofs/ukraine.

157 For analysis of these negotiations and meetings see Sasha 

Pursley, “Overview: Ukraine’s Heavy Bombers ,” Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, Ukraine Profile May 1998, in www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/

ukraine.

158 Ibid. 

159 Interview with General-Colonel O. Kuzmuk, Minister of 

Defense, 1996-2001, Republic of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine, February 

5, 2003.

160 Interview with Lt. Colonel Victor F. Kuzminskiy, SOATIC 

Representative, Ukrainian Air Force, Kiev, Ukraine, November 7, 

2002.
181

161 For the participants and purpose of the meeting see, Report, 

Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 3, 

“Decommissioning ...”, p.28. For General Kuenning’s biography 

see, Biography, United States Air Force, “Brigadier General Thomas 

E. Kuenning, Jr,” www.af.mil/bios.

162 See, Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” Chapter 3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, transport, 

environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 missiles in 

the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998.”, pp.28-

30.

163 Interview, Barrett Haver, CTR Program Manager for Heavy 

Bomber Elimination, Raytheon technical Services Company, Kiev, 

Ukraine, February 1,2000. 

164 Report, Professor Director Eduard Prokhach, Director, 

Kharkiv Scientific Research Center of Military Ecology, Kiev, 

Ukraine, June 6, 2000.

165 Ibid.; Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 

1991-2002,” Chapter 3,“Decommissioning, missile removal, 

transport, environmental survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 

missiles in the 43rd Rocket Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 

1998.”, pp.28-30; Briefing, SNAE Program Management Review, 

“Elimination of Tu-160, Tu-95MS Heavy Bombers and Kh-55 

ALCMS in Ukraine”, U.S.-Ukraine Program Management Review, 

Kiev, Ukraine May 14-18 2001.

166 Interview with LTC Jack Sajevic, U.S. Army, Start Treaty 

Nuclear Division, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February 24, 

2000., and Interview with Lt. Colonel Victor F. Kuzminskiy, SOATIC 

Representative, Ukrainian Air Force, Kiev, Ukraine, November 7, 

2002.

167 Interview, Barrett Haver, CTR Program Manager for Heavy 

Bomber Elimination, Raytheon Technical Services Company, Kiev, 

Ukraine, February 1, 2000.

168 See news articles cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine 

Profile, Bomber Decommissioning and Transfer Developments, 

“Ukraine Offers Russia 10 Strategic Bombers to Cancel Gas Debt,” 

and “Ukraine sends Russia first two Strategic Bombers,” pp4-5, 

www.nti.org/e_research/profiles.

169 Interview with Major Donald Parman, CTR Project Officer, 

CT Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, September 2, 

2002.

170 Ibid. What it took to break these logjams is never completely 

clear. Certainly these cooperative assistance projects suffered 

numerous delays over the years.

171 Interview with Jack Sajevic, Program Manager for Heavy 

Bomber Elimination, Raytheon Technical services Company, Kiev, 

Ukraine, February 22, 2002.

172 Interview with Andre Kukin, President, Ukrainian Cargo 

Airways, Kiev, Ukraine, November 13, 2002.

173 Ibid. 

174 Interview with Lt. Colonel Victor F. Kuzminskiy, SOATIC 

Representative, Ukrainian Air Force, Kiev, Ukraine, November 7, 

2002.

175 Report, Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-

2002,” Chapter 4, “Continuing work by the 43rd Rocket Army 

on the missile removal, transport, environment surveys, and silo 

destruction in the SS-24 regiments during 1999-2001,” p 13-14.

176 Interview with Major Donald Parman, CTR Project Officer, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, September 2, 

2002; Interview John Connell, Program Manager, CTR Directorate, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, February 

16, 2001. For program tracking see, CTR Program Office, DOD, 

CTR Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2002, pp III-30; Report, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency “U.S.–Ukraine 

Overview of Implementation”, October 2002.

177 For program tracking see, CTR Program Office, DOD, CTR 

Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2006, pp. 28-32.

178 Briefing, Commander Mike Johnson, USN, CTR Program 

Manager for Ukraine, “Ukraine, Program Management Review: 

Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination, and Weapons of Mass 

Destruction Infrastructure Elimination,” to U.S.-Ukraine Program 

Management Review, Kiev, Ukraine, June 4, 2002.

179 For program description see, CTR Program Office, DOD, 

CTR Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2006, pp 28-29.

180 U.S. Department of State, “Proliferation Security Initiative,” 

September 15, 2003, www.state.gov/pa/ei/rls ; Stephen G. 

Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, “The 

Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI): A record of Success,” 

Testimony before the House International Relations Committee, 

June 9, 2005, in U.S. State Department, www.state.gov/t/ac/rls/

rm Robert G. Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and 

International Security, “The Bush administration Approach to 

Combating the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” 

Remarks to Carnegie International proliferation Conference, 

Washington, D.C., November 7, 2005, in U.S. State Department, 

www.state.gov/t/us/rm

181 For a summary of these programs see the Statement, Robert 

G. Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International 

Security, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., 

February 9, 2006, in U.S. State Department, www.state.gov/t/us/

rm60894.htm.

182 For a description of the program see, CTR Program Office, 

DOD, CTR Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2006, pp 58-60.

183 The basic Implementing Agreement is: “Agreement between 

the United States of America and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine 

Concerning Cooperation in the area of Prevention of Proliferation 

of Technology, Pathogens, and Expertise that could be used in 

the development of Biological Weapons, August 29, 2005, Kiev, 

Ukraine.

184 See Nuclear Threat Initiative, Ukraine Profile, Missile 

Chronology, “43rd Rocket Army Disbands,” August 20, 2002, 

www.nti.org/e_research/profiles. For quote, see, Report, General 

Mikhtyuk, “Status of the 43rd Rocket Army, 1991-2002,” Chapter 

3, “Decommissioning, missile removal, transport, environmental 

survey, and silo destruction of the SS-19 missiles in the 43rd Rocket 

Army during 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998.”, p.35.

183

CHAPTER 7

Kazakhstan Translates Inherited Weakness

into Regional Strength

When Kazakhstan became a nation in 1991 it was a weak 

state. Its national borders were unknown and unsecured. It 

had no army, navy or air force. In the past, the Soviet Union 

had stationed strategic nuclear and conventional military 

forces on its territory. Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces equipped 

with SS-18 ICBMs (104 missiles, 1,040 nuclear warheads) 

were based at Zhangiz-Tobe, Derzhavinsk, Leninsk and 

Semipalatinsk. Soviet Air Forces equipped with 47 Tu-92M 

bombers and 320 nuclear cruise missiles operated from the 

air base at Chagan. During the Cold War, successive Soviet 

governments had constructed and operated large, modern 

missile, aeronautical and nuclear weapons test ranges in the 

Kazakhstan republic. After 1991, Russia assumed control 

of the operational strategic forces and test ranges, most 

importantly the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapons Proving 

Ground and the Baykonur Space Launch Complex. At the 

vast 18,000 square-kilometer Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, 

Soviet nuclear testing engineers and weapon designers had 

conducted 456 test nuclear explosions: 340 underground and 

116 atmospheric. Semipalatinsk’s Degelen Mountain range 

was the largest underground nuclear test site in the world, 

with 186 separate tunnels cut into the natural mountains. At 

the large 6,700 square-kilometer cosmodrome at Baykonur, 

Soviet missile experts launched most of the nation’s military 

and industrial satellites.1

In addition, Kazakhstan had within the new nation, 

nuclear testing and storage facilities at Kokshetan, a nuclear 

breeder reactor at Agtan, several missile tracking and 

monitoring stations, a nuclear manufacturing complex at 

Ust-Kamenogorsk, a chemical weapons production plant 

in Pavlodar, and biological weapons plants and institutes 

in Stepnogorsk and Almaty. Other enterprises and plants 

fabricated beryillium and nuclear reactor fuels. In Oral, 

Soviet-era plants manufactured heavy machine guns for tanks 

and anti-ship missiles for the navy. In Petropavl, a missile 

plant produced SS-21 missiles, and other military industrial 

plants produced naval torpedoes, military communications 

systems, artillery, armored vehicles and tactical missile 

launchers. Kazakhstan had more than 50 military-industrial 

enterprises, employing approximately 75,000 workers. Not 

included in this number were thousands of skilled technical 

and scientific people working at the space launch center and 

underground nuclear test sites. 

Within the Kazakh government in 1991, few if any 

ministers or elected officials knew the full extent of these 

military-industrial enterprises, military forces, chemical 

and biological plants, test ranges, and especially the nuclear 

weapons and uranium storage areas. Everything had been 

kept secret. However, President Nursultan Nazarbayev did 

know that Kazakhstan was an unprotected, vast nation 

(2.7 million square kilometers) with a small population 

(15 million) whose economy was directly linked with 

the Soviet Union’s planned military-industrial economic 

system. Among the newly independent Central Asian 

nations, Kazakhstan had inherited the largest number of 

Soviet-era military-industrial scientific enterprises. President 

Nazarbayev and his ministers recognized another important 

reality: Russia’s powerful ministries had assumed that for the 

foreseeable future they would control most, if not all of these 

military-industrial enterprises and complexes.2
184

With Courage and Persistence

Consequently, in the initial months of independence 

Nazarbayev adopted military polices that supported the 

Commonwealth of Independent States and creation of a 

CIS Armed Forces. Kazakhstan did not establish a national 

army, unlike Ukraine, which set up its army, navy, air 

force, and defense ministry within weeks of national 

independence. Instead, Nazarbayev supported Yeltsin and 

Marshal Shaposhnikov as they set about establishing the 

Russian-dominated CIS Armed Forces. Its multinational 

forces would incorporate not only the region’s strategic 

nuclear forces, but also all conventional forces located in 

the newly independent states. When this effort failed in 

the spring of 1992, Nazarbayev resisted forming a national 

army until every other new state, including Russia, had 

acted.3

 In economic policy, Nazarbayev sought economic 

integration with Russia. In foreign affairs, Kazakhstan’s 

president supported Russia’s leadership at CIS summits, 

regional meetings and in new economic initiatives.4

Kazakhstan was an exceptionally weak nation, far from the 

center of power and with few military allies in the region. 

Four developments during the formative years, 1992-1994, 

changed Kazakhstan’s course from a nation with inherited 

weakness into one with regional leadership and influence.

Four developments

The first concerned Russia, directly. As a consequence 

of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s centralized command 

economy, President Yeltsin and the Russian government 

inherited an economy in free fall.5

 Russia declared it would 

assume the USSR’s debts, including its massive balance of 

payments deficit. Within a few months the new nation’s 

currency reserves fell drastically. Coincidently, tax receipts into 

the government declined sharply. The Russian Duma reacted 

by slashing budgets of the “power” ministries: defense, atomic 

energy and industrial enterprises. Across Russia the command 

economy ground to a halt. Externally in Belarus, Ukraine, 

Kazakhstan and the new Central Asian nations, the militaryindustrial sectors declined rapidly. In Ukraine and Belarus, 

the governments adopted a fiscal policy of promoting full 

Nunn Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction projects in Kazakhstan

MC&A

Export Control

Gov Comm Links

Emergency Response

Derzhavinsk

Tyuratam (Leninsk)

Test Facility

Degelen Mtn

Ust-Kamenogors

Semipalatinsk

(Balapan)

Zhangiz-Tobe

ALMATY

1,040 

Nuclear

Warheads

Degelen Mtn

Tunnels Sealed

Project

Sapphire

Silo

Destruction

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
185

employment by funding the defense enterprises with inflated 

currencies. The consequences were disastrous. Kazakhstan 

was a much smaller and weaker nation. Its economic policy 

supported integration with Russia, but the government did 

not move to subsidize the large, failing military-industrial 

enterprises. As Russian factory orders for military equipment 

manufactured in Kazakhstan declined, Russian financial 

support for the Baykonur space cosmodrome fell drastically. 

In the Russian Duma all new appropriations for the nuclear 

weapons testing complex at Semipalatinsk collapsed.6

Since the Baykonur and Semipalatinsk testing complexes 

were “virtually Slav enclaves, operated and guarded by highly 

skilled and highly privileged personnel,” they experienced 

the most rapid decline in living standards.7

 Between 1992 

and 1994 many Russian scientists, technicians and their 

families packed up and left Kazakhstan. In Baykonur, the 

complex’s dormitory city, Tyuratum, the population fell by 

a third with more than 30,000 people emigrating by the 

winter of 1994. Many of the city’s basic municipal services 

stopped, school buildings closed, entire blocks of apartment 

buildings were abandoned, food supplies were uncertain 

and fuel deliveries were irregular. Kazakh newspapers 

reported that theft was common, both of personal and 

state property. One observer found that “buildings were 

being stripped of everything that can possibly be moved, 

including cables and strips of sheet metal. Silver-nickel 

plates from solar batteries were especially prized.”8

At the Baykonur cosmodrome, launch sites and 

facilities deteriorated from lack of funds, harsh winter 

conditions and the absence of skilled technical personnel. 

At the Nuclear Weapons Proving Ground at Semipalatinsk, 

Russian scientists and their families began emigrating 

in significant numbers. President Nazarbayev declared 

a moratorium on nuclear testing in 1991. The following 

year, President Yeltsin issued a moratorium from Russia. 

Consequently, many Russian nuclear scientists saw little 

prospect for further testing at Semipalatinsk. Russian 

funding for the testing complex fell swiftly. All across 

Kazakhstan, military-industrial scientific enterprises were 

declining rapidly. Eventually, entire factories were simply 

abandoned. One unexpected consequence of this economic 

collapse across Kazakhstan, virtually all caused by the 

demise of Russia’s command economy, was that President 

Nazarbayev and the government began seeking foreign 

investments for developing the nation’s oil and gas fields. 

They also sought foreign aid to reorient and stimulate the 

economy.

The second development was also a direct consequence 

of the Soviet Union’s economic collapse. Stationed on 

Kazakhstan’s territory were thousands of former Soviet 

military forces – strategic rocket forces, long-range air forces, 

air defense units, conventional armies, artillery units, naval 

units and even military cosmonaut organizations. Initially 

President Nazarbayev acquiesced to Yeltsin and Marshal 

Shaposhnikov’s military solution to place these forces into 

the CIS Armed Forces. When this policy was rejected in the 

spring of 1992 by Ukraine, Georgia and other CIS nations, 

Russia’s General Staff drew up a plan to apportion all 

former USSR military forces to the new nations based on the 

principle of in situ: where the forces were located is where 

they would remain. In May 1992, when the CIS nations’ 

defense ministers met in Tashkent they approved the General 

Staff’s plan for dividing up the former empire’s enormous 

military arsenal. At the same time, CIS leaders signed the 

Collective Security Treaty of Tashkent, in which they agreed 

that aggression against one nation would be treated as 

aggression against all. This treaty reduced Kazakhstan’s fears 

about its unprotected borders. Then in mid-May, Chinese 

leaders declared in a formal letter to Kazakhstan that its 

government would relinquish all claims to Kazakh territory.9

As a result of these military and diplomatic developments, 

perceptions that Kazakhstan was a weak, vulnerable nation 

diminished.

The major exceptions to the in situ rule were the 

strategic nuclear forces in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus, 

which remained under operational command of the CIS 

Armed Forces. In May 1992 these three nations agreed, 

under pressure from the United States, Russia, Europe and 

Japan, to become non-nuclear states by signing the Lisbon 

Protocols to the START Treaty and by acceding to the Nuclear 

Nonproliferation Treaty. When they became signatories 

to these treaties, the United States recognized Kazakhstan, 

Ukraine and Belarus as legal successor states to the Soviet 

Union. In this treaty, these nations were coequal with Russia. 

It was understood that these three nations would dismantle 

and destroy the strategic weapons located on their territories, 

follow the treaty’s elimination schedules and return nuclear 

warheads to the Russian Federation. At the time and in 

subsequent years, Ukrainian leaders argued their nation 

owned, but did not control weapons and nuclear warheads 
186

With Courage and Persistence

on its territory. Consequently, Ukraine would retain weapons 

and warheads until it received security guarantees and 

adequate compensation. Belarusian leaders never claimed 

ownership, agreeing to send the weapons to Russia’s Strategic 

Rocket Forces. Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev participated in 

all regional summit meetings, met frequently with Yeltsin, 

watched events unfolding in Belarus and Ukraine, but he 

refrained from signing any bilateral strategic nuclear force 

agreements with Russia in 1992 or 1993.10

The third development was the most dramatic. The 

Russian General Staff grew increasingly frustrated as 

they watched diplomatic and military developments. 

Kazakhstan’s president and defense minister met frequently 

with Russian military and foreign ministry officials. They 

discussed a series of agreements that would define the legal 

rights of Russian military forces in Kazakhstan, Russian use 

of the military and aeronautical test ranges, procedures for 

officers transferring between national armies, procedures 

for joint officer training and plans for future use of the 

Baykonur cosmodrome. Nazarbayev and his ministers 

were tough negotiators, discussing numerous agreements, 

but signing very few.11 As negotiations stalled, the Russian 

General Staff ordered Russian military commanders 

in Kazakhstan to prepare their forces, weapons and 

equipment for relocation to Russian military bases. Despite 

the “in situ” principle, Russian pilots flew Tu-95M bombers 

out of Kazakhstan to military bases in Russia.12 Russia’s 

12th Main Directorate, commanded by Lieutenant General 

Yevgeny Maslin, sent special teams of nuclear technicians 

into SS-18 rocket divisions stationed in Kazakhstan. They 

began packaging and shipping the first of 1,040 nuclear 

warheads from Kazakhstan to Russia. In late 1992, Russia’s 

Strategic Rocket Forces ordered the 33rd Guards’ Rocket 

Army and its 38th Missile Division at Derzhavinsk and the 

57th Missile Division at Zhangiz-Tobe to initiate operations 

to remove SS-18 missiles from silos, defuel and load them 

into special military transport containers for shipment to 

Russia. By the end of 1993, the 33rd Guards’ Rocket Army 

had decommissioned and deactivated all of its 104 SS-18 

ICBMs and had shipped 120 warheads to Russia.13

Kazakhstan’s government protested these military 

movements, but since they controlled none of the forces, 

their protests were ignored. Eventually the reality of these 

strategic force relocations as well as the signing of the January 

1994 Trilateral Agreement, which resolved Ukraine’s nuclear 

status, and Yeltsin’s desire to settle all existing nuclear force 

issues, prompted Nazarbayev to sign a series of international 

treaties and bilateral agreements with Russia in 1994 and 

1995.14 These Russian-Kazakhstan agreements resolved the 

status of the strategic nuclear forces stationed in Kazakhstan, 

determined the amount of Russian compensation for 

the uranium materials in strategic and tactical nuclear 

weapons, set the level of Russian compensation for the 

strategic bombers and affirmed explicit security guarantees. 

When these developments were viewed in the short term, it 

seemed Nazarbayev had agreed to the demands of Yeltsin 

and the Russian General Staff. If seen longer term, however, 

Russia’s withdrawal of strategic bombers and rocket forces, 

its commitments to compensation and its pledge of security 

guarantees for the territorial integrity of the new nation all 

strengthened Kazakhstan and allowed it to turn to developing 

its oil and gas resources and promoting new regional and 

international alliances with China, Central Asian nations, 

Europe and the United States.

Kazakhstan’s engagement with the United States 

constituted the fourth development. In mid-December 1991 

Kazakhstan President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev (RIA Novosti)

RIA Novosti
187

just as the Soviet Union was collapsing, U.S. Secretary of State 

James Baker flew into Almaty for meetings with President 

Nazarbayev. Baker met with Yeltsin and Shaposhnikov 

in Moscow, and then flew eastward to Kyrgyzstan and 

Kazakhstan, and back to Ukraine and Belarus. When 

he arrived in Almaty in mid-December, he met with 

President Nazarbayev and they discussed the new nation’s 

independence, the new Commonwealth of Independent 

States, U.S. diplomatic recognition, humanitarian aid, and 

the advantages and disadvantages of denuclearization. 

Nazarbayev told Baker he would sign and secure ratification 

of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since he wanted 

international recognition for Kazakhstan and assurances of 

its territorial integrity.15 Since nuclear non-proliferation lay 

at the heart of U.S. foreign policy objectives, Baker assured 

Nazarbayev the United States would grant diplomatic 

recognition and move quickly to have an American 

ambassador and an embassy staff in place and working in 

Kazakhstan.16

Nazarbayev’s critical decision

During the late winter and spring months of 1992 

Nazarbayev wavered in his commitment to denuclearize 

the nation. Secretary Baker called and wrote him repeatedly, 

emphasizing that Kazakhstan would receive economic aid, 

military assistance, and international political recognition, if 

he followed through on his previous public announcements 

to sign and ratify the NPT treaty. Then in late May, following 

confluence of the new regional CIS collective security 

treaties, the Russian General Staff’s decision to partition the 

former USSR’s conventional forces and the Chinese letter 

of non-interference, Baker persuaded Nazarbayev to travel 

to Washington and meet with President Bush. There for the 

first time publicly, Nazarbayev pledged to sign and ratify 

START I, its new protocols and to join the NPT Treaty as a 

non-nuclear state. From Washington he traveled to Lisbon, 

Portugal where he signed the treaties. He then declared 

in a side letter to Bush and Yeltsin that all SS-18 missiles 

located on Kazakhstan’s territory would be removed within 

the treaty’s seven-year requirement. Six weeks later, the 

Kazakh parliament ratified the START Treaty on July 2, 1992. 

Kazakhstan was the first nation to ratify the treaty, acting 

ahead of the other signatories: United States, Russia, Belarus, 

and Ukraine.17

The next step, Kazakhstan’s ratification of the NPT 

Treaty took nearly 18 months. In those months Russia’s 

economy weakened further, Yeltsin’s political status fell 

dramatically, even being challenged by a coup in the Russian 

parliament, and Ukraine’s government and parliament 

seemed incapable of resolving its economic, military and 

foreign relations. The United States changed its national 

political administration, replacing its senior leaders with 

new people and emphasizing new policies. In late summer 

1993, Ambassador James Goodby and Gloria Duffy from 

DOD, visited Kazakhstan and negotiated provisions for the 

initial CTR agreement. Then in October 1993, Secretary 

of State Warren Christopher visited several nations in the 

region, including Kazakhstan where he met with President 

Nazarbayev. Christopher wanted Nazarbayev to sign the CTR 

umbrella agreement that would set the terms for American 

financial and technical assistance for eliminating the START 

Treaty weapons and systems. Nazarbayev refused, insisting 

he travel to Washington, meet with President Clinton and 

sign the agreement there.18

Interestingly, Clinton’s National Security Council staff 

recommended the president agree to Nazarbayev’s demand, 

but use it to extract a promise that he would act to sign the 

bilateral CTR umbrella agreement and persuade the national 

National Archives - Presidential Materials Division

Vice President Albert Gore and President Nursultan Nazarbayev, 

December 1993
188

With Courage and Persistence

parliament to ratify the NPT Treaty. Following several weeks 

of diplomatic negotiations, Vice President Al Gore flew 

into Almaty in mid-December for a series of meetings with 

Kazakhstan’s president. Gore formally invited Nazarbayev to 

the White House. Then, the two men signed the first U.S.-

Kazakhstan CTR umbrella agreement. In that document, 

the United States pledged up to $84 million in missile and 

bomber dismantlement and other nuclear weapons-related 

assistance. Gore announced the United States would invest 

almost $200 million in economic assistance in Kazakhstan 

and the other Central Asian nations over the next three 

years. When Gore inquired about the status of NPT Treaty 

ratification, Nazarbayev telephoned the parliament’s leader, 

ordered a vote, and within hours they had approved the 

treaty’s ratification by 238-1.19

For Nazarbayev and Kazakhstan the two declarations, 

one endorsing the international nonproliferation treaty, 

the other securing U.S. assistance for dismantling the 

nations’ nuclear inheritance had significant consequences. 

Later Nazarbayev published a book on Kazakhstan’s 

nuclear inheritance, and recalled the days when the 

“historic decision” was made to become a non-nuclear 

state. 20 He explained that he and his advisors had analyzed 

the factors in remaining a nuclear state. In rejecting that 

status, they decided that if Kazakhstan possessed nuclear 

weapons, “we automatically would represent a potential 

military threat for practically every country in the world, 

at least to those in range of our delivery systems – the 

missile and aviation complexes. We cannot allow others 

to regard our county as a conditional enemy, just as we 

cannot allow other countries to be seen as possible strategic 

targets.” Nazarbayev emphasized that Kazakhstan’s nonnuclear status coincided with its strategy of constructing 

new foreign relations with states in the region and the 

world. “It is impossible,” he wrote, “to live normally in the 

community of states, especially while conducting an active 

policy of external integration, and continually threaten 

with or be threatened by a nuclear attack.”21 President 

Nazarbayev not only signed and secured ratification of the 

Non-Proliferation Treaty; he became a leader in the region 

advocating arms control treaties, weapons agreements, 

diplomatic alliances and cooperative programs. Under 

Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan in the 1990s followed a consistent 

nonproliferation policy, ridding the nation of the residue of 

its inherited weapons of mass destruction.

First U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR agreement

When William H. Courtney, the first U.S. Ambassador 

to Kazakhstan, arrived in Almaty in early February 1992, it 

was just in time to meet the initial American Provide Hope 

flight delivering medical supplies and food.22 During the 

next three months, Ambassador Courtney had numerous 

meetings with President Nazarbayev and his senior advisors, 

and in May the two men traveled to Washington to meet 

with President Bush. Courtney had extensive experience 

negotiating arms control treaties and agreements, and had 

worked closely with the Kazakh president and his advisors on 

the START Treaty’s Lisbon Protocols the and accompanying 

side letters to the Russian and American presidents. A keen 

observer of the region’s shifting relationships, especially with 

the new states and the larger, dominant Russian Federation, 

Courtney watched how Nazarbayev and his senior ministers 

used the U.S.-Kazakhstan relationship to develop a foreign 

policy of international engagement with the United Nations, 

the International Atomic Energy Agency, Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe, and new regional 

multilateral organizations.

In the realm of international economics, Kazakhstan 

pursued foreign investment and modern technologies to 

develop oil fields in the Tengiz region of the Caspian Sea 

basin. The United States government facilitated American 

oil and gas corporations interested in investing in the new 

nation, and the ambassador and small embassy staff assisted 

these firms in establishing government contacts, meetings 

and contracts. Yet perhaps the American ambassador’s 

most important work in the initial years was implementing 

cooperative policies and programs with Kazakhstan in the 

area of non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological 

weapons. Courtney was present in Almaty on December 13, 

1993 when Vice President Gore and President Nazarbayev 

signed the first U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR Umbrella Agreement.

The first CTR agreement, entitled “Destruction of Silo 

Launchers of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Emergency 

Response, and the Prevention of Proliferation of Nuclear 

Weapons” had been negotiated by Ambassador James E. 

Goodby and Foreign Minister Bolat Nourgaliev in the fall 

of 1993. 23 It stipulated that the United States government 

would assist the Republic of Kazakhstan in destruction of 

the SS-18 silo launchers and establishment of verifiable 

measures against proliferation of nuclear weapons. In 
189

addition, the agreement outlined U.S. assistance for 

expansion of an emergency response system to be used by 

Kazakhstan as the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces removed 

and transported nuclear weapons systems out of the nation. 

The U.S. pledged other assistance related to destruction of 

strategic offensive arms located in Kazakhstan. This vague 

wording was simply a diplomatic device to indicate that 

the U.S. would provide assistance if any strategic bombers 

remained on its territory. The parties then identified the 

framework agreement’s executive agents, the Department of 

Defense for the United States and the Ministry of Defense for 

Kazakhstan. To accomplish the umbrella agreement’s terms 

and objectives, these ministries were empowered to enter 

into other implementing agreements.

Susan Koch from the Department of Defense, and 

General Alibek Kasymov, Chief of Kazakhstan’s Armed 

Forces, signed five implementing agreements that same day.24

In the first, DOD committed to provide up to $70 million for 

the “provision of material, services and related training to 

Kazakhstan in connection with destruction of silo launchers 

and associated equipment and components.” The figure 

of $70 million was based on estimates developed by U.S. 

CTR officials in Washington. However, the implementing 

agreement set up a process for the Kazakhstan Ministry of 

Defense to further refine and describe their requirements 

for materials and services within 60 days and for the U.S. 

Defense Department to respond to these new requirements 

within another 60 days. The second implementing agreement 

committed up to $5 million for emergency response 

equipment and training. The third provided assistance for 

establishing a government-to-government communications 

link that would facilitate official notification of START 

Treaty data and receipt of messages concerning inspection 

teams arriving and departing Kazakhstan. Essentially, this 

agreement called for the purchase and delivery of computers, 

printers and training. The U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR umbrella 

agreement and bilateral implementing agreements were 

quite similar to ones signed in Ukraine two weeks earlier. 

Containing the same legal clauses, they protected the 

United States from customs duties, internal taxes and legal 

suits against its officials or agents. They included the same 

provisions for logistics, training and maintenance of the 

U.S.-provided equipment. And just like in CTR agreements 

that U.S. officials signed with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, 

the ones initialed in Almaty, Kazakhstan that December, 

focused American assistance on eliminating those strategic 

offensive weapons systems included in the START Treaty.25

An unexpected project: Project Sapphire

Despite this considerable diplomatic and legal 

foundation, the first urgent nonproliferation project with 

Kazakhstan had nothing to do the START Treaty. Known as 

Project Sapphire, this effort was one of the most spectacular 

projects of the entire post-Cold War years. It began quietly in 

Kazakhstan’s first year of independence. In the fall of 1992 

Professor Vladimir Sergeyev Shkolnik, the newly appointed 

director of the Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Agency visited the 

Ulbinsky (Ulba) Metallurgy Plant. There Vitalii Mette, the 

plant director, explained that one building in the industrial 

complex warehoused more than 1,000 containers of highlyenriched uranium (HEU).26 This information was closely 

guarded; few government officials knew of its existence. 

Apparently, these weapons-grade materials, approximately 

several hundred kilograms of HEU, enough to make 20-

25 nuclear weapons, had been produced at the complex in 

the previous decade as fuel for nuclear propulsion reactors 

designed to power the Soviet Navy’s Alfa model submarines. 

When that program ceased, the HEU containers at the Ulba 

Metallurgy Plant remained in storage, becoming part of 

Kazakhstan’s nuclear inheritance in the 1990s.

In May 1992, President Nazarbayev signed the United 

Nation’s NPT Treaty, committing Kazakhstan to open all of its 

nuclear facilities and nuclear materials to periodic inspections 

Susan Koch (c.) and DTRA Director Dr. Jay Davis

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
190

With Courage and Persistence

and monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy 

Agency (IAEA). Then in February 1993, Director Shkolnik 

accompanied a small IAEA team to the Ulba plant complex 

as part of a pre-safeguards inspection visit in preparation for 

Kazakhstan ratifying and formally joining the NPT Treaty. 

While there is no indication the UN inspectors saw the 

stored HEU containers, it is clear that Kazakhstan’s Atomic 

Energy Agency officials would have to eventually inspect the 

facility and document its materials. As the year progressed 

President Nazarbayev and his senior advisors decided in July 

1993 that they must either secure and guard the Ulba plant 

to international standards required by the IAEA’s safeguards 

program, or remove the HEU materials altogether. At that 

point they contacted Ambassador Courtney, seeking advice. 

The quantity of enriched uranium was not conveyed. 27

According to William C. Potter, a scholar who researched 

this project carefully, Courtney made an urgent request to the 

U.S. State Department and the National Security Council. 

Using diplomatic channels, the State Department contacted 

senior officials in the Russian government’s Ministries 

of Foreign Affairs and Atomic Energy. They denied any 

knowledge of the HEU stored at the Ulba plant. Kazakhstan’s 

government also made inquiries to Russia. A year later, at a 

press conference, Vitalii Mette, the plant director, declared, “We 

offered to give it (the HEU) to Russia, but Russia refused.”28

Consequently, Ambassador Courtney received instructions 

in late summer 1993 to pursue the matter further with the 

Kazakhstan government. The ambassador’s political military 

officer, Andrew Weber, had been secretly contacted by Mette 

earlier. Mette wanted to sell the uranium to the United States. 

Weber listened and tried to find out the exact quantity and 

enrichment level. The entire issue moved slowly forward 

in the fall months as Ambassador Courtney and Director 

Shkolnik held more informal discussions. It was the period 

that coincided with U.S.-Kazakhstan negotiations over the 

CTR framework agreement and subsequent implementing 

documents. These discussions on the HEU materials in 

Kazakhstan set in motion a year-long effort, one filled with 

drama and unusual twists and turns. 

In Washington, National Security Council officials wanted 

answers to a series of questions before they would recommend 

that the U.S. government make any commitments. Specifically, 

they wanted to know the quality and quantity of the HEU 

stored in containers in the Kazakhstan warehouse. Then, they 

wanted to know if it were possible for the U.S. to provide the 

new nation with material and financial assistance to safeguard 

the plant, or should they plan to secure, package and transport 

these materials to the United States for safekeeping. Next, they 

asked what would be the Russian government’s reaction if 

the nuclear materials were removed from Kazakhstan. What 

would be the proper level of compensation to Kazakhstan 

for the nuclear materials? And finally, they asked which U.S. 

government department should be responsible for conducting 

the operation, accepting the materials and carrying out the 

reprocessing? Within the U.S. government, these questions 

were not only unusual, but the answers were complex and 

required resolution of numerous legal, financial, policy and 

bureaucratic issues.

The first question proved to be easiest to answer. President 

Nazarbayev came to Washington and met with President 

Clinton in early 1994. In a side meeting, Kazakhstan’s 

president agreed to allow American officials to travel to the 

plant and survey the nuclear materials. In February 1994, 

Elwood Gift, a nuclear engineer from the Department of 

Energy’s Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant, and Andrew Weber from the 

U.S. Embassy traveled to the plant, examined the storage 

U.S. Ambassador William H. Courtney

U.S. Embassy, Astana, Kazakhstan
191

area, sampled the materials and assayed the U-235 levels. 

Gift’s findings revealed that the HUE materials had been 

enriched to approximately 90 percent, which meant it was 

definitely weapons-grade uranium. Further, the amount 

was approximately 600 kilograms, far more than American 

officials had anticipated.29 According to Ambassador 

Courtney, Weber reported two other issues that caused 

alarm. Physical security at the Ulba plant was far below 

standards. “There was metal fence,” Courtney explained, 

“and a babushka, or a woman who would open the metal 

fence. People could drive their personal cars into and out 

of the facility without being checked. Padlocks were pretty 

primitive. There were no alarms by normal standards.”30

Webber also reported that the factory had packing crates, 

marked for shipping to Iran. This information was 

alarming, since some analysts believed Iran was seeking 

weapons-grade materials. In Washington, Gift’s scientific 

conclusions and Webber’s observations exploded on the 

meeting tables and desks of senior policymakers, forcing 

decisions and action.

National Security Council officials convened seniorlevel interagency meetings. Ashton Carter from DOD, 

Robert Gallucci from State Department, and Dan Poneman 

from NSC, each responsible for nonproliferation policy, 

met and decided that the Defense Department should take 

the lead in coordinating U.S. efforts to secure the HEU at 

the Ulba plant in Kazakhstan. Carter asked Jeffery Starr, 

Principal Director for Special Operations Program Support 

in the Department of Defense, to lead a special interagency 

“tiger team” responsible for defining options, coordinating 

proposals and conducting operations. Rather quickly, Starr’s 

team decided the U.S. government should recommend to 

Kazakhstan that materials should be packaged, transported, 

stored and then reprocessed in U.S. Department of Energy 

(DOE) facilities, ones under IAEA standards. Kazakhstan 

should be compensated financially and materially. They 

proposed that the U.S. Air Force fly in military aircraft and 

remove the large quantity of weapons-grade materials. 

Finally, they recommended the project be treated as secret 

and the information closely held within the government.

In March 1994 the National Security Council and 

the President agreed with the recommended proposals, 

and Ambassador Courtney met with Director Shkolnik, 

Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency, explaining the 

proposal and its complexities. Then Courtney accompanied 

Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Nourgaliev and Director 

Shkolnik as they traveled to Washington where U.S. officials 

proposed purchasing the HEU materials for $16,000 per 

kilogram, with the total reaching approximately $10 million. 

The next month the U.S. recommended a formal bilateral 

agreement, including informal consultation with the Russian 

government. Kazakhstan agreed. During a high-level visit to 

Washington in June, Vice President Gore informed Russian 

Prime Minister Chernomyrdin about the U.S. – Kazakhstan 

agreement on removal of the nuclear materials to the United 

States. Recognizing a fait accompli, the Russian prime 

minister agreed. Consequently by late June, diplomatic and 

policy hurdles had been cleared, leaving the way open for 

removal operations to commence in the summer 1994. 

Additional glitches, however, within one government and 

then the other delayed work until fall. President Clinton 

authorized the Project Sapphire operation to begin in early 

October 1994.

What happened was remarkable. American and Kazakh 

nuclear, chemical and industrial engineers, health physicists, 

packing experts, safety engineers, doctors and Russian 

interpreters worked together at the plant for six weeks 

to inventory, package and safeguard the HEU materials. 

According to Potter, “about two-thirds of the materiel 

designated for repacking and transport, which totaled 

approximately 2.37 metric tons (581 kilotons of HEU), 

was in the form of various beryllium-HEU alloys, including 

machine scrap and powder.”31 Since they did not meet IAEA 

Andrew C. Weber

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
192

With Courage and Persistence

standards, the materials had to be removed from the original 

1,000 containers and then repackaged into 1,299 stainless 

steel cans. These cans were then put into 55-gallon drums 

for transport by truck to a nearby airport and then airlifted 

to the United States. Alex Riedy, a DOE scientist led the 

31-person American team, while Director Shkolnik, Shamil 

T. Tukhvatulin, and a small Kazakh team led the Kazakh 

effort. The work was quite difficult and hazardous; the teams 

worked long days preparing materials for transport; first by 

road and then by airlift to the United States. On November 

19-20, 1994, two U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo aircraft landed in 

Kazakhstan bringing 40,000 pounds of medical and food 

assistance. Two days later, they lifted off the runway at UstKamenogorsk air base carrying the highly enriched uranium 

to a military base in the U.S., where it was loaded onto a 

truck convoy and transported to the storage facility in Oak 

Ridge, Tennessee.

A day after the aircraft arrived in the United States, 

Secretary of Defense Perry, Secretary of State Christopher, and 

Secretary of Energy O’Leary held a joint news conference at 

the Pentagon, explaining the secret project to the American 

public and the world. 32 Christopher praised the cooperation 

and courage of Kazakhstan’s leaders and characterized the 

operation as a “landmark event” in President Clinton’s 

non-proliferation strategy. He stated categorically that the 

administration had made non-proliferation a foreign policy 

goal for the 1990s. O’Leary praised Congressional support 

and reaffirmed that the HEU materials would be stored in 

DOE’s Oak Ridge Y-12 plants under IAEA safeguard standards. 

Perry, who was unquestionably the Clinton administration’s 

strongest supporter of cooperative threat reduction, explained 

that Project Sapphire was made possible by the Nunn-Lugar 

program and was “a tremendous success.” Acknowledging 

President Nazarbayev’s leadership, Perry declared, “this is 

global leadership for the post-Cold War era, and it results in no 

small part from the trust, the understanding and cooperation 

building between the United States and Kazakhstan.”33

The United States compensated Kazakhstan for the 

highly enriched uranium, which was subsequently 

reprocessed into fuel for nuclear power plants and sold by 

the U.S. Enrichment Corporation. Kazakhstan received 

between $15-$20 million in cash and materials from this 

commercial sale and from the CTR program. According 

to Minister Shkolnik the government purchased $7.7 

million of medical equipment. Specifically: diagnostic 

equipment, instruments, consumables, syringes and 

clinical systems were sent to five medical institutions in 

the Semipalatinsk oblast.34 The Ulba Metallurgical Plant 

received $2.2 million in medical equipment, and set up 

a patient health-monitoring system equipped with an 

ultrasound monitoring system and a surgical station. Other 

compensation went to Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear 

Center. Through the CTR program, it received eight 

pursuit vehicles equipped with radios and patrol lights, 

five minivans, eight pick-up trucks, four buses, 20 Nikon 

cameras, 102 computers, 80 printers, 10 scanners, 10 

photocopiers, computer software and medical supplies.35 In 

addition, CTR provided equipment worth approximately $2 

million to assist Kazakhstan in establishing a new national 

export control system. The Department of Energy provided 

$500,000 to the Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Committee for 

preparing for and hosting international IAEA inspections of 

the nation’s former nuclear facilities and test sites.36 Seven 

large research and development scientific projects valued 

at $7.8 million were financed through the CTR-sponsored 

Kazakhstan International Science and Technological 

Center. These projects involved many scientists, engineers 

and technicians working at the Semipalatinsk Test Site.

Project Sapphire was an unforeseen and unanticipated 

threat reduction project, one not enumerated in the 

U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR framework or the implementing 

agreements. Interestingly, the next major U.S.-Kazakhstan 

project was also not anticipated in the initial agreements. 

Equally interesting, it involved Director Shkolnik, Dr. 

Tukhvatulin, and some of the same American officials in 

Loading a U.S. Air Force C-5 aircraft with HEU canisters

Department of Defense
193

Kazakhstan. Like Project Sapphire, this one had its origins 

in the first years of Kazakhstan’s independence. In February 

1994, President Nazarbayev and President Clinton signed 

a joint statement requesting that the United States assist 

Kazakhstan in “assessing the consequences” of Soviet 

Nuclear tests at the former Semipalatinsk Test Site.37 After 

a series of joint cooperative analytical studies and lengthy 

bilateral negotiations, that request led directly to a major 

U.S.-Kazakhstan agreement and a CTR project to analyze, 

plan, engineer and seal 181 underground nuclear testing 

tunnels at the Semipalatinsk Degelen Mountain Complex. 

Sealing the Semipalatinsk Degelen 

Mountain nuclear testing tunnels

At the dawn of the Cold, War Stalin’s nuclear physicists 

and military planners decided in 1947 to locate the Soviet 

Union’s first nuclear testing site in the remote, unpopulated, 

arid Semipalatinsk region of the Kazakh Republic. Using 

thousands of military laborers, they constructed a large 

testing complex in a vast plain surrounded on three sides 

by low mountains. The area was lightly populated with 

indigenous Kazakh nomads, grazing their livestock on 

the arid plain. During the Cold War, Soviet governments 

expanded the Semipalatinsk Testing Site several times; 

eventually it encompassed 18,000 square kilometers. 

Between 1949 and 1989, Soviet nuclear weapons designers 

conducted 456 nuclear tests, including 116 atmospheric and 

340 underground tests. Following signing and ratification 

of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1961, Soviet directors at 

Semipalatinsk developed the Degelen Mountain nuclear 

testing complex, which became the largest underground test 

site in the world. Between 1961 and 1989, 224 tests were 

conducted in large tunnels drilled deep into the mountains. 

Underground tests were also conducted at Balapan, southeast 

of Semipalatinsk. There, Soviet weapons designers drilled 

Kazakhstan President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev

RIA Novosti
194

With Courage and Persistence

vertical holes 500-600 meters deep and then excavated a 

circular area at the bottom, of up to 900 meters in diameter 

to accommodate testing devices and instrumentation. The 

last nuclear test conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site 

took place at Balapan in November 1989. Throughout the 

four decades of nuclear testing, Soviet and Russian scientist, 

engineers and military personnel controlled and staffed 

virtually every position at the test site. The death knell 

for Semipalatinsk came in August 1991, when President 

Nazarbayev, then Communist leader of the Kazakh SSR, 

issued a decree shutting down the test site.38

From that point, events moved in an entirely new 

trajectory. Less than a month later, President Gorbachev 

issued a moratorium on all Soviet nuclear testing, and 

following the USSR’s dissolution, President Yeltsin 

reaffirmed that moratorium. Then Nazarbayev signed both 

the START and NPT treaties in May 1992, and established the 

Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Agency, assigning it responsibility 

for interacting with the UN International Atomic Energy 

Agency and its team of inspectors and experts. Approximately 

1.3 million people lived in the region where atmospheric 

tests had been conducted, and President Nazarbayev stated 

that 30,000 people had suffered from radiation exposure. 

He sought international assistance from Russia and the 

international community for people with cancer and other 

sicknesses. Ending nuclear testing and shutting down the 

Semipalatinsk Test Site became a constant, fixed policy for 

Nazarbayev throughout the 1990s and afterward.

When Kazakhstan enacted its first constitution in January 

1993, it established a president-centered unitary government. 

As president, Nazarbayev derived his power from two 

sources: the nation’s new constitution and the fact he was the 

nation’s most popular politician.39 A native Kazakh, born in 

the small rural village of Chemolgan, he worked in the blast 

furnaces at the Karaganda Metal Complex before shifting 

to communist party activities. A natural politician, he rose 

to become the party’s first secretary in 1989; the republic’s 

president in 1990, and then as succession swept over the 

Soviet Union in 1991-1992, Nazarbayev assumed the role 

of Kazakhstan’s national leader. As president, he selected all 

ministers, judges, diplomats, generals, directors, and national 

government and local oblast officials. An autocrat, there were 

few issues the president did not review, decide and approve. 

He never wavered in his decision to shut down Semipalatinsk 

Test Site, seeing it as an important a policy decision as his 

earlier decision to acquiesce in the return of nuclear missiles, 

warheads and bombers to Russia. As leader of a small nation, 

Nazarbayev became an advocate at the United Nations, 

European and regional forums for nonproliferation treaties 

and for international humanitarian and medical assistance 

for victims of nuclear tests. He argued that:

“Shutting down the test site is not simply 

destroying its deadly infrastructure and banning 

more testing. It means long years of rehabilitating 

contaminated lands, recultivating the soil and 

environment, restoring the biopotential, and 

helping the sick and mentally affected people who 

had lived for half a century next door to atomic 

death. That is a long and difficult process.”40

In the first years of independence, Nazarbayev sought 

Russian assistance to close Semipalatinsk and restore the 

testing site’s human and physical environment. Yeltsin and 

his ministers, however, were more interested in securing 

agreements to return to Russia all of the SS-18 missiles, the 

1,040 warheads and strategic bombers.41 In Moscow, Russia’s 

Minister of Atomic Energy (MinAtom) slashed funding for 

the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Consequently, hundreds then 

thousands of Russian scientists and engineers began leaving 

Kurchatov, the main testing complex city. They relocated 

with their families to Russia. Then in December 1993, the 

Russian General Staff ordered the last military unit at the test 

site to withdraw its security forces.42 Essentially, the Russian 

government, beset with economic, political and internal 

security problems, abandoned Semipalatinsk; leaving 

the vast, unguarded nuclear test site to the Kazakhstan 

government. Yeltsin did tell Nazarbayev that MinAtom 

would send a small team of Russian nuclear specialists to 

Semipalatinsk to develop a plan for extracting, or possibly 

detonating a small 0.4 to 0.5-kiloton nuclear device that 

remained in one of the tunnels. The Russian government 

funded that project, which resulted in detonation of the 

device in May 1995.43 By that time, President Nazarbayev and 

his government had moved decisively to engage the United 

States and the United Nations to assist Kazakhstan officials 

in determining the scope and dimensions of environmental 

contamination at the Semipalatinsk Test Site.

Within the Kazakhstan government, Director Shkolnik 

had responsibility for evaluating contamination levels and 
195

assessing environmental and public health issues associated 

with nuclear testing site. A nuclear physicist with a degree 

from the Moscow Engineering and Physical Institute, 

Shkolnik had a doctorate in physics and mathematics, 

20 years experience working with nuclear reactors and 

nuclear safety in Kazakhstan (BN-350 reactor), and had 

published more than 130 scientific papers.44 In 1992 

President Nazarbayev appointed him director general of 

Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency. He engaged with UN 

International Atomic Energy Agency officials, and invited 

U.S. nuclear engineers and physicists to Kazakhstan. He 

worked closely with the U.S. DOE team during the sensitive 

program Project Sapphire. In 1992-1994 these external 

contacts were extremely sensitive.

Professor Shkolnik explained that all international 

agreements were reviewed and signed in the presence 

of President Nazarbayev, “with his approval and 

support.”45 Then, as new projects were defined, planned 

and implemented, Nazarbayev reviewed the work on an 

“extremely regular basis.” Shkolnik explained Kazakhstan 

was a small nation and that “we had to balance our relations 

with the Russian Federation and the United States. That was 

the responsibility of our president. He did all that himself.”46

At Semipalatinsk, the first task was to conduct a thorough 

scientific assessment. That was difficult for two reasons. 

Shkolnik’s associate Olga G. Tyupkina explained, “We didn’t 

have detailed documentation on the environmental and 

technical status, or any information on services, buildings 

or anything else at the test facility.”47 Everything in the 

technical area was in “classified” documents controlled 

by the Russian ministries.48 This meant Kazakhstan’s 

government had to begin their scientific and technical 

assessments from scratch. The second difficulty involved 

the American scientific delegation that had been invited 

in early 1993 to go to Kazakhstan and assist in assessing 

contamination at Semipalatinsk. The Russian government 

would be sensitive if American nuclear engineers examined 

the nuclear testing site and methodologies. Don Linger, a 

senior engineer experienced in underground nuclear testing 

programs, would be leading the American delegation. 

Director Shkolnik solved this issue by setting up a joint U.S.-

Kazakh scientific survey team, then he invited scientists 

from Russia, United States and Kazakhstan to a subsequent 

conference in Kurchatov to review the survey team’s findings 

and agree on a series of new cooperative projects.49

In the fall 1993, Linger led the American team to 

Kazakhstan. Working with Director Shkolnik, Shamil 

Tukhvatulin and other Kazakhstan nuclear scientists and 

engineers, the two teams began a preliminary assessment of 

the Semipalatinsk Test Site. At the testing complex’s central 

headquarters, the teams found what one scientist described 

as “chaos.” Russian scientists, managers, workers and their 

families were abandoning the city. Apartments and office 

buildings were deserted, security was lax and there was no 

data to assist teams in formulating a research assessment 

strategy. Nevertheless, they developed a set of initial projects 

focused on identifying radioactive contamination levels 

at the most critical test sites. Specialists from Kazakhstan’s 

Ministry of Ecology conducted surveys that examined 

contamination levels of soils and bottom sediments at 

Chagan Atomic Lake, Degelen Mountain Complex, and 

Balyktykol Lake. At the Ministry of Agriculture, scientists 

began long-term surveys of Semipalatinsk to determine 

levels of contamination on plants and animals in the testing 

areas. All preliminary surveys and studies were briefed to an 

international delegation of scientists from the U.S., Russia 

and Kazakhstan meeting in Kurchatov in November 1993. 

All participants recall the spartan conditions; hotel rooms 

were cold, meeting rooms frigid and pipes frozen. The city 

was isolated and abandoned. 

Nevertheless, work proceeded and out of this conference 

and subsequent bilateral meetings, Shkolnik and Linger 

developed a list of U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR projects for 

Semipalatinsk. The first project would identify categories of 

data and the level of analysis needed to determine radiation 

levels across the entire testing complex. Next, there would be 

a project to assist Kazakhstan in defining requirements for a 

comprehensive Semipalatinsk Test Site data base, including 

site assessments, environmental projects and reclamation 

efforts. Then scientists from the two nations planned to carry 

out a project to conduct field surveys and measurements, field 

Semipalatinsk’s Degelen Mountain 

First Tasks

	 H Documentation

	 H Evaluation
196

With Courage and Persistence

samplings and laboratory analysis of the radioactivity levels in 

10 Semipalatinsk test site areas. Funded by CTR, these projects 

were carried out in 1994-1995, and included a U.S. remote 

sensing survey of the ground surface across the entire testing 

site.50 At international conferences and in informal contacts, 

Shkolnik shared data with Russian scientists and nuclear 

complex directors. Shkolnik and Linger developed another 

CTR project, the Degelen Mountain Tunnel Characterization 

Program that contracted with Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear 

Center to carry out geological and radiological characterization 

studies of the 181 hard rock tunnels. Following this extensive 

survey, Tukhvatulin signed another CTR contract to conduct 

a field survey of the test holes in the Balapan Testing Field. As 

this new data was analyzed and evaluated, Linger suggested 

to Shkolnik that the Kazakhstan government consider closing 

and permanently sealing the Degelen Mountain tunnels. 

Within weeks, Shkolnik, now Minister of Science sent a 

formal letter to Secretary of Defense Perry requesting CTR 

financial assistance.51

This project was not part of the basic U.S.-Kazakhstan 

framework agreement signed by Vice President Gore and 

President Nazarbayev in December 1993. That agreement 

focused principally on the U.S. providing assistance to 

Kazakhstan for destruction of fixed ICBM launchers and 

strategic bombers, and to provide emergency response 

equipment, and to support the non-proliferation of nuclear 

weapons. Although the latter category was vague, it usually 

meant providing assistance to prevent nuclear smuggling 

or, in the case of Russia, to assist in transporting nuclear 

materials and secure them in nuclear storage facilities. In 

1994-1995, in Kazakhstan the framework agreement had 

been used to authorize the CTR scientific surveys and study 

projects evaluating the Semipalatinsk Test Site and fund 

Project Sapphire. Now Minister Shkolnik requested formally 

that U.S. CTR assistance be used for the large-scale, multiyear project to seal all 181 tunnels. That meant it was up to 

DOD leaders, policy officials and lawyers to define the U.S. 

government’s obligations and responsibilities. Professor 

Tukhvatulin explained there were two reasons Kazakhstan 

wanted to move ahead quickly.52 The Degelen Mountain 

Complex posed a real environmental threat since animals 

and people were going into the unsecured tunnels, possibly 

exposing themselves to secondary radiation. In addition, 

President Nazarbayev wanted the international community 

of nations to witness Kazakhstan’s efforts to close the nuclear 

testing site, permanently.

The United States had other reasons. General Roland 

Lajoie, head of the Defense Department’s CTR Office, said 

that at first he was skeptical of the project. “As far as it being 

a specific threat,” Lajoie recalled, “the notion that these old 

tunnels might be reused for nuclear testing by an independent 

Kazakhstan, seemed to me somewhat far-fetched.”53 Others 

thought otherwise. Ashton Carter, Assistant U.S. Secretary of 

Defense for International Security Policy argued the project 

supported President Clinton’s nonproliferation policies and 

that it had the support of Senators Nunn and Lugar. Further, 

Carter argued it was not an expensive project since cost 

estimates for sealing all the tunnels was only $6 million. 

Secretary of Defense Perry placed the proposed tunnel 

project squarely in the realm of cooperative threat reduction. 

He argued that this multi-year project, like the removal of 

highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan, constituted 

part of new security strategy for the United States; one he 

characterized as “Preventive Defense.”54 Assisting Kazakhstan 

to permanently shut down and seal 181 underground 

nuclear testing tunnels, he argued, reduced the opportunity 

for future testing of new weapons of mass destruction and 

their technologies. Perry authorized the project in early 

1995. Following bilateral negotiations, Minister Shkolnik 

and Kasymzhomart Tokayev signed a new CTR agreement 

on “The Elimination of Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure” 

in Almaty in mid-September and in Washington in early 

October 1995, respectively.”55

Work began quickly. In Kazakhstan, Shkolnik, Tukhvatulin 

and Tyupkina supervised and monitored every aspect of the 

Don Linger (l.) and Vladimir Shkolnik (r.) at Degelen Mountain 

Complex

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
197

multi-year program. From the United States, Don Linger, 

Larry Gabriel, Luke Kluchko and a small team of American 

tunnel experts traveled to Kazakhstan periodically, staying in 

a temporary base camp at the Degelen Mountain Complex 

during the closing and sealing of tunnels. Planning began in 

the fall and winter of 1995 as the joint U.S.-Kazakhstan team 

began meticulous analysis of the 181 tunnels. Using data 

amassed in the Degelen Mountain Tunnel Characterization 

Program, the team developed a 10-point analysis for each 

tunnel that included radiological measurements, geological 

characterizations, measurements and characterization of 

water sources, water accumulation and leaks, analysis of 

the water samples for gamma emitters and tritium, and 

photographs and videotapes. The leaking tunnels required 

special monitoring procedures: daily measurements of 

precipitation, monthly measurements of air, water and 

water inflow temperatures at the tunnel portal, and quarterly 

analysis of the samples.56 Using this analysis, the team 

developed a plan for sealing each tunnel. For the entire effort, 

the plan included provisions for radiation safety, mine safety, 

equipment and personnel safety, cost estimates, budget and 

spending plans, and environmental and managerial reviews. 

Before any work could begin, both governments subjected 

plans to a review by experts. In Kazakhstan, technical experts 

from the Ministry of the Environment and the Agency for 

Emergency Situations examined the plans for sealing each 

tunnel prior to work commencing.57

In the United States, program and technical experts at the 

Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) went over plans examining 

the engineering, radiation safety and environmental 

requirements. Linger assigned Luke Kluchko, a Defense 

Nuclear Agency acquisition specialist, to be the CTR program 

manager, responsible for cost estimates, acquisition strategy, 

contracts and contractor performance certifications.58 Linger 

and Kluchko decided, for a number of reasons, not to use 

an American integrating contractor. Instead, they argued the 

DNA would serve as general contractor, issuing a firm, fixedprice contract with Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear Center. 

While there was some risk, Kluchko explained there were 

advantages in working with the national government’s nuclear 

agency, an organization based in Semipalatinsk; one with 

good leadership and a record of working cooperatively with 

the United States.59 Sealing these environmentally dangerous 

nuclear testing tunnels was important to the Kazakhstan 

president and government. Consequently, designating the 

National Nuclear Center as the lead organization fixed 

contractual and operational responsibility in a single national 

agency. The center’s contract stipulated that 60 tunnels 

would be eliminated per year. In the United States, Kluchko 

hired experienced tunnel engineers, geologists, construction 

engineers, safety experts and industrial hygienists to travel 

to Semipalatinsk on temporary duty and work on-site with 

the Kazakhs. Linger oversaw the entire program, traveling 

to Kazakhstan, meeting with Minister Shkolnik, and going 

out and reviewing the work at the remote Deglin Mountain 

Tunnel Complex.60

Less than six months after the CTR agreement was 

signed, the first tunnel was closed and sealed on April 

1, 1996. It was a demonstration project that confirmed 

the methods and procedures used in subsequent tunnel 

closures. Drilling, blasting and collapsing the opening, or 

portal, of the horizontal tunnels were considered to be the 

optimal method for closure. A second method was used 

when radiation levels were elevated, or if ground water 

had accumulated significantly from underground springs. 

In those cases, large concrete plugs were inserted into 

openings of the tunnels. There was a division of labor and 

management at the mountain complex site. Kazakhstan’s 

National Nuclear Center had responsibility for carrying 

out all aspects of the contracted work, including tunnel 

preparation, implanting scientific measurement devices, 

setting explosive charges, sealing the tunnels and continuous 

monitoring of radiation and environmental levels. At the 

site, American experts provided technical guidance, quality 

control and certification of the work. Payment in American 

dollars followed certification.61

 Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear Center in Kurchatov 

had five scientific institutes and one enterprise, the Deglin 

Mining Enterprise. Tukhvatulin assigned scientific survey and 

monitoring work to the institutes and the work of preparing 

and sealing the tunnels to the mining enterprise.62 Led by 

Vladmir Kovalyov, the mining firm used many of the same 

skilled workers – miners, drill operators, tunnelers, blasters 

and explosive technicians who had dug the original tunnels. 

Approximately, 150-200 Kazakhs worked for three years to 

complete the closure program, first at the Degelen Mountain 

Complex, then at the Balapan Testing Field. Everyone 

recognized there was a considerable difference, sometimes 

decades from the time that mountain tunnels and testing 

holes were drilled and excavated. This time, however, Soviet 
198

With Courage and Persistence

engineers would not be in charge; Kazak engineers would 

be, with advice from American tunnel experts. In addition, 

contemporary concerns about radiation, ground water 

pollution, mine safety, site security and sealing the tunnels 

permanently would change the nature and tempo of the work. 

Tukhvatulin lived at Semipalatinsk, and was responsible for 

certifying every tunnel closure. He recognized the differences: 

“This was an exceptional case,” he explained, “where there was 

a nuclear test facility in a non-nuclear state.”63 All work had to 

meet international safety and environmental standards.

At the Degelen Mountain Complex, things went like 

clockwork, with 58 tunnels prepared and sealed by January 

31, 1997. The following year, another 64 tunnels were 

closed and sealed, and the final echelon of 57 tunnels was 

finished in 18 months, by June 1999. Sealing these former 

nuclear testing tunnels had international significance; the 

international media published and broadcast articles and 

programs on the tunnel closures frequently.64 The scientific 

community discussed the Degelen Mountain Complex 

project at numerous international meetings and conferences, 

including the International Conference on Nuclear Weapons 

Nonproliferation, held in Kurchatov in September 1998.65

Kazakh and Russian nuclear scientists and specialists held 

a series of coordinating group meetings in Kazakhstan to 

review technical aspects of the program and recommend 

environmental protection measures for the closed nuclear 

test range.66 President Nazarbayev and senior diplomats 

introduced a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly 

addressing radiation and decontamination problems at the 

Semipalatinsk Test Site. More than 50 nations supported 

this UN resolution.67 William Leith, U.S. Geological Survey, 

recorded and filmed tunnel blasts and closures for the CTR 

program in two video documentaries; subsequently, these 

CDs were released to the public.68

At some point in the fall of 1996 as the tunnel closures 

were proceeding ahead of schedule, Linger told Kluchko 

that, “nature abhors a vacuum ... and in Degelen’s case it’s a 

perfectly good hard rock tunnel.”69 What did he mean? The 

United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) had 

Sealing Degelen Mountain Nuclear Testing Tunnels

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Explosion test of nuclear testing tunnel under United Nations 

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
199

just been concluded, and Linger was thinking, just thinking, 

about using one of the old testing tunnels or holes at Degelen 

to conduct a blast experiment that would test acoustic and 

seismic monitoring systems authorized by the UN treaty for 

verification. For Linger and others, the scientific question 

was whether a conventional test explosion, one detonated in 

a deep tunnel or buried shaft, could be distinguished from 

a blast using nuclear explosives. The scientific community 

had data from past U.S. and Soviet nuclear tests. Now they 

proposed to set off conventional explosives in Kazakhstan’s 

nuclear testing tunnels to determine if there was a measurable 

difference. When Linger explained the idea to Shkolnik, he 

was intrigued, seeing the chance for Kazakhstan to become 

an international leader in non-proliferation. Olga Tyupkina 

recalled that Linger advised them to be cautious at first, 

using the metaphor of dragging “a large camel into a small 

tent.” Continuing, he explained, “when you don’t know 

how big your camel is and how much room there is in the 

tent, the most important thing is to shove the camel’s nose 

into the tent!”70

By March 1997, Linger had secured U.S. funding and 

approval to contract with the Kazakhstan National Nuclear 

Center to design three 25-ton chemical explosions in 

conjunction with closing of vertical nuclear boreholes in 

the Balapan test field. There were 13 unused boreholes that 

had been drilled in different geological and hydrological 

rock formations to test the effects of nuclear weapons 

experiments. These boreholes were located over a large 

geographical area adjacent to the Degelen Mountain 

Complex. The three tests detonated chemical explosives 

placed at 50, 300 and 550 meters. They used a Russianmade TNT product, one used in commercial mines, with 

blast effects recorded on acoustic and seismic networks. 

According to Kluchko, the results were spectacular and 

proved that, “many near-surface mining blasts could be 

distinguished from deeper underground nuclear tests.” 

71 This was an important, significant finding for future 

verifications of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

A short time later, Minister Shkolnik recommended to 

the CTBT Preparatory Commission that it consider using 

the Degelen Mountain Complex for a test of the new 

international monitoring system. That system, just being 

established, would consist of 321 monitoring stations located 

in treaty nations around the globe. These stations would 

gather seismic, infrasound, hydro acoustic, and radionuclide 

data, and transmit it to 16 certified analytical laboratories.72

Shkolnik’s recommendations led to plans to conduct three 

separate 100-ton chemical explosive tests in two of the 

Degelen Mountain nuclear testing tunnels that had been 

prepared but never used. Known as the “Omega” tests, these 

would be the final experiments at Degelen Mountain test site 

before the tunnels were permanently sealed.73

The three chemical explosive tests, one each in August 

1998, September 1999 and July 2000, were recorded by the 

CTBT international monitoring system.74 In many nations, 

scientists were concerned about detecting underground 

nuclear explosions detonated in India, Pakistan or China, 

nations that had not declared recent moratoriums on nuclear 

testing. In addition to seismic monitoring, U.S. experts 

placed other instrumentation in the Degelen tunnels capable 

of acquiring data on velocity and direction of the shock wave 

within the high explosive as it detonated. Additional devices 

measured sound waves being transmitted in the atmosphere. 

The magnitude of these blasts was greater than 4.0. Again, 

results exceed expectations; seismic stations as far as Alaska 

and Africa recorded time, location and size of the explosion.75

Linger told a New York Times reporter, “the tests would enable 

seismic stations throughout the world to ‘calibrate’ their 

equipment and help scientists distinguish between a natural 

event, like an earthquake, and a bomb test.”76

After the final chemical explosives tests were completed 

at Degelen Mountains in July 2000, the last tunnel was 

sealed. However, this did not end Kazakhstan’s interest in 

monitoring nuclear tests around the world. Examination 

of results from the “Omega tests” revealed to Minister 

Shkolnik that Kazakhstan could serve as an ideal territory 

for future monitoring of nuclear testing in the region. 

Seismic waves from any nuclear test would encounter 

minimal resistance from northeastern Kazakhstan’s 

topographical and geological formations. Additionally, the 

nation was located at the very center of Eurasia, in a low 

point on the continent, which would enable it to monitor 

and capture seismological calm points. Subsequently, 

scientists at Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear Center and the 

Lamont-Dougherty Atmospheric Observatory of Columbia 

University developed a joint project to set up a series of 

eight wideband seismological stations that would be able 

to monitor and characterize natural, commercial and 

nuclear explosions. These stations would become part of 

the CTBT’s international monitoring system.77
200

With Courage and Persistence

Destroying Kazakhstan’s SS-18 silo 

launchers: a classic fit 

Strategic weapons invented, tested and fielded in one 

era can make little or no sense in a new era. The 104 SS-18 

long-range ballistic missiles based in Kazakhstan illustrate 

this point. The SS-18s were large, modern, two-stage liquid 

propellant strategic rockets that were deployed in concrete 

and steel reinforced fixed silos. The Soviet Union’s militaryindustrial complex and Strategic Rocket Forces developed, 

manufactured and fielded six SS-18 strategic rocket divisions 

during the final decades of the Cold War. Two were located 

on Kazakhstan territory: the 38th Missile Division (52 SS-18s) 

based at Derzhavinsk and the 57th Missile Division (52 SS18s) located at Zhangiz-Tobe.78 Operated and maintained 

on continuous alert, these massive strategic rockets could be 

fired from silos using a cold-launch technique. According to 

estimates, the SS-18 silos had been constructed to a hardness 

factor of 4,000 – 6,000 psi, making them capable of surviving 

a first strike and then launching.79 Each of the 104 SS-18s 

on Kazakhstan territory was capable of delivering 10 nuclear 

warheads.

Once the Cold War ended, these modern ICBMs provided 

no military security for the new nation of Kazakhstan. In 

fact, they created friction between Russia and Kazakhstan. 

Russia’s Ministry of Defense asserted the SS-18 missiles, their 

nuclear warheads, as well as one squadron of Tu-95 heavy 

bombers in Kazakhstan were part of its strategic military 

forces. The Russian General Staff directed the Strategic Rocket 

Forces to continue operating the SS-18 missile forces on alert 

throughout 1992. Few if any Kazakh officials had access to 

these military bases.80

During 1993-1994, however, the geopolitical situation 

changed dramatically. The Russian General Staff ordered the 

rocket divisions and bomber squadron based in Kazakhstan 

be deactivated and the SS-18 missiles, Tu-95 bombers and 

1,040 nuclear warheads be withdrawn to Russian bases 

and storage depots. President Nazarbayev signed and the 

parliament ratified the START, NPT and CFE arms control 

treaties and international agreements. Kazakhstan joined the 

United Nations, Organization for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe, and regional organizations. Vice President Gore 

and DOD officials traveled to Almaty where Gore and 

Nazarbayev signed the CTR framework and implementing 

agreements. The highly sensitive Project Sapphire was 

initiated, negotiated and was in its final planning stages. At 

the Semipalatinsk Test Site, multiple scientific evaluations 

were initiated and the joint CTR agreement to seal the 

Degelen Mountain Tunnel Complex had been signed and 

the project would soon be implemented. Consequently, 

Kazakhstan’s future was as a non-nuclear state, one with 

American, Russian and other nations’ assistance. These 

major changes were underway when Nazarbayev and Yeltsin 

met in Moscow March 1994. There they signed a series of 

new bilateral agreements on disposition of the remaining 

strategic nuclear forces and facilities in Kazakhstan. These 

agreements directly influenced the definition of the U.S.-

Kazakhstan SS-18 silo dismantlement project.

Even before the two presidents met, there were 

developments that signaled significant changes. In January 

1994 Colonel Jim Reid remembers traveling to Almaty with 

an American CTR delegation less than a month after Vice 

President Gore and President Nazarbayev had signed the 

CTR framework agreement. United States and Kazakhstan 

defense officials discussed and defined specific projects, such 

as environmental surveys of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, 

providing new emergency response equipment, and equipping 

a new arms control center with modern communications 

and computer equipment. In these meetings, Major General 

Alibek Kasymov, First Deputy Minister of Defense asked 

Colonel Reid to brief them on what the United States Air 

Force had done to mitigate environmental damages when it 

eliminated its ICBM missiles and bases.81 Press and television 

reports in Moscow alleged that strategic nuclear weapons in 

Kazakhstan were poorly maintained and not secure.82 “So we 

gave them the briefing,” Reid recalled, “then we gave them a 

list of questions they should ask the Russians.”83

Two weeks later, Russian Colonel General Nicolai 

Solovtsev, Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, 

and a military delegation arrived in Almaty to formalize 

terms for a bilateral agreement on withdrawing the two 

missile divisions, removing missiles, nuclear warheads, 

missile fuel components and sensitive equipment.84 Major 

General Kasymov, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Defense, raised 

environmental issues and the two military officers agreed on 

a Russian plan and established a working group of Russian 

and Kazakh officers. These meetings were the beginning 

of a three-way technical dialogue among Russian, Kazakh 

and American military officers and civilians on division of 

labor for dismantling the SS-18 missile systems. Subsequent 
201

Russian and Kazakh discussions in January and February 

1994 led to new bilateral status of force agreements.

Yeltsin and Nazarbayev signed these agreements in 

Moscow in March 1994, declaring Russia had full jurisdiction 

over the missile forces, and that Russia would assume 

responsibility for nuclear safety, weapons security, missile 

maintenance and all strategic rocket forces and facilities. 

Yeltsin committed the Ministry of Defense and Strategic 

Rocket Forces to remove all nuclear warheads within 14 

months, by June 1995; and all SS-18 missiles within 36 

months, by March 1997.85 Two months later, Russian 

officials declared that as partial compensation for the HEU 

in the nuclear warheads, Kazakhstan would receive military 

aircraft: 29 MiG-29s, 14 Tu-25s, and 38 SU-22s.86

Other strategic weapons on Kazakhstan territory were 40 

Tu-95 heavy bombers equipped with 370 air-launched cruise 

missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. In February 

1994 the Russian Air Force ordered these bombers flown 

from their base at the Chagan Aerodrome in Semipalatinsk 

to Russian military air bases. Over the next year, the Tu-95s 

squadron’s cruise missiles and warheads were deactivated, 

packaged and transported from Kazakhstan to Russia, with 

the last shipment leaving in April 1995.87 In the same period, 

the Russian General Staff directed General Maslin, 12th Main 

Directorate, to remove the missile division’s warheads from 

weapons depots at Derzhavinsk and Zhangiz-Tobe. In late 

April, Colonel General Igor Sergeyev, Commander of the 

Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, announced in Moscow that 

all nuclear warheads had been withdrawn from Kazakhstan.88

At the SS-18 missile bases, special Russian engineering 

teams of military officers and specialists traveled by 

convoy to remote missile launch sites, defueled the SS18 missiles and then lifted the missiles in their canisters 

out of the silos. They were placed into special missile 

transport vehicles and driven to railroad transfer points 

for rail shipment to Russia. The process was similar to that 

in Ukraine where General Mikhtyuk and the 43rd Rocket 

Army deactivated the SS-19 and SS-24 missiles regiment 

by regiment, transporting missiles to temporary storage 

areas and then, with U.S. assistance, sending them by rail 

to dismantlement facilities in Pavlograd, Ukraine. The 

difference in Kazakhstan was that the Russian 38th and 57th

Missile Division commanders, officers and men organized 

and carried out all the work; Kazakhstan’s government was 

informed, but did not participate.

As the deactivation and dismantling work unfolded 

in the missile fields, technical dialogue among Russian, 

American and Kazakhstan specialists started discussions over 

division of labor, completion schedules, and the amount 

and condition of residual equipment and missile facilities. 

Tentative at first, then through intermediaries, and ultimately 

direct, the three-way dialogue developed into the following 

understandings: the Russian Ministry of Defense would 

remove nuclear warheads from missile division and air 

squadron depots, package and secure the sensitive parts and 

transport them via rail to Russia. The Strategic Rocket Forces’ 

operational divisions would defuel the SS-18 liquid missiles, 

removing them from launch silos and transporting them to 

missile bases in Russia. Then Russian rocket officers would 

strip the launch silos and launch control centers of sensitive 

items, then package and transport them to Russia. Finally, the 

Russian Ministry of Defense stated it would remove the head 

works at the launch silo sites and blast the silo to a depth 

of six meters as required by the START Treaty.89 Kazakhstan 

agreed to accept the abandoned bases, roads, residential 

Destruction of a SS-18 ICBM silo

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
202

With Courage and Persistence

facilities, underground launch control centers, buried cables 

and all other associated property.90 The United States agreed 

to finance, through the CTR program, local Kazakh firms to 

assist the Russian SRF missile division commanders destroy 

the launch silos.91 In 1995, a small CTR contract was awarded 

to two Kazakh firms, KATEP and Montazhspetzstroi, to carry 

out preparatory dismantlement work at the SS-18 silo launch 

sites.92 Detonation experts from the Russian SRF placed the 

explosives and blasted every silo. No American officials were 

present. 

Removing the SS-18 missiles and warheads from 

Kazakhstan to Russia went faster than planned. By April 

1995 all of the 1,040 warheads had been transported to 

Russia two months ahead of schedule. Removal of SS18 missiles, liquid fuel and sensitive equipment went 

efficiently and on-schedule. The large SS-18 launch silos 

had been destroyed more quickly than anticipated. In 

March 1994 President Yeltsin declared that everything 

would be completed in 36 months. The work, however, was 

finished in 17 months. General Igor Sergeyev, commander 

of the SRF, announced in August 1996 that all missiles, fuels 

and equipment had been removed to Russia and that all the 

missile division’s forces would be withdrawn within ninety 

days.93 At a press conference, General Sergeyev summarized 

the SRF’s work in Kazakhstan: 16 missile regiments had 

been decommissioned and disbanded, 898 warheads, 98 

intercontinental ballistic missiles and more than 18,000 

metric tons of missile fuel components had been transported 

to Russian military sites and 104 combat silos for the SS18s and two training silos had been dismantled. Under a 

bilateral Russian-Kazakhstan agreement, General Sergeyev 

explained the SRF would transfer to the Kazakhstan Ministry 

of Defense approximately 1,000 kilometers of access roads, 

4,000 kilometers of power cable, and 900 kilometers of 

communication cable, base residential facilities and other 

properties.94 In September 1996, Kazakhstan received the 

Derzhavinsk base and missile complexes. In October, they 

accepted Zhangiz -Tobe. General Sergeyev stated the Russian 

SRF would not be present in Kazakhstan after that point. 

It was at this point that the United States became active, 

Destruction of a SS-18 ICBM silo

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
203

through the CTR program. It worked with the Kazakh 

government and local firms to dismantle and destroy SS-18 

launch silo complexes, launch control centers and missile 

base facilities. 

Colonel Reid, Major John Petito, and Commander 

Mike Demio of the CTR Program Office negotiated the 

scope of the work with Viktor A. Papst, Alexander N. Golev, 

and Karzhaubay Sh. Khusainov of Kazakhstan’s Center for 

Defense Industries.95 President Nazarbayev established a 

State Commission for the Elimination of Strategic Offensive 

Armaments consisting of the government’s principle 

ministries, with the Center for Defense Industries designated 

as the commission’s working agency. The scope of work was 

considerable. The United States Congress, the President, and 

Secretary of Defense had committed through agreements to 

President Nazarbayev that American CTR assistance would 

go far beyond the START’s silo dismantlement requirements. 

Within the Defense Department, CTR officials estimated 

the strategic offensive arms elimination (SOAE) program in 

Kazakhstan would cost approximately $76 million and take 

two to three years to complete.96 As in Ukraine, CTR assistance 

to Kazakhstan would encompass acquisition and delivery of 

new dismantlement equipment, training, technical assistance, 

project management and program oversight. Colonel Reid 

decided to use an American integrating contractor to manage 

the Kazakhstan silo elimination program. After a series of 

negotiating meetings, the two sides agreed that the joint U.S.-

Kazakhstan SS-18 silo elimination program would dismantle 

and remediate 148 silo complexes and associated facilities:

n 61 silo launchers in Derzhavinsk

n 61 silo launchers in Zhangiz Tobe

n 14 test silo launchers in the Balapan Test Site

n 12 test silo launchers in the Leninsk Test Range97

Following an open competition to select the integrating 

contractor, Brown and Root, a Houston, Texas, international 

company won the $31 million bid in November 1995 

to destroy the 148 SS-18 silo complexes, buildings and 

infrastructure.98 In winning the bid, Brown and Root 

paired with a Swiss engineering firm, ABB SUSA. This 

contract followed a pattern established in Ukraine, where 

the American integrating contractor was instructed to work 

with local firms to carry out the bulk of the elimination 

work.99 In March 1996, Brown and Root subcontracted 

with the Institute of Chemical Sciences of the Academy of 

Sciences in Kazakhstan to conduct environmental surveys 

at Derzhavinsk and Zhangiz-Tobe. Two chemists, Professor 

Victor A. Solomin and Dr. Vladimir Lyapunov led the work, 

making an assessment of pollution levels at the bases and 

missile silos, taking soil samples, toxic chemical samples and 

collecting contaminants. “The job was interesting,” Professor 

Solomin recalled, “We had two teams, two sampling teams. 

One worked at Derzhavinsk, and the other team worked 

at Zhangiz-Tobe.”100 As the Kazakh scientists were arriving, 

Russian military commanders were completing removal 

of the last missile regiments and withdrawal of the forces. 

Within six months, the Russian military had gone, turning 

over abandoned missiles sites and base facilities to the 

Kazakhstan government. By that point, Brown and Root 

had developed a comprehensive work plan, subcontracted 

with several Kazakhstan firms and had started the process of 

securing approvals from government bureaucracies to launch 

the silo complex dismantlement and remediation work.

At the working level, three entities managed and 

implemented the SS-18 silo dismantlement program. 

Luke Kluchko, the U.S. program manager, oversaw the 

Brown and Root contract. Kluchko was already involved in 

Kazakhstan, managing funding and special contracts for the 

Degelen Mountain Tunnel Sealing program. Every four to six 

weeks he would travel to Kazakhstan, spending 10 days or 

more meeting with the American and Kazakh contractors, 

reviewing the work, authorizing payments, and discussing 

every aspect of the two programs with Kazakh officials.101

The U.S. CTR program provided dismantling equipment, 

training and managerial services.

Within the Republic of Kazakhstan, a senior-level state 

commission consisting of officials from the Ministries of 

Defense, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Ecology and other entities set 

policy, coordinated issues and monitored the program closely. 

The working agency for Kazakhstan’s State Commission for 

the Elimination of Strategic Offensive Armaments was the 

Center for Defense Industries. Located in Almaty, the center 

hosted most of the U.S.-Kazakhstan working meetings and 

conferences on SS-18 silo dismantlement and subsequent 

programs.102 The third entity was the American integrating 

contractor, Brown and Root. With offices in Almaty and base 

camps at Derzhavinsk and Zhangiz-Tobe, the contractor 

and staff managed every aspect of the program. Five Kazakh 

firms were subcontracted to do the work: Almatypromstri 
204

With Courage and Persistence

JCS, KATEP JCS, Montazhspetzstroi AHK, National Nuclear 

center, and the Institute for Chemical Sciences. 

Out in the missile fields, work at each SS-18 missile 

silo complex and launch control center followed a similar 

pattern. It began with an environmental assessment to 

determine the levels and types of contamination facing 

worker safety and health. The massive launch silos were then 

destroyed, using explosives and earth moving equipment. In 

the process, subcontracting firms were required to salvage all 

materials of value and transport them to storage areas. At the 

missile bases, launch complexes, and launch control centers, 

workers dismantled and destroyed designated buildings 

and facilities; rubble was buried on-site or removed to 

government approved storage areas. All harmful materials 

or contaminants were removed from the sites. Finally, the 

sites were covered in soil or dirt to one-and-a-half meters and 

restored to their original topography.103 Murat Bektemisov 

was general director of Almatypromstri JCS, the Almaty 

construction firm that won the SS-18 silo elimination 

subcontract from Brown and Root. For three years, 1996-

1999, eliminating SS-18 missile complexes and launch 

control centers was the company’s major work. Bektemisov 

explained: “All industry in Kazakhstan began to decline at 

that time. This project was essential. It was worth about $15 

million and the job involved about 1,000 – 1,500 people (in 

our firm). The work was good, it was of major importance to 

us, and profitable.”104

Alexander Toropov, the firm’s chief engineer, sent 

construction crews to four sites: Zhangiz-Tobe, Derzhavinsk, 

Balapan and Leninsk. They set up camps for 200-300 men 

at the missile launch complexes. Before the men arrived 

at the remote sites, the firm commissioned topographical 

surveys of each launch complex. They photographed 

every structure, videotaped the entire complex and made 

engineering drawings of every structure.105 These materials, 

shared with Brown and Root managers and construction 

engineers, influenced cost estimates, dismantlement and 

deconstruction work plans and work methods on-site. 

The most difficult work was demolition of the massive 

steel reinforced silo lid. Russian Strategic Rocket Forces 

had blasted the lid open and they left it lying at the site in 

accordance with the START Treaty protocols. The Kazakh 

subcontractors’ task was to blast it apart and salvage the 

steel for recycling and resale. Chief engineer Toropov 

explained the job.106

We had to dismantle the metal structures 

remaining after the main explosion, including 

the barbican and cover, which were built to be 

indestructible. The primary design principle for 

these structures was to make them very difficult 

to destroy. Therefore, we looked at a number 

of options to dismantle these structures and 

concluded the best method was to use explosives. 

We developed an explosion technology whereby we 

first made a hole so that we could get through the 

cover and then placed charges inside the structures 

so we could blow them from within. For the 

explosions, we used shells that had to be destroyed 

because their storage life had expired. Afterwards, 

we gathered the blown up pieces of metal because 

they were scattered over a large area and shipped 

them to metallurgy plants. It took about six and a 

half tons of explosives for one silo. 

The next phase was to develop the land and 

make preparations to fill in the silo with concrete 

– the surrounding soil and debris from the 

dismantled structures were dumped and packed 

into the remains of the silo. Around the silo, there 

were structures such as power substations and 

sentry buildings, as well as training buildings near 

several silos that we demolished mechanically 

with an excavator. The debris was loaded into 

the silo and compacted and then we capped the 

silo with concrete. The remainder of the site was 

filled in, leveled out and restored to its original 

appearance.

Due to harsh winters, work on the SS-18 missile 

complexes began in late March and finished in late 

October. William Suzuki, Brown and Root’s program 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
205

manager explained they would assemble modular units 

at the missile bases each season and he would have his 

project managers live and work on-site.107 The Kazakhstan 

companies would have 200-300 workers living at the 

SS-18 silo sites during the destruction, salvaging and 

transporting phases. The missile site was quite large and 

the launch complex included the massive silo lid (120 

metric tons), reinforced steel launch silo (40 meters deep, 

seven meters wide), bunkers and underground tunnels 

(100 meters in length), guard buildings and maintenance 

sheds. The chief engineer explained the project. Kazakh 

explosive experts would detonate the silo lid, underground 

tunnels, and other buried structures. They would salvage 

and haul away any materials that could be reprocessed. 

Then they bulldozed the remaining rubble into the deep 

silo, until it filled up to approximately a meter and a half 

below the surface. Finally, they poured a concrete cap and 

covered it with soil to conform to the existing terrain.108

Starting in 1996 and finishing three years later in 1999, the 

SS-18 silo launcher elimination and reclamation program 

went smoothly, with 147 silos destroyed at Zhangiz-Tobe, 

Derzhavinsk, Balapan and Leninsk.109 The final figure was 

one less silo complex than planned; Kazakhstan agreed to a 

Russian request that one site be saved for technical reasons. 

In evaluating the effort, the two governments concluded 

that the model of using national program managers, an 

integrating contractor and national firms as subcontractors 

had worked well. It cost the U.S. government more to 

use the integrating contractor, approximately 40 percent 

more. “However, when it was all said and done,” Kluchko 

concluded, “the bottom line was that Brown and Root 

completed this project nine months ahead of schedule and $5 

million under budget.”110 Victor Pabst, the Center for Defense 

Industries senior program manager, admitted that initially 

there were many disputes between the American corporation 

and Kazakh firms, but these diminished as the project 

moved into its second and third work season. “The situation 

improved and we observed almost no problems or conflicts,” 

Pabst concluded. “We were even glad,” he added, “that the 

general contractor was a U.S. company. Why? Because of its 

Destruction of SS-18 ICBM launcher ring

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
206

With Courage and Persistence

procedures and requirements we were able to complete all 

project tasks in their entirety.”111 Murat Bektemisov, general 

director of Almatypromstri JCS, the Almaty construction firm, 

concluded that, “most importantly, we learned how to do 

business from Brown and Root.”112 Bektemisov’s construction 

company became one of the Kazakh firms constructing new 

facilities for international corporations exploring the Caspian 

Sea oil and gas fields.

Eliminating abandoned strategic 

bombers in Kazakhstan

In February 1994, the Russian General Staff ordered 

the 40 Tu-95 Bear H strategic bombers based at Chagan 

aerodrome in Kazakhstan to prepare to relocate to military 

air bases in Russia.113 A remnant of the host air force squadron 

would remain at Chagan for a year to work with Russian 12th

Main Directorate technical officers deactivating, packaging, 

and transporting the 340 air-launched cruise missiles and 

nuclear weapons to Russia. Finally, by the spring of 1995 

the Russian air force squadron left, abandoning the base, 

its facilities, and seven obsolete, inoperable Tu-95 bombers. 

When Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense acquired the base, 

it inherited the seven Bear H bombers, which were subject 

to elimination under the protocols of the START Treaty.114 In 

1997, Kazakhstan’s Defense Minister requested and the U.S. 

Defense Department agreed that the CTR program would 

provide equipment and services to eliminate these obsolete 

bombers. The Ministry of Defense declared it would manage 

and carry out the bomber elimination program if the 

United States would provide the equipment, training and 

logistical services. Following a series of technical meetings 

and agreement on a joint plan of work, John Booker, CTR 

program manager, moved quickly in the spring of 1997 

to purchase and deliver new cranes, cut-off saws, cutting 

saws, trucks, tools, office equipment, and supplies for a 

small medical station to Kazakhstan.115 By fall, most of the 

equipment had arrived at the remote Chagan air base near 

Semipalatinsk. The Ministry of Defense hired local Kazakh 

firms and they eliminated the bombers in November and 

December following the elimination protocols in the START 

Treaty.116

Elimination of Tu-95 Bear bombers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
207

To confirm compliance, the United States sent a START 

Treaty inspection team to Kazakhstan in January 1998. 

When Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Burwell and his 

ten-member inspection team arrived in Almaty, they were 

met by Colonel A.A. Mendygliev and an escort team from 

the Kazakhstan Arms Control Implementation Center.117

Together the two teams flew to Semipalatinsk, then they went 

by bus to Chagan where the Americans confirmed visually 

that the bombers had been eliminated in accordance with 

the treaty. Burwell and Mendygliev signed and exchanged 

inspection reports, and the team flew back to the capital of 

Almaty. The American team departed early the next morning 

on the one daily flight from Almaty to Frankfurt, Germany 

where they transferred to a flight for Washington, D.C. From 

1993 to 2000, the United States sent more than 20 treaty 

inspection teams to Kazakhstan; Colonel Mendygliev and 

the center’s officers escorted every one.118

Eliminating missile fuel and nuclear 

weapons storage areas

In 1998 Brown and Root bid on another CTR contract 

in Kazakhstan; one to provide program management for 

eliminating the large SS-18 missile fuel storage facilities 

at Zhangiz-Tobe and Derzhavinsk and the former nuclear 

storage depots at the two missile bases and Chagan air base. 

Requirements for this work grew out of a series of bilateral 

meetings in 1995-1996. There, Minister Shkolnik and 

Kazak officials raised the issue of permanent environmental 

problems if chemical and nuclear contaminants at these 

abandoned missile and bomber bases were not neutralized 

and demilitarized. They believed that neutralizing and 

destroying these facilities fell under the U.S.-Kazakhstan 

CTR framework agreement for strategic offensive arms 

elimination. When they submitted a formal request, U.S. CTR 

officials agreed. Since liquid missile fuels, specifically heptyl 

and amyl, were highly toxic, and contamination of the surface 

was possible, the two governments placed a premium on 

environmental safety. The initial phase began in April 1997 

when Director Solomin and his colleagues at the Institute 

of Chemical Science worked with Almatypromstri JCS and 

American environmental firms to assess the contaminated 

sites and develop technical standards for monitoring the 

ground, air and radiation levels. In the second phase, 

which began in April 1999, the integrating contractors, 

Brown and Root and ABB SUSA, subcontracted with and 

provided oversight of several Kazakh firms who carried out 

the actual work of neutralization, decontamination and 

demilitarization.119

At Zhangiz-Tobe and Derzhavinsk, Kazakh firms, working 

under supervision of the American integrating contractor, 

neutralized residual toxic heptyl and amyl liquid missile 

fuels, placing them into large containers, then transporting 

them to an isolated site for burning. The missile fuel storage 

facilities were then decontaminated and demilitarized, with 

any recoverable materials salvaged. They then demolished 

the remaining facilities. Three nuclear weapons storage 

areas underwent similar decontamination, deactivation and 

dismantlement in 1999-2000. John Booker worked with 

officials at the Kazakhstan Center for Defense Industries to 

identify, acquire and deliver heavy construction equipment, 

chemical and radiation monitoring devices, along with the 

usual training and services.120

Booker traveled to Kazakhstan frequently, reviewing the 

work at each site, certifying completion, and authorizing 

payment in dollars. Since the Kazakh firms worked on 

fixed-price contracts, the projects were subdivided into 

discrete phases so that work could be scheduled, performed 

and then if acceptable, be certified for prompt payment. 

This managerial concept was especially important to local 

firms who had to raise capital to purchase fuel, acquire 

trucks and other vehicles, and pay workers. Since all CTR 

programs in Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and even Belarus 

were done through formal contracts, American program 

managers had to devise acquisition strategies based on U.S. 

policy objectives, federal contracting regulations and local 

conditions.121

Several hundred workers were involved in demilitarizing 

and dismantling these sites. At Derzhavinsk, for instance, 

the construction firm Almatypromstri JCS had 250 workers 

dismantling more than 150 building and structures, 

including nuclear storage bunkers built with reinforced 

concrete and covered with several meters of dirt. Following 

Kazakh and American procedures, they decontaminated 

the buildings and bunkers, salvaging any materials. Once 

they destroyed the buildings and facilities, the site was filled 

with dirt to the standard one-and-a-half meters and graded. 

When completed, Kazakh and American firms conducted 

environmental assessments, and the Kazakhstan State 

Commission made a final decision to accept the reclaimed 
208

With Courage and Persistence

sites and return them to local authorities. Completion, 

certification, and transfer occurred for Chagan air base 

in October 1999, followed by Derzhavinsk missile base 

in August 2000, and Zhangiz-Tobe in September 2000.122

Shortly after completion, Alexander N. Golev, Center for 

Defense Industries, wrote: “It was not the project of the 

century in its scope or as an engineering feat. On the other 

hand, it is to some extent unique in that it marks the end 

of a series of projects that culminated in the elimination of 

strategic nuclear arms in our country.”123

Table 7-1. U.S. – Kazakhstan CTR Projects, 1994 -2000124

CTR Framework Agreement DOD, MOD December 1993

Phase I. – 1994-1997 – Projects Completed

Project Sapphire DOD, MOD, DOE * $15-20 m.

HEU -600kg purchased, removed, reprocessed in the United States

Emergency Response Equipment DOD, MOD $4.7 m.

Protective clothes, Computer/Radio equipment, health kits, mobile labs

Government to Government Communications Links DOD, MOD $2.3 m. 

Continuous satellite communications, equipment, computers, training

Export Controls DOD, MOD, MTI* $7.2 m

Computers, local area networks, lab equipment, coastal patrol boats, Radiation detection equipment, patrol vehicles

Material Control & Accounting DOD, DOE, MOD $22.4m

Local area networks, computers, tamper devices, mass spectrometer, Physical protection systems, remote monitoring, installation, 

training

Science & Technology Center DOD, DOS, MFA $9.0 m.

Phase II - 1996 -2000 – Projects Completed

Nuclear Testing Tunnels DOD, MOD $21.9 m

Environmental survey, closed and sealed 181 nuclear testing tunnels, and closed and sealed 13 nuclear test holes 

SS-18 Silo Elimination DOD, MOD $39.0 m

Dismantled and eliminated 148 SS-18 silos, 16 launch control centers, salvaged materials, restored sites

Strategic Bomber Elimination DOD, MOD $2.3 m

Dismantled, salvaged, eliminated seven Tu-95 heavy bombers

Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas & SS-18 Fuel Facilities Eliminations DOD, MOD $15.0 m

Neutralized, decontaminated, demilitarized, and demolished two liquid fuel fill facilities and three nuclear weapons storage areas

Acronyms: DOD - Department of Defense, MOD-Ministry of Defense, DOE-Department of Energy, MTI-Ministry of Industry and 

Trade, DOS-Department of State, MFA- Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Source: Report, CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress 

Fiscal Year 2002”, (January 2001).
209

Summary of CTR’s programs, phases, and 

policies in Kazakhstan

The time span was only six years from 1994, when the two 

governments initiated the first major CTR project – Project 

Sapphire, until 2000 when they finished eliminating the SS18 missile fuel facilities and nuclear weapons storage areas. 

During these years the United States, Kazakhstan, and to a 

degree, Russia moved far beyond declaratory policy statements 

to actually developing, implementing and completing 

cooperative military and scientific projects that assisted the 

new nation of Kazakhstan in its transition. A summary of 

activity during these years reveals two distinct phases in the 

CTR programs as seen in the following chart. 

Without exception, senior leaders in Kazakhstan and 

the United States participated in initiating, approving 

and monitoring these international projects. Minister 

Shkolnik, the government’s lead minister in the 1990s, 

explained that President Nazarbayev followed each project 

as it was defined, planned and carried out. He reviewed 

every program, Shkolnik explained, on an “extremely 

regular basis.”125 Secretary of Defense Perry was the Clinton 

Administration’s leader in developing and leading the entire 

CTR program.126 Perry had worked intensively with the 

Ukrainian government devising, shaping, expanding and 

pushing the bilateral cooperative program with Ukraine’s 

President Kuchma, Defense Ministers Shmarov, General 

Kuzmuk and General Mikhtyuk. Now in Kazakhstan, 

Perry supported and followed the major projects in detail. 

Jim Reid explained that Harold Smith, Roland Lajoie and 

the CTR program office staff, “briefed him (Perry) monthly 

on the program, a full-blown briefing – all countries, all 

projects and all activities.”127 When they visited Washington, 

President Nazarbayev and Minister Shkolnik met with 

President Clinton and Secretary Perry. The agenda always 

included the cooperative projects, their status and future 

programs. In Washington, Kazakhstan’s leaders met with 

Senators Nunn and Lugar and Congressional leaders. Nunn 

and Lugar traveled to Kazakhstan, going out to projects in 

the missile fields, meeting with Kazakh workers, and the 

president and senior ministers in the capitol. Perry traveled 

to the region frequently, going to Ukraine, Kazakhstan and 

Russia.128

In 1994 Vice President Gore and President Nazarbayev set 

up the U.S.-Kazakhstan Joint Commission, a senior bilateral 

organization established to develop cooperative programs 

and initiatives in an array of areas: nonproliferation, defense, 

trade, investment, foreign policy, science and technology, 

environmental protection, and energy.129 Nazarbayev hosted 

the initial meeting in Almaty in November 1994, just days 

after U.S. Air Force cargo aircraft had flown the 600 kilos of 

highly enriched uranium out of Kazakhstan. The two leaders 

and the commission held subsequent annual sessions, 

alternating between Washington and Almaty in 1995, 1996 

and 1997. At each session, Gore and Nazarbayev signed new 

CTR agreements, authorizing new projects and specifying 

new funding levels.130 Throughout the multi-year effort in 

Kazakhstan, this commission was the senior policy group. 

One level below, Secretary Perry, Assistant Secretary Smith, 

Minister Shkolnik and Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministers 

monitored and managed all aspects of the international 

programs and projects.131

At the operational level, the Defense Department’s 

CTR Program Office and DTRA program mangers carried 

out the day-to-day management and implementation. 

For the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Center for Defense 

Industries and the National Nuclear Center managed all 

programs and projects. At each of the three levels, the legal 

structures underlying every CTR program and project were 

the bilateral framework and implementing agreements, 

U.S. Congressional appropriations and laws, Kazakhstan’s 

environmental and security laws and policies, and the 

administrative rules and legal rules governing the contracts 

contained within the U.S. federal acquisition regulations. 

Attributing the history of the U.S.-Kazakhstan’s CTR program 

to charts listing millions spent and projects completed 

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and U.S. President 

William J. Clinton in Washington, D.C.

William J. Clinton Presidential Library
210

With Courage and Persistence

ignores this complex decision making, managerial, and 

structural reality.

There were larger policy dimensions to U.S.-Kazakhstan 

relations. At its inception in 1994, the Gore-Nazarbayev 

commission established three senior working groups to 

carry out the organization’s work between annual meetings. 

One group defined and developed new programs and 

recommendations for business development, especially in 

the area of energy. Another worked on initiatives for bilateral 

projects in environmental, scientific, and technology areas. A 

third working group sought to expand defense cooperation 

and develop new programs for defense conversion.132 The 

original CTR legislation included funding for military-tomilitary defense cooperation, which meant initiating new 

military-to-military contacts. However, it did not include 

funding for defense conversion programs, which would 

allow and encourage U.S. corporations and firms to develop 

joint ventures with former military-industrial enterprises 

in the new states. Testifying before Congress, Secretary 

Perry championed defense conversion, encouraging 

Senators Nunn, Lugar and Domenici to include it in the 

CTR authorization for 1993 and 1994. Congress agreed, 

authorizing CTR legislation funding military-to-military 

contacts and exercises and defense conversion, the latter in 

two programs: Industrial Partnering Program and Defense 

Enterprise Fund. These two programs had an interesting 

history in Kazakhstan.133

Defense Conversion and Defense 

Enterprise Fund projects in Kazakhstan

When Secretary Perry flew into Almaty in March 1994, 

the U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR effort was in its infancy. Perry had 

come from the missile base at Pervomaysk, Ukraine and 

he would fly next to Moscow for meetings with General 

Gravchev, Russian Minister of Defense. In Kazakhstan, Perry 

signed a CTR implementing agreement, “concerning the 

conversion of military technologies and capabilities into 

civilian activities.”134 This agreement, plus the October 1993 

Kazakh “Defense Conversion Law” set the legal foundation 

for the bilateral defense conversion program.135 Secretary 

Perry was the driving force; he believed that converting 

former military production enterprises into firms that could 

produce and market consumer products would be beneficial 

to the new nation’s economy and its people. Perry’s vision 

for facilitating conversion of former state-centered defense 

industries to a market-oriented economy encompassed the 

entire region; he had launched similar programs in Belarus, 

Russia and Ukraine. Perry told CTR managers to “find” 

former defense enterprises and “facilitate” their linkage to 

American companies willing to invest, manage and market 

new products, and then “finance” the initial effort.136

In Washington, the CTR Program Office obligated $17.2 

million for establishing industrial partnerships with former 

defense firms in Kazakhstan.137 President Nazarbayev’s 

government declared it would commit $15 million, mostly 

in “in-kind” contributions, such as laboratory facilities, 

existing equipment and production factories.138 The two 

governments set up a bilateral defense conversion committee 

in 1994 to evaluate former defense enterprises in Kazakhstan 

willing to form joint ventures. Paul Boren, an experienced 

CTR manager, flew to Almaty in the fall of 1994, met with 

the defense conversion committee, and invited dozens of 

defense managers identified by the government to come 

to Washington for meetings with American corporations 

and companies interested in investing.139 Throughout the 

year, Secretary Perry sought out U.S. business executives, 

explaining investment opportunities and encouraging 

them to participate in the defense conversion program in 

the newly independent nations. In June 1994, President 

Clinton had appointed Randolph Reynolds, Vice Chairman 

of Reynolds Metals Corporation, as chairman of the fund.140

By February-March 1995 there was sufficient investment 

and business interest, followed by financial, production and 

marketing analyses, that commitments to four joint ventures 

could be formed in Kazakhstan. In short order, the Defense 

Department’s committee obligated initial defense conversion 

funds to the following U.S.-Kazakhstan joint venture firms.141

ByelKamit Scientific Incorporated - Gidromash 

and Belomo

Conversion of a former surface-to-air missile plant to 

a manufacturing facility for producing cryogenic tanks 

and valves for use in chemical and oil industries.

Nursat and AT&T – KazInform Telecom 

Conversion of a former military missile tracking and 

satellite communications facility into an international 

telecommunications downlink station.
211

KK Interconnect – KRAS and National Nuclear 

Center

Conversion of a former military electronics facility 

into a plant to produce and market single and 

double layer printed circuit boards for regional and 

international markets

Biomedparat and Allen and Associates 

Conversion of a former biological weapons 

production plant into a facility for manufacturing, 

packaging, and marketing vitamins, pharmaceuticals, 

and antibiotics.

For a variety of reasons, once established, all of these joint 

ventures struggled; indeed most failed within a few years. 

Why? In some cases, the U.S. investment in time, money and 

equipment was not sufficient to sustain manufacturing lines 

for more than a few months. In other cases, international 

competition, especially from Asian electronic firms, 

swamped the new ventures. In still other cases, the converted 

manufacturing plants were located in areas so remote 

from any distribution or marketing centers, that the cost 

of transporting goods and services was exorbitant. There 

was also a clash of managerial styles, business cultures 

and approaches to investing and profits.142 Only one firm, 

ByelKamit Scientific was an unqualified success. Focusing its 

products on Kazakhstan’s rapidly developing national oil 

and gas industries, the firm manufactured cryogenic tanks 

for gas storage, cryogenic valves, safety valves and tanks for 

nuclear waste storage and transportation. The firm’s products 

received certification from American committees monitoring 

technical standards. Later they met international standards. 

Why was this joint venture successful while the others failed? 

Paul Boren attributed it to the American-Italian managers’ 

business strategy of first getting certified by international and 

American technical boards, and then thinking through the 

direction of Kazakhstan’s economy and what its needs would 

be in the late1990s and beyond.143

The second part of Congress’ defense conversion 

initiative in 1993-1994 was the Defense Enterprise Fund. 

Secretary Perry testified in support, citing the experience of 

other U.S. government enterprise funds set up and operated 

by the U.S. Agency for International Development.144

Following Congressional authorization in the FY1993 CTR 

Act, the Defense Department established a private, nonprofit corporation that would provide financial assistance to 

the new independent states for conversion of their firms and 

enterprises in the defense sector to commercial businesses. 

Randolph Reynolds was chairman of the fund.145 Congress 

added additional funds in FY1995 CTR bill, bringing the 

Defense Department’s contribution to $51.7 million. 

Congress also authorized the State Department to shift 

$15 million from the Freedom Support Act to the fund. 

Consequently by 1995 the Defense Enterprise Fund was fully 

funded at $66.7 million.146 Throughout the 1990s Congress 

did not appropriate any additional funds. Between 1994 

and 2000, the fund’s corporate management invested in 16 

joint ventures in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Across the 

former Soviet Union, there were an estimated 2,000-4,000 

defense enterprises, research and development facilities, and 

industrial complexes. Measured against the scale of total firms 

to those actually assisted, the U.S. effort was infinitesimal. 

Measured against a scale of business success, the fund failed 

as well. 60 percent of the joint ventures failed, due to many 

causes, but primarily to the collapse of the Russian ruble 

system in 1998. By 2000, only six joint ventures remained 

active.147

Two firms were in Kazakhstan. Nursat was a commercial 

satellite communications provider for businesses, government 

and the public. The firm began in 1995 as a joint venture 

between AT&T and Kazinformtelekom of Almaty. When 

AT&T pulled out, the government financed the firm, which 

built satellite telecommunications stations in Astana, Almaty, 

Aktubinsk, Shymkent, Taraz, Karaganda, Pavlodar, Aktau, 

Uralsk and other smaller administrative centers.148 The 

Defense Enterprise Fund invested $3 million in the company, 

which provided conduits into and out of Kazakhstan for 

the internet, infotel, and commercial data networks.149

The company provided digital uplinks for data channels, 

international satellite telephone and facsimile networks, longdistance corporate telephone networks, video-conferencing 

and television. The other successful firm was KK Interconnect. 

Formerly a small electronics laboratory located at the 

Semipalatinsk Test Site, this joint venture began under the 

defense conversion program. When it failed, the National 

Nuclear Center continued its support, and with a $3 million 

investment from the Defense Enterprise Fund, the firm gained 

a foothold and had success in manufacturing electronic circuit 

boards, personal computers and computer components.150

By 2000 both of these firms made the transition from former 
212

With Courage and Persistence

defense enterprises to commercial businesses in the modern 

global economy.

Extending and expanding CTR programs 

with Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan was a vast country and during the Soviet era 

numerous missile, space, and military aircraft test ranges were 

located on its territory. During the 1990s the Russian General 

Staff withdrew its forces and technical instrumentation 

from these test sites and ranges. However, it retained an 

interest in using the test ranges. Following several years of 

diplomatic and military negotiations, in 2000 Kazakhstan’s 

parliament ratified a series of bilateral agreements that leased 

four military test ranges to the Russian Federation: SaryShagan Range, Emba Test Range, 929th Flight Test Center 

and Kapustin Yar Missile Test Range. Russia agreed to pay 

Kazakhstan $27.5 million a year for 10 years, with $24 

million provided as in-kind payments in the form of flight 

training for Kazakh pilots and maintenance warrant officers, 

and fuel and supplies.151 Russia already had leased use of the 

large Baykonur cosmodrome from Kazakhstan as a launch 

site for its military, space, and commercial missiles. Through 

a bilateral treaty in 1994 Russia acquired the right to use the 

space center, its headquarters city, Leninsk and all facilities for 

25 years for an annual payment of $115 million. The complex 

was quite large. Leninsk had a population of 150,000 of which 

60,000 were Russian citizens. The Russian Strategic Rocket 

Forces’ research and development operations, along with 

7,000 military officers, were based at Baykonur.152 Despite 

its financial difficulties, the Russian government relied on 

the Baykonur cosmodrome for most of its military and space 

flights in the 1990s. During these years there was constant 

tension between the two governments over annual payments, 

social conditions, taxes and customs services. Against this 

background, the United States and Kazakhstan negotiated 

terms for extending and expanding the CTR program.

Every program and project in Kazakhstan fell under the 

basic CTR framework agreement, signed by Nazarbayev 

and Gore in 1993. That fundamental agreement expired in 

December 2000. Since it exempted government officials, 

companies and individuals of both nations who were 

working on joint CTR programs and projects from customs 

duties, taxes and legal suits, any new bilateral agreement 

had to be signed by government leaders and ratified by both 

houses of Kazakhstan’s parliament. When Shkolnik, now 

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, signed a new 

framework agreement that December, he nominated several 

new projects to the United States government. Kazakhstan’s 

parliament balked and did not ratify the signed framework 

agreement. Consequently, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister 

Erlan Idrissov and U.S. Ambassador Stephen Sestanovich 

signed another agreement in December 2000 temporarily 

extending the framework agreement to 2007, allowing all 

current CTR projects to proceed. 153 During the following 

months, when Kazakhstan’s government and parliament 

debated and developed formal interpretations on the 

agreement, they agreed on conditions for the government 

notifying parliament of new projects, and on new reporting 

requirements for the government informing the parliament 

on completed projects. On July 3, 2002, President Nazarbayev 

signed a bill extending the U.S. Kazakhstan CTR framework 

agreement to 2007. During the debate, American Ambassador 

Larry C. Napper announced in February 2002 that the U.S. 

Defense Department would obligate $6 million to support 

elimination of six missile silos at the Leninsk Missile 

Test Site.154 Other CTR projects recommended by Kazakh 

officials were conversion of facilities and infrastructure at 

Semipalatinsk, burial of spent fuel, dismantlement of selected 

equipment at the Pavlodar Chemical Facility, and continued 

dismantlement of the former biological weapons production 

facility at Stepnogorsk.

The Stepnogorsk Biological Weapons 

Complex project

This project had an interesting history. The Stepnogorsk 

Scientific Experimental and Production Base was one of six 

biological warfare (BW) production complexes developed 

by the Soviet Union’s national organization, Biopreparat. 

Established in 1973, Biopreparat consisted of more than 

30,000 scientists, engineers and technicians working in 

40 research and development institutes, laboratories and 

production plants.155 The Stepnogorsk BW production 

complex was among the most modern of the USSR facilities, 

constructed and equipped in the mid-1980s. Commander 

Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov (Kenneth Alibek) served as military 

commander of the Stepnogorsk production complex from 

1983 to 1987. Subsequently, Alibek rose to be the chief 

scientist and first deputy director of Biopreparat before 
213

he emigrated to the west in the early 1990s. “The Soviet 

Union had the most efficient, sophisticated and powerful 

offensive BW program in the world,” Alibek wrote.156 Deadly 

biological agents and toxins – anthrax, tularemia, plague, 

smallpox, Marburg virus and glanders were produced in 

large quantities and placed into weapons, like airborne spray 

tanks, cluster bombs or missile warheads. The Soviet military 

envisioned using biological weapons in tactical and strategic 

missions. “A strategic attack,” Alibek explained, “against a 

densely populated city using 50 kilograms of anthrax spores, 

which have a mortality rate of 90 percent, could result in 

about 100,000 fatalities.”157

In Kazakhstan, the Stepnogorsk biological weapons 

complex was modern and quite large, with 25 buildings 

spread out over two square kilometers. One section had the 

capacity for cultivating deadly strains of anthrax and then 

producing it in massive quantities in 10 large fermenters. 

The toxins were separated in the fermenters and, in wartime 

could be placed into cluster bombs or missile warheads. 

One expert estimated that if the plant was fully mobilized, 

it could produce 300 metric tons of anthrax in a 10-month 

period.158 Full-scale BW production never occurred; instead 

in the late 1980s the Soviet government cut funding and 

then stopped it altogether. Dr. Alibek, then Biopreparat’s 

first deputy director, said that in 1989 he “ordered the full 

decontamination of the Stepnogorsk facility, using a mixture 

of formaldehyde and potassium permanganate... yet even 

after we had finished, it was possible to isolate viable anthrax 

spores from deep inside the walls and floors.”159 When the 

Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan inherited the secret 

Stepnogorsk Scientific Experimental and Production Base 

complex. Initially, Kazakh officials saw the possibility of a 

modern, decontaminated biological production facility, 

one that with adequate investment and equipment could 

be developed into a plant to make biotechnologies, such as 

animal vaccines, human vitamins or medical instruments. In 

Stepnogorsk, the former complex and adjacent petrochemical 

plant contained a production area of 500,000 square meters.

For three years, 1992-95, Nazarbayev’s ministers tried 

to convert portions of the former BW production facility 

Stepnogorsk BW Production Complex, Kazakhstan

Department of Defense
214

With Courage and Persistence

into a commercial biotechnical enterprise. In 1993-1994, 

the government reorganized the complex into a joint 

stock company, AO Biomedpreparat. They purchased 

new equipment and set up a production line to produce 

genetically engineered insulin and other pharmaceutical 

products. Within a matter of months, however, the effort 

failed.160 Next, the government nominated the Stepnogorsk 

company to be a part of the U.S. defense conversion 

program being championed by Secretary of Defense Perry. 

That initiative worked, as AO Biomedpreparat and Allen 

& Associates, International agreed to form a joint business 

venture to produce and commercially market vitamins, 

antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals produced in a part of 

the Stepnogorsk complex. In early 1995, Harry Cook, CTR 

program manager worked with the new firm as it received 

$2.8 million in Department of Defense investment funds, 

and $3 million, largely in-kind contributions, from the 

Kazakhstan government. Cook did not travel to the plant. 

For a variety of business reasons, this joint enterprise failed 

in less than a year. When the Kazakhstan government halted 

its contributions in late 1995, Biomedpreparat managers 

stopped production, cut off the power, mothballed the 

equipment and released the workers.161

During the spring of 1995 Andrew Weber, from the U.S. 

Embassy, received permission from the Kazakh government 

to travel to Stepnogorsk to see if there was a former biological 

weapons production facility there. Weber and a small U.S.-

Kazakhstan team flew into the city in early June where they 

were met on the runway by the plant director Gennady 

Lepyoshkin, a former Soviet colonel. “You’re not welcome 

in our city,” Lepyoshkin told Weber. “Leave!”162 Weber 

persuaded him to let them stay overnight in the town, where 

he could communicate with U.S. Ambassador Courtney. 

The colonel agreed. Weber realized the Russian director 

and the staff regarded the plant as a Russian installation, 

one not controlled or owned by Kazakhstan. Within a few 

hours Ambassador Courtney had secured a faxed letter from 

Minister Shkolnik, urging Colonel Lepyoshkin to open the 

plant to Weber and the American team. The next day, Weber 

presented the minister’s letter and the team was allowed into 

the plant, where they met with the director and his staff. 

Director Lepyoshkin presented a briefing on the plant’s work: 

the manufacture of vaccines. Then, Weber spoke in Russian, 

explaining that he believed the plant had been designed for 

production of biological weapons, specifically anthrax. Over 

vocal objections of his staff, Lepyoshkin declared, “Let’s end 

this discussion. We’ll show you everything, and you can 

make your own judgments.”163

The next day, Weber’s team toured the site, inspecting 

the building, bunkers and laboratories. Weber knew the 

plant’s functions and details from discussions with its former 

director, Alibek, who had supervised construction and 

managed the plant in the late 1980s. Inside the buildings, 

equipment had been mothballed, but it was well preserved. 

When they went into the main production facility, Building 

221, they discovered it was a high-level containment facility 

for making dangerous pathogens. In a three day production 

cycle, the facility was capable of producing 1.5 tons of 

bacteria. The building contained ten huge four-story tall 

fermenters, which were used in the production of anthrax for 

biological weapons. Weber remembered that when he saw 

these massive fermenters, it was one of the most disturbing 

days of his life. “This is a plant that could produce and load 

onto weapons – targeted at the United States – 300 metric 

tons of anthrax during a wartime mobilization period.” When 

Fermentors inside the Stepnogorsk BW Production Complex

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
215

he climbed to the top of one of the 20,000-liter fermenters 

and looked down into the chamber with a flashlight, he felt 

a chill run up his spine. “I think that more than any other 

day in my life,” he said later,” this was my introduction to 

two things. First, on biological weapons. I had read about 

them. I had taken courses. But this was the real thing. And 

second to the Soviet Union ... there it was, I was face to face 

with evil.”164

Six months later on a cold winter day retired General 

Roland Lajoie, director of the CTR program office, saw the 

Stepnogorsk complex for the first time. As the United States’ 

chief arms control inspector, he had traveled extensively 

across the Soviet Union and throughout the region of newly 

independent states. He had seen massive destructive missiles, 

bombers, submarines and all manner of other weapons. 

Years later he recalled his impressions at Stepnogorsk:

“It was one of the scariest complexes I’ve ever 

seen in my military career. It was a huge complex, 

nestled right next to a larger petro-chemical 

operation, so that its signature from overhead 

would have been obscured. It was designed to 

produce a massive, obscene, amount of anthrax. 

It would be weaponized, put into warheads that 

would be stored in refrigerated bunkers and then 

readied to be sent by rail to the missile sites. It 

was just the scariest thing. It started with the large 

fermenters on the top floor (6-stories), and a 

gravity-fed production line to produce, refine, dry, 

grind and finally fill the anthrax into the warheads. 

Weaponization is the most damning, but rarely 

seen, step in BW production. It was right there on 

the premises.”165

Lajoie recognized, on the spot, that the plant had been 

abandoned. Water pipes were frozen, the huge fermenters 

were left standing on the plant floor, and the floor was littered 

with materials. There was little security. When he returned 

to Washington, the general recommended to Secretary 

Perry that the Stepnagorsk BW complex be dismantled 

and destroyed completely. Two months later, Dr. Carter 

met with Minister Shkolnik in Almaty and he proposed 

that a joint study be undertaken to evaluate the former BW 

production plant and based on that analysis, a project be 

developed to dismantle and destroy the plant. Shkolnik, 

after consulting with the president, agreed, provided the 

United States would agree to convert other buildings on 

the complex site to other purposes and encourage foreign 

investment. In subsequent months American and Kazakh 

technical experts and program managers fashioned a twostage, multi-year CTR-funded program using weapons 

of mass destruction infrastructure elimination funds to 

dismantle the main and auxiliary military microbiological 

equipment at the Stepnogorsk complex.166

Once the bilateral policy was set, actual work progressed 

as planned. Specialists drawn from both nations inventoried 

the complex’s systems and equipment, sampled the facilities 

for the presence of toxins, and developed requirements for 

a new modern biochemical laboratory to monitor worker 

safety during plant dismantlement. Initiated in December 

1996, the first phase was completed with installation of 

a new $750,000 laboratory in Stepnogorsk in April 1998. 

This phase included engineering and analytical reports 

that determined the sequence and level for eliminating the 

biological weapons plant’s infrastructure.167 In September 

AO Biomedpreparat, the local Kazakh firm, received a 

contract to begin dismantling the first of nine buildings 

at the former BW production complex. Construction also 

Andrew Weber with biological sample, Stepnogorsk

Department of Defense
216

With Courage and Persistence

began on the small scale hospital, one designed to detect, 

monitor and protect workers from any infectious diseases. 

Throughout the project, all 119 AO Biomedpreparat 

workers received daily medical exams prior to and after 

dismantling operations. Every Kazakh worker received 

special protective uniforms and individual monitoring 

equipment. Scientists at Kazakhstan’s National Sanitary 

and Epidemiological Service supervised every phase of the 

work. This government institute documented removal and 

destruction of every item of equipment and the buildings.

Over the next 14 months, Biomedpreparat’s workers 

dismantled the BW equipment and systems in all of 

the buildings, including the pipes, air filters, couplings, 

compressors, fermenters, separators, valves, sewage 

drainage systems, electrical systems, shower rooms, offices, 

doors and walls. Next, they began dismantling the sixstory BW production building’s foundation and removing 

waste materials. By December 2000, the BW production 

plant at Stepnogorsk had been destroyed.168 Another small 

CTR contract funded dismantling, decontamination, and 

removal of the plant’s ancillary equipment. By April 2003 

this work had been completed. By that time, a major new 

CTR Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program 

was underway in Kazakhstan. 169

New CTR Biological Threat Reduction 

programs in Kazakhstan

Congress declared in the 2000 and 2001 CTR legislation 

that “the biological and chemical weapons remaining in 

the former Soviet Union pose a significant threat to U.S. 

national security.”170 Following the sudden, devastating 

terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 

11, 2001, the Bush administration redefined the nation’s 

strategy on countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 

their use and further proliferation. As the administration 

prepared to go to war against Iraq, President Bush issued the 

National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction 

in December 2002.171 Biological weapons were mass 

casualty weapons, consequently many intelligence and 

international security experts assumed that dangerous states 

and terrorist groups would seek out, acquire, and use these 

deadly weapons.172 Andrew Weber had joined the Defense 

Department’s CTR program office and as they analyzed the 

sources of deadly toxins, bacteria and viral strains, attention 

focused on the vast Soviet Biopreparat network of labs, 

research institutes, development centers and production 

facilities. By this time, most of these institutes and centers 

had fallen into disrepair and insolvency. However, they 

possessed two critical elements: unique biological collections 

of bacteria, funguses and viral strains, and a cadre of trained, 

experienced biologists, scientists and technicians.173

In Washington, Senator Richard Lugar and his staff 

fashioned legislation to address the need for biosecurity and 

biosafety programs at the former BW facilities and institutes. 

In 2002, the Bush Administration’s National Security 

Council staff reviewed all CTR and related programs in the 

non-Russian former Soviet Union (FSU) nations. Biological 

weapons prevention programs received strong support. Key 

Congressional committees directed the Defense Department 

to develop broad new comprehensive programs to assist FSU 

nations in detecting, assaying and responding to either BW 

smuggling, attack or more likely the outbreak of deadly new 

strains of diseases and viruses. At the same time, Congress 

continued its interest in developing joint projects to 

dismantle and destroy the new nations’ inherited biological 

weapons production facilities.174

Preventing biological weapons transfer from any of 

the new states to a hostile state or terrorist group became 

a major U.S. CTR objective as the Defense Department 

developed new bilateral implementing agreements and 

a new comprehensive program. Known as the Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Prevention (BWPP), the new 

program had four parts. In one element there was a series 

of new CTR projects designed to enhance biosecurity and 

biosafety of dangerous pathogens located at government 

Workers destroying Stepnorgorsk BW Production Complex biological research, development and production centers. Defense Threat Reduction Agency
217

Since this would be a multi-nation, multi-site and multiyear effort, the CTR program office projected a funding 

requirement of $63 million, from 2001 through 2006. The 

second element consisted of new bilateral projects to engage 

the region’s biochemists and scientists in collaborative 

research projects with American scientists working in 

universities, institutes and even companies. They estimated 

that these collaborative research projects would cost up 

to $76.2 million over the five years. One major objective 

for all collaborative biological research projects was to 

establish transparency. In 2001, the CTR Program Office 

told key Congressional committees that it would initiate 

approximately 11 new collaborative research projects a year 

for the next five years. The third element sought to develop 

joint projects that would assist nations in consolidating the 

infrastructure and equipment associated with former BW 

research, development, testing and production facilities, 

and then to assist new governments in dismantling and 

destroying BW production facilities. They projected the 

cost for CTR projects in this area would be $53 million.175

The fourth and most comprehensive part of the 

Defense Department’s Biological Weapons Proliferation 

Prevention Program was the Threat Agent Detection and 

Response (TADR) program. The concept and development 

of this new program emerged in 2002-2003. Its principal 

objective was to strengthen the new government’s existing 

networks and systems for detecting and responding to the 

diversion or release of dangerous pathogens. A second 

objective was to assist the region’s governments in removing 

pathogen collections from Soviet-era remote, sentinel 

stations and transporting them, safely and securely, to a 

national centralized laboratory. The program also sought to 

integrate BW-related scientific expertise in the region with 

the international scientific community. Finally this new 

program, if accepted by the national governments, would 

encourage consolidating dangerous pathogens into a secure 

new central reference laboratory to reduce the risk of theft, 

diversion, accidental release, or terrorist attack. Included 

in every new TADR project were provisions for initial and 

recurring training for the scientists, technicians and support 

personnel on biosecurity, biosafety, bioethics, proliferation 

prevention, diagnostics, epidemiology, and quality control 

and assurance. In 2004 the CTR Program Office and the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency estimated the cost of all 

these new TADR projects from 2005 through 2010 would be 

$586.1 million.176

In Kazakhstan the Biological Weapons Proliferation 

Prevention effort resulted in several projects. Unlike Russia, 

Kazakhstan demonstrated “an extraordinary degree of 

openness and transparency” about the institutes, centers and 

people who had participated in the Soviet BW programs.177

President Nazarbayev’s government engaged both the United 

States and the European Union as well, in new cooperative 

biological weapons prevention programs. One of the 

first U.S.-Kazakhstan CTR projects was carried out at the 

Scientific Research Agricultural Institute, the new nation’s 

only institution concentrating on veterinary virology. 

Located in Otar, approximately 180 kilometers from Almaty, 

the institute had a modern laboratory capable of carrying 

out research in molecular biology and genetic engineering. 

Before 1991, it was part of the USSR’s Biopreparat complex, 

and its 400 scientists and technicians researched new 

anti-crop and animal biological toxins. According to 

Kazakhstan sources, scientists at the agricultural research 

institute studied dangerous and lesser-known infectious 

animal and crop diseases and developed techniques for 

producing vaccines against hog cholera, fowl plague, avian 

infectious laryngotracheitis and fowl pox. In the 1990s the 

institute turned its attention to developing new methods for 

diagnosing animal and bird infectious diseases.178

Professor Saidigapbar Mamadaliyev, director of the 

Scientific Research Agricultural Institute, recommended 

that the Kazakhstan government consider security and 

safety enhancements to the institute’s strain museum 

as a possible joint project with the U.S. CTR Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Prevention program. Following an 

initial survey of the museum by CTR program managers, 

the Defense Department agreed and the initial project was 

launched at the Scientific Research Agricultural Institute 

in April 2000. Over the next three years, the agricultural 

institute’s scientists inventoried the museum and the 

institute’s strains, developed requirements for new security 

systems with zones of protection for the dangerous strains, 

installed security equipment and systems, and conducted 

training for personnel. New perimeter fences, improved 

lighting, perimeter alarms and training for guards followed 

TADR Program
218

With Courage and Persistence

physical renovations to the museum facility. In addition, the 

institute’s senior staff worked with Bechtel International, 

the firm that had been selected as the BW proliferation 

prevention program’s integrating contractor for all the 

new states. Jointly, the two groups discussed, negotiated 

and developed a business plan that assessed the institute’s 

scientific and technical capabilities and projected where 

it would fit into the region’s economy. As this effort was 

underway, several of the Kazakh institute scientists worked 

on collaborative research projects under the CTR-funded 

International Science and Technical Center in Almaty.179

Another major biological weapons prevention project 

developed with the Kazakhstan’s Scientific Center for 

Quarantine and Zoonotic Disease. Located in central 

laboratory Almaty and regional field stations, during the 

Cold War, this important center created and managed an 

extensive field-based anti-plague system for Central Asia. 

In the Soviet era, 450 scientists and technicians at the 

Almaty institute operated a network of 19 epidemiological 

monitoring stations located in the “stans” and southern 

Russia. The institute had four laboratories and a vaccine 

plant capable of producing more than 20 million vaccines 

annually. Like all the Biopreparat institutes, it was also linked 

in various ways with the science, testing and production of 

biological weapons. In 1992, Moscow terminated all funding 

and military related research ended. During the 1990s the 

center underwent contractual and financial hardship. It 

managed, however, to gain scientific recognition from the 

World Health Organization as one of four certified centers to 

detect and classify plague strains in the Central Asian region. 

Isolated cases of human plague occurred in Kazakhstan every 

year. The center’s scientists worked on collaborative projects 

with European Union scientists and American biologists and 

university scientists under a series of ISTC projects.180

Then in 2000, the center received a CTR contract to 

initiate a three-year project to make major improvements 

in the physical security and biosafety at the central 

reference laboratory in Almaty. To improve visibility, local 

workers removed 1,360 bushes, 340 trees and numerous 

obsolete, abandoned buildings. Around the perimeter, they 

constructed a new concrete panel fence with razor wire, a 

new lighting system with search lights, guard houses and 

a communication system. In the anti-plague center’s main 

building, they improved the physical security of the institute’s 

culture collection, which included more than 2,000 strains 

of pathogens. New doors, locks, window grids, electrical 

alarm systems and computers with Internet access elevated 

the biosecurity system to world standards. An American firm, 

Cuhza, carried out the engineering assessment for a new 

central reference laboratory. That project signaled a major 

shift in direction for both the Almaty anti-plague center and 

the U.S. CTR biological proliferation prevention program.181

By 2000 Kazakhstan’s anti-plague center in Almaty 

had reoriented its mission. It established, staffed and 

maintained 10 regional stations and 17 field stations capable 

of monitoring the outbreak of plague in towns, villages 

and nomadic herdsmen living on the nation’s vast steppe 

(1,007,350 sq. km.). Under the Threat Agent Detection and 

Response program, American CTR officials were prepared to 

assist Kazakhstan in consolidating and modernizing its antiplague system with new laboratory equipment, computers 

and communication equipment in the remote field stations. 

First, the two governments negotiated and signed a new CTR 

implementing agreement covering the legal status for the 

new cooperative biological research program. In December 

2004, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 

Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation, and 

Minister Shkolnik, Energy and Mineral Resources, signed 

an extension of the CTR weapons of mass destruction 

implementing agreement that expanded cooperation against 

the threat of bioterrorism in Kazakhstan.182 In essence, 

this agreement authorized development of a range of new 

cooperative biosecurity and biosafety facility projects, all 

funded by the CTR program.

Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev presents award to Senator 

Lugar, Kazakstan, 2006

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
219

In the United States, concerns about biological weapons 

continued in the Bush Administration and Congress. In April 

2004, the president issued a National Security Directive on 

Biodefense for the 21st Century, and Congress continued to 

fund expansion of the CTR Biological Weapons Proliferation 

Prevention program. During 2004-05, four other laboratories 

and medical centers in Kazakhstan joined the CTR Threat 

Agent Detection and Response program. They were the 

Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Service Laboratory 

in Almaty, the Ministry of Defense Medical Department in 

Almaty, and the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Astana, 

the Scientific Research Agricultural Institute (SRAI) in Otar, 

and their associated regional field stations. At each of these 

labs and institutes Kazakh scientists and American biological 

experts and project managers developed requirements for 

new projects that would modernize diagnostic capabilities to 

minimize the need for retaining dangerous pathogen strains 

in the remote field stations, improve the labs microbiology 

forensic capability, promote transparency in diagnosing 

and researching pathogens and develop a network of 

trained scientists to prevent, detect and contain a biological 

weapons terrorist attack. Biosecurity and biosafety projects 

were incorporated as part and parcel of the requirements for 

each institution. From Kazakhstan’s perspective perhaps the 

most important aspect of the entire Threat Agent Detection 

and Response program was the prospect for funding the 

construction and equipping of the new U.S.-financed central 

reference laboratory.183

In many ways, Kazakhstan became one of the leading 

nations in cooperating with the United States in this new 

comprehensive threat agent detection and response program. 

By 2005, similar cooperative projects were defined and 

being implemented in Georgia and Uzbekistan. The United 

States obligated $122.9 million to the program in these 

three nations. In 2005-2006, negotiations with Ukraine 

and Azerbaijan resulted in new CTR biological proliferation 

prevention implementing agreements and new bilateral 

cooperative programs. The model or template for these 

new bilateral BW proliferation efforts was the work done in 

Georgia, Uzbekistan and above all, Kazakhstan.184

When Senator Lugar traveled to Kazakhstan in late 

summer 2006, he met with President Nazarbayev and senior 

ministers who explained they were prepared to expand the 

bilateral biological weapons nonproliferation program by 

creating a disease surveillance system.185 In addition to the 

biosecurity and biosafety measures mentioned above, and 

plans for a new central reference lab, government ministers 

wanted to expand their international scientific research efforts 

with American, European, and Central Asian scientists and 

scientific institutes. The Kazakh government’s willingness 

to push into the international arena was symptomatic of its 

15-year transition from a nuclear to a nonproliferation state. 

In 1991, the proliferation issues stressed by the great powers 

concerned the future of Kazakhstan and its inherited nuclear 

weapons. Now 15 years later, proliferation issues, articulated 

by the United States and European Union nations, focused 

on locating and identifying dangerous new biological strains, 

new infectious diseases and the threat of theft by terrorist 

groups. In those 15 years, Kazakhstan, a small but important 

Central Asian nation made the transition from inherited 

weakness to regional strength.

“We believe,” Nazarbayev wrote in 2006, “the steps we 

took in the past decade became yet another considerable 

contribution to preserving stability and security in the 

world. The people of Kazakhstan stand by our historic nonnuclear weapons choice and call upon other countries to 

follow us.”186

Endnotes

1

 Federation of Scientists Nuclear Forces Guide, “Kazakhstan 

Special Weapons,” in www.fas.org/nuke/guide/kazakhstan , Nuclear 

Threat Initiative, Country Profile: Kazakhstan, in www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles , The World Factbook, “Kazakhstan,” www.cia.gov/

cia/publications

2

 For the situation in Kazakhstan at the time of independence 

see, Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise

(Washington, D.C., 2002), pp 24-51, 51-71; and Mikhail Alexander, 

Uneasy Alliance, Relations Between Russian and Kazakhstan in the Post 

Soviet Era, 1992-1997 (Westport, Conn, 1999), pp 1-56.

3

 Mikhail Alexander, Uneasy Alliance, 69-73.

4

 Dr. Shirin Akiner “Soviet Military Legacy in Kazakhstan,” 

Jane’s Military Intelligence Review, December 1994, pp 552-555.

5

 James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: 

U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War, p. 61.

6

 Mikhail Alexander, Uneasy Alliance, 58-70

7

 S. Akiner, “Soviet Military Legacy in Kazakhstan,” Jane’s 

Military Intelligence Review, pp 552-555.
220

With Courage and Persistence

8

 S. Akiner, “Soviet Military Legacy in Kazakhstan,” Jane’s 

Military Intelligence Review, 554.

9

 Mitchell Reiss Bridled Ambition, pp 145-146.

10 Mikhail Alexander, Uneasy Alliance, pp 201-211.

11 Ibid. pp204-205.

12 “All Strategic Bombers Out Of Kazakhstan; Talks on Those 

in Ukraine” RFE/RL News Briefs, vol 3., No. 9, 21-25 February 

1994, cited in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/kazakhstan/

NuclearWeapons

13 See Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp.189-150; see also 

Radio Free Liberty 1993-1994 on Kazakhstan. 

14 Mikhail Alexander, Uneasy Alliance, pp 208-209.

15 James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy, Revolution, War 

and Peace, 1989-1992, pp 514-545.

16 Ibid. 

17 Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp 145-147.

18 Elaine Sciolino, “Kazak Uses America to Enhance His 

Stature,” New York Times, October 25, 1993.

19 R. Jeffery Smith, “Kazakhstan Ratifies Nuclear Control Pact, 

Will Get U.S. Aid,” Washington Post, December 14, 1993. See also, 

Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 147-149.

20 Nursultan Nazarbayev, Epicenter of Peace, (Hollis, New 

Hampshire, 2001), p50.

21 Nazarbayev, Epicenter of Peace, pp 50-51

22 Interview with U.S. Ambassador William Courtney, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., August 28, 

2002.

23 See Agreement Between the United States of America 

and the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning the Destruction of 

Silo Launchers of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Emergency 

Response, and the Prevention of Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 

dated December 13, 1993. There were five CTR agreement signed 

that same day. 

24 Ibid.; United States Information Agency, News Release, “U.S., 

Kazakhstan Sing Nuclear Dismantlement Pact,” December 13, 

1993. 

25 See Agreement Between the United States of America 

and the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning the Destruction of 

Silo Launchers of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Emergency 

Response, and the Prevention of Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 

dated December 13, 1993. There five agreements signed that day. 

The USSR’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons arsenals 

were so vast that U.S. CTR policy and program managers sought to 

limit their bilateral objectives. 

26 William C. Potter, “Project Sapphire, U.S.-Kazakhstani 

Cooperation for Nonproliferation,” in Dismantling the Cold War, 

edited by John M. Shields and William C. Potter, pp 345-362. See 

also, David Hoffman, Dead Hand: the Untold Story of the Cold War 

Arms Race and the Its Dangerous Legacy, (New York, 2009), “Project 

Sapphire,” pp 439-458.

27 In researching his article, Potter interviewed and consulted 

most of the key U.S., Kazakh, and Russian officials involved in the 

project. I rely on Potter’s account, supplemented by interviews and 

some additional research. For Ambassador Courtney’s account of 

these events, I used my interview with U.S. Ambassador William 

Courtney, Washington, D.C., August 28, 2002.

28 Andrew Higgins, “Kazaks Tell How U.S. Flew Out Uranium,” 

The Independent, November 26, 1994, cited in Potter, William 

C. Potter, “Project Sapphire, U.S.-Kazakhstani Cooperation for 

Nonproliferation,” in Dismantling the Cold War, 349.

29 Potter, Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 350-351.

30 Interview with U.S. Ambassador William Courtney, 

Washington, D.C., August 28, 2002. 

31 Potter, Dismantling the Cold War, p.355.

32 U.S. Department of Defense News Transcript, “Secretary 

of Defense William J. Perry, et al” November 23, 1994, www.

defenselink.mil/transcripts

33 All quotes from DOD Press Briefing, November 24, 1994. 

See also, Michael R. Gordon, “Defusing a Nuclear Threat; Uranium 

Brought to U.S. from Ex-Soviet Republic,” New York Times, 

November 27, 1994.

34 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

(Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2003), pp 45-46.

35 DTRA Website, “Project Sapphire,” www.dtar.mil/ctr/ctr_

kazakhstan.html. July 9, 2001.

36 K.K.Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, CTR in Kazakhstan, p.46.

37 William J. Clinton, “The President’s News Conference with 

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, February 14, 1994, http://www.

presidency.ucsb.edu

38 Vladimir S. Shkolnik, The Semipalatinsk Test Site: Creation, 

Operation, and Conversion, (Almaty, Kazakhstan, no date), p. 389

39 For this brief sketch of President Nazarbayev, I relied on 

the work of Martha Brill Olcottt, Kazakhstan, Unfulfilled Promise, 

(Washington, D.C., 2002).

40 Nursultan Nazarbayev, Epicenter of Peace, p 61.

41 Mikhail Alexander, Uneasy Alliance, 201-211.

42 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Country Overviews, “Kazakhstan 

Nuclear Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site,” pp13-15, www.nti.

org/e_research/profiles 

43 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Country Overviews, “Kazakhstan 

Nuclear Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site,” see article “Destruction 

of “Nuclear Device” in Tunnel 108 in Semipalatinsk,” 31 May, 

1995, in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles

44 Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Disarmament, a 

Global Model for a Safer World, (Washington, D.C., 2006), Professor 

Shkolnik’s biographical data on pp 32-33.

45 Interview, Professor Vladmir S. Shkolnik, Minister of Energy 

and Mineral Resources, Republic of Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA , Washington, D.C., December 15, 2003.

46 Ibid. 

47 Interview, Dr. Olga G. Tyupkina, Executive Director, Institute 

for Non-Proliferation, Republic of Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Almaty r, Kazakhstan, March 5, 2001.

48 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

49-50.

49 Interview, Dr. Olga G. Tyupkina, Executive Director, Institute 

for Non-Proliferation, Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 

March 5, 2001.
221

50 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 49.

51 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 49-52.

52 Interview with Dr. Shamil T. Tukhvatulin, Director General, 

National Nuclear Center, Republic of Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 5, 2001.

53 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (ret), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, 1994-1997, U.S. Department of Defense, West Wilton, 

New Hampshire, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, March 

31, 2004.

54 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense, A 

New Security Strategy for America,( New York, 1999), pp 8-21.

55 Agreement Between the United States of America and 

the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning the Destruction of Silo 

Launchers of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Emergency 

Response, and the prevention of proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 

Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Washington, D.C., October 3, 1995, 

amended June 10, 1996. 

56 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 53-55.

57 Ibid., See also Interview with Dr. Shamil T. Tukhvatulin, 

Director General, National Nuclear Center, Republic of Kazakhstan, 

Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

March 5, 2001.

58 Interview, Luke Kluchko, CTR Program Manager, DTRA, 

U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, March 30, 2000.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid; See also, Report, Luke J. Kluchko, DTRA, “More Bang for 

the Buck: Comparative Approaches to Implementing Cooperative 

Threat Reduction,” Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National 

Defense University, March 2005.

61 See, Attachment II to Report, Luke J. Kluchko, DTRA, “More 

Bang for the Buck: Comparative Approaches to Implementing 

Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces, National Defense University, March 2005. For the division 

of labor, see Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

53-54.

62 Interview with Dr. Shamil T. Tukhvatulin, Director General, 

National Nuclear Center, Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, 

Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, March 5, 

2001.

63 Ibid.

64 For a sampling of these articles see, Nuclear Threat Initiative 

(NTI), County Overviews, “Kazakhstan Nuclear Facilities, 

Semipalatinsk Test Site,” p 1-15, http://www.nti.org/e_research/

profiles

65 “Results of 2nd International Conference on Nuclear Weapons 

Nonproliferation,” in Nuclear Threat Initiative, County Overviews, 

“Kazakhstan Nuclear Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site, “p 7, http://

www.nti.org/e_research/profiles

66 “Russo-Kazak Coordinating Group on Semipalatinsk Meets,” 

in Nuclear Threat Initiative, County Overviews, “Kazakhstan Nuclear 

Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site,” p 9, http://www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles

67 “UN General Assembly Focuses International Attention 

on Semipalatinsk,” in Nuclear Threat Initiative,, County Overviews, 

“Kazakhstan Nuclear Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site,” p 6, http://

www.nti.org/e_research/profiles

68 Video Documentary, William Leith, and Luke J. Kluchko, 

“Depth-of-Burial Experiments at Balapan in the Republic of 

Kazakhstan, 1997; and “More Bang for the Buck: Combining 

Calibration Experiments with On-Going Dismantlement Activities 

at Degelen Mountain, Kazakhstan,” 1998. Released for open 

distribution.

69 Interview, Luke Kluchko, CTR Program Manager, DTRA, 

U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, March 30, 2000.

70 Interview, Dr. Olga G. Tyupkina, Executive Director, Institute 

for Non-Proliferation, Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, March 5, 2001.

71 Report, Luke J. Kluchko, DTRA, “More Bang for the Buck: 

Comparative Approaches to Implementing Cooperative Threat 

Reduction,” Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National 

Defense University, March 2005.

72 Press Release, CTBT Preparatory Commission, 

“Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Training Programs in 

Kazakhstan,” Vienna, Austria, September 18, 1998. 

73 See Report, Luke J. Kluchko, DTRA, “More Bang for the 

Buck,” Attachment III, “Omega Seismic Calibration Test Series.”

74 See articles, “International Inspection Test Ability to Monitor 

Unsanctioned Nuclear Blasts,” October 10, 1999, and “Final 

Explosion Destroys Testing Infrastructure,” July 29, 2000 in , 

Nuclear Threat Initiative County Overviews, Kazakhstan Nuclear 

Facilities, Semipalatinsk Test Site, p 4, http://www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles

75 Report, Luke J. Kluchko, DTRA, “More Bang for the Buck: 

Comparative Approaches to Implementing Cooperative Threat 

Reduction,” Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National 

Defense University, March 2005.

76 Judith Miller, “One Last Explosion at Kazakh Test Site to Aid 

Arms Treaty,” New York Times, September 25, 1999.

77 Nazarbayev, Epicenter of Peace, p 71.

78 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

36-37.

79 Federation of American Scientists,, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction website, “R-36M/SS18 SATAN,” www.fas.org/nuke/

guide/russia/icbm/r-36. 

80 Mikhail Alexander, “Relations between Russian and 

Kazakhstan in the Military and Strategic Spheres,” in Uneasy 

Alliance, 201-211.

81 Interview, Mr. Jim Reid, Director, Cooperation Threat 

Reduction Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Department of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, D.C., May 1,2000.

82 Stephen Foye, Izvestiya, “ Kazak Nuclear Weapons Unsafe,” 

Izvestiya in RFE/RL News Briefs, vol. 3, no. 8, 14-18 February 1994. 

cited in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Missile Chronology, www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles/Kazakhstan
222

With Courage and Persistence

83 Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Washington, 

D.C., May 1, 2000.

84 Interview with Viktor A. Pabst, Alexander N. Golev, and 

Karshaubay Sh. Khusainov, Center for Defense Industries, Republic 

of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 7, 2001. All interviews 

conducted by author.

85 Radio Free Liberty/Radio Liberty News Briefs, “Agreement on 

Nukes in Kazakhstan,” 9-13 May 1994. 

86 Moscow News, “Weapons,” May 6-12, 1994.

87 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan, “Missile Overview”, 

www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Kazakhstan/Missile

88 ITAR-TASS, “Kazakhstan Completes Transfer of Nuclear 

Warheads,” 25 April 1995. in FBIS-SOV-95-080.

89 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, “August 1996 Final 

Protocol on Withdrawal of SRF from Kazakhstan Signed,” www.nti.

org/e_research/profiles/Kazakhstan/Missile

90 Ibid.

91 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, “October 1996: 

Missile Silos are Scheduled to be Closed Down,” www.nti.org/e_

research/profiles/Kazakhstan/Missile

92 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

37.

93 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, Missile Overview, 

“19 August 1996: Final protocol on withdrawal of SRF from 

Kazakhstan signed,” see www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/

Kazakhstan/Missile

94 Ibid.

95 Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, OSD, 

DOD, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2000, and Interview with 

Professor Victor A. Solomin and Dr. Vladimir Lyapunov, Institute 

of Chemical Sciences, Academy of Sciences, Kazakhstan, Almaty, 

March 7, 2001. All interviews with author. 

96 CTR Program Office, DOD, First-Half, Semi-Annual Report to 

Congress, Section 1207, Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993, 

March 31, 1996, pp iv-9-10.

97 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

p 37.

98 CTR Program Office, DOD, First-Half, Semi-Annual Report 

to Congress, Section 1207, Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 

1993, March 31, 1996, pp iv-9-10. See also, CTR Program Office, 

DOD, First-Half, Semi-Annual Report to Congress, Section 1207, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993, March 31, 1997, pp 

22-23. 

99 Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2000.

100 Interview with Professor Victor A. Solomin and Dr. Vladimir 

Lyapunov, Institute of Chemical Sciences, Academy of Sciences, 

Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 7, 2001. 

Interviews were with the author.

101 Interview, Luke Kluchko, CTR Program Manager, DTRA, 

U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, March 30, 2000.

102 Interview with Viktor A. Pabst, Alexander N. Golev, and 

Karshaubay Sh. Khusainov, Center for Defense Industries, Republic 

of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, March 7, 2001.

103 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

pp 37-38.

104 Interview with Murat Bektemisov, General Director, and 

Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, 

Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, March 8, 

2001.

105 Interview with Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, 

Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, March 8, 2001.

106 Interview with Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, 

Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 8 2001. 

107 Interview with William Suzuki, Program Manager, SS-24 

Elimination, Raytheon Corporation, Moscow, Russia, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, July 20, 2005.

108 Interview with Murat Bektemisov, General Director, and 

Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, 

Kazakhstan, March 2001; and Interview with William Suzuki. 

Program Manager, SS-24 Elimination, Raytheon Corporation, 

Moscow, Russia, July 20, 2005. All interviews with author. 

109 See Briefing Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, 

CTR, Kazakhstan, “18 January 2001. The final figures were: 

104 launch silos, 16 launch control centers, 2 training silos at 

Derzhavinsk and Zhangiz-Tobe, and 12 launch silos at Balapan and 

13 silos at Lenisk. 

110 Interview, Luke Kluchko, CTR Program Manager, DTRA, U.S. 

Embassy, Moscow, Russia, March 30, 2000.

111 Interview with Viktor A. Pabst, Alexander N. Golev, and 

Karshaubay Sh. Khusainov, Center for Defense Industries, Republic 

of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, March 7, 2001.

112 Interview with Murat Bektemisov, General Director, 

Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 8, 2001.

113 “All Strategic Bombers Out Of Kazakhstan; Talks on Those in 

Ukraine” Radio Free Liberty/ Radio Liberty, News Briefs, vol. 3., No. 

9, 21-25 February 1994, cited in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/

kazakhstan/NuclearWeapons

114 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 42.

115 Briefing, CTR Program Office, Department of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Review, May 20, 1997.

116 K.K. Tokayev and V.S. Shkolnik, eds., CTR in Kazakhstan, p. 

42.

117 Weekly Report, Arms Control Implementation Unit, U.S. 

Embassy, Almaty, Almaty, Kazakhstan, January 19, 1998.

118 Ibid. Discussion with Lt. Colonel Burwell, Hq OSIA, 

February 1998.

119 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, pp 40-41.

120 Interview with Viktor A. Pabst, Alexander N. Golev, and 

Karshaubay Sh. Khusainov, Center for Defense Industries, Republic 

of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 7, 2001. Interview with 

John Booker, CTR Program Manager, Kazakhstan, March 8, 2001. 

See Briefing Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, CTR, 

Kazakhstan “, 18 January 2001.
223

121 Briefing Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, 

CTR, Kazakhstan, “18 January 2001. See also, Interview, Jim Reid, 

Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Washington, D.C., with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, May 

1, 2000.

122 Briefing Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, CTR, 

Kazakhstan, “18 January 2001. Interview with Murat Bektemisov, 

General Director, and Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, 

Almatypromstri JCS, Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 2001; and Tokayev 

and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, pp 40-41.

123 Alexander N. Golev, Report, Center for Defense Industries, 

Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan, “Kazakhstan: No 

Nuclear Weapons,” March 2001. 

124 Report, CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2002”, (January 2001).

125 Interview, Professor Vladmir S. Shkolnik, Minister of Energy 

and Mineral Resources, Republic of Kazakhstan, Washington, D.C., 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, December 15, 2003.

126 Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp 50-77. See also, 

Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense, pp 8-20, 

65-92.

127 Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, D.C., May 1, 2000.

128 Letter, President William J. Clinton to President Nursultan 

A. Nazarbayev, November 25, 1994; John M. Broader, “U.S. Pledges 

$400 Million to Kazakhs,” Los Angeles Times, 15 February 1994.; 

Senator Sam Nunn, “Changing Threats in the Post-Cold War 

World,” introduction to John M Shields and William C. Potter, 

Dismantling the Cold War, pp. ix-xx. 

129 White House Statement, Office of the Vice President, “U.S.-

Kazakhstan Joint Commission,” November 18, 1997. Statement 

contains history and functions of the bilateral commission. 

130 Ibid. See also, Interview, Dr. Olga G. Tyupkina, Executive 

Director, Institute for Non-Proliferation, Republic of Kazakhstan, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 

March 5, 2001; and Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy 

Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2000.

131 Interview, Dr. Harold E. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998; see 

also Interview, Jim Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2000 and Interview, 

Professor Vladmir S. Shkolnik, Minister of Energy and Mineral 

Resources, Republic of Kazakhstan, Washington, D.C., December 

15, 2003. All interviews with the author.

132 White House Statement, Office of the Vice President, “U.S.-

Kazakhstan Joint Commission,” November 18, 1997. 

133 For context behind the U.S. Congressional legislation see, 

Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp 37-39.

134 See “Implementing Agreement Between the Department 

of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of 

Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan Concerning the Conversion 

of Military Technologies and Capabilities into Civilian Activities”, 

March 19, 1994, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

135 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 78.

136 Proceeding of Conference, “Building Industrial Partnerships 

in the Former Soviet Union,” Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces, April 19, 1995. For Secretary Perry’s remarks see, pp 21-25. 

137 Report. CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2002”, (January 2001), Appendix, B-1.

138 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 78.

139 Interview Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

26 May 2000.

140 Proceeding of Conference, “Building Industrial Partnerships 

in the Former Soviet Union,” Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces, April 19, 1995, p. 228.

141 Briefing, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

“CTR Programs, Republic of Kazakhstan,” 8 November 1998.

142 For these observations, I rely on Paul Boren. See Interview 

Paul Boren, Chief, Program Integration Division, CTR Directorate, 

DTRA, 26 May 2000.

143 Ibid. See also, Interview, Harry Cook, CTR Program Manager, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, Va, 

August 15, 2005.

144 See remarks by Ambassador Carlos Pascual, Deputy 

Assistant Administrator for Europe and the NIS at the Agency 

for International Development, in the Proceedings of National 

Conference, “Building Industrial Partnerships in the Former Soviet 

Union,” Industrial College of the Armed Forces, April 19, 1995., pp 

63-69. 

145 Proceeding of National Conference, “Building Industrial 

Partnerships in the Former Soviet Union,” Industrial College of the 

Armed Forces, April 19, 1995, p. 228.

146 Report. CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2002”, (January 2001), pp III-52-53. 

147 Ibid. The figure of 2 – 4,000 defense enterprises is from 

Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp 37-39. For an in-depth analytical 

study see Kevin P. O’Prey, A Farewell to Arms? Russia’s Struggles with 

Defense Conversion, New York, 1995, Clifford G. Gaddy, The Price 

of the Past: Russia’s Struggle with the Legacy of a Militarized Economy,

Washington, D.C., 1996. 

148 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 80.

149 Briefing, CTR Program Managers, CTR Directorate, DTRA, 

“U.S.-Kazakhstan Overview of Implementation,” 24 September 

2001.

150 Ibid. See also, Report. CTR Policy Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report 

to Congress Fiscal Year 2002”, pp III-52-53.

151 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, “Missile 

Chronology, June 2000,” in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles (11 

April 2007)
224

With Courage and Persistence

152 Mikhail Alexander, “Relations between Russian and 

Kazakhstan in the Military and Strategic Spheres,” in Uneasy 

Alliance, pp 222-221, 246-247. 

153 See Arms Control Today, “U.S-Kazakhstan Extend CTR 

Program to 2007’, http://www.armscontrol.org/node/2889; 

see also, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, “Nuclear 

Chronology,” 3 July 2002, in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles. 

154 Nuclear Threat Initiative, Kazakhstan Profile, “Nuclear 

Chronology, U.S. to Provide Funds for Further Elimination of 

Silos,” 14 February 2002, in www.nti.org/e_research/profiles.

155 Gulbarshyn Bozheyeva, Yerlan Kunakbayev, and Dastan 

Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities 

in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and Future,” Report, Center for 

Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 

June 1999. 

156 Jonathan Tucker, “Biological Weapons in the Former Soviet 

Union: An Interview with Dr. Kenneth Alibek.” The Nonproliferation 

Review, Spring/Summer 1999, p 2.

157 Ibid., p3.

158 Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet 

Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and 

Future,” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of 

International Studies, June 1999, pp 10-11.

159 Tucker, “Interview with Dr. Kenneth Alibek.” Nonproliferation 

Review, Spring/Summer 1999, p 6.

160 Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet 

Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and 

Future,” Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 1999, p 15.

161 Ibid, p 15; Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, 

p 66-68; Interview, Harry Cook, CTR Program Manager, Fort 

Belvoir, Virginia, 15 August 2005.

162 David Hoffman, Dead Hand: the Untold Story of the Cold War 

Arms Race and the Its Dangerous Legacy, (New York, 2009), p 461. I 

relied on Hoffman’s account throughout this section. 

163 Ibid, p.462.

164 Ibid, pp 463-464. Hoffman interviewed both Weber and 

Lepyoshkin.

165 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (Retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, West 

Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004. 

166 Ibid., Interview Lajoie; Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR 

in Kazakhstan, p 66-68.

167 Ibid., 68-69; Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, 

“Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, 

Present, and Future,” Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 

1999, p 16.

168 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 66-

68; Report, CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2002”, (January 2001), pp. III-38-39. 

169 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 66-68.

170 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2002”, pp. III-38. 

171 National Security Presidential Directive-17, “National 

Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” December 

2002, 

172 See Jonathan B. Tucker, Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of 

Chemical and Biological Weapons (MIT Press, 2000).

173 Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet 

Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and 

Future,” Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 1999.

174 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2002”, pp. III38-44. Reference to the NSC Review in 2002, in U.S. GAO Report, 

“Weapons of Mass Destruction, Nonproliferation Programs Need 

Better Integration,” January 2005, pp 7-8. 

175 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2002”, pp. III-38-

44.

176 Report, CTR Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2006”, pp. 56-58. Note: information through January 2004.

177 Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet 

Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and 

Future,” Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 1999, p 20.

178 Ibid; Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, p 

71-72.

179 Tokayev and Shkolnik, editors, CTR in Kazakhstan, pp. 72-73. 

(See project files too.)

180 Bozheyeva, Kunakbayev, and Yeleukenov, “Former Soviet 

Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and 

Future,” Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 1999, 

p. 12, 17. See also, Alvetina Izvekova, “International Assistance 

for Anti-Plague Facilities in the Former Soviet Union to Prevent 

Proliferation of Biological Weapons,” Occasional Paper, Center for 

Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 

June 2005. 

181 Izvekova, “International Assistance for Anti-Plague Facilities 

in the Former Soviet Union to Prevent Proliferation of Biological 

Weapons,” Occasional Paper, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 

June 2005.

182 “U.S. – Kazakhstan Sign Nunn-Lugar Agreement to Prevent 

Biological Weapons Proliferation,” States News Service, December 

8, 2004, http://lexis-nexis.com

183 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006”, pp. 56-58. 

Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar CTR: Kazakhstan” 

September 2003.

184 The U.S.-Georgia CTR implementing agreements had a 

number of iterations, see “Agreement Between the Department 

of Defense of the Unites States of America and the Ministry 

of Defense of Georgia Concerning Cooperation in the Area of 

Prevention of Proliferation of Technology, Pathogens and Expertise 

Related to the Development of Biological Weapons”, December 

30, 2002, as amended March 23, 2004, August 30, 2004, and 

November 3, 2005. For Ukraine, the biological threat reduction 

implementing agreement was similar, except for a different 
225

ministry. See, “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of 

the Unites States of America and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine 

Concerning Cooperation in the Area of Prevention of Proliferation 

of Technology, Pathogens and Expertise that could be used in the 

Development of Biological Weapons”, December August 29, 2005.

185 “Senior U.S. Senator, Kazakh Security Chiefs Discuss NonProliferation Cooperation,” Lexis-Nexis, http://www.lexis.nexis.com

186 Nursultan Nazarbayev, opening remarks at International 

Symposium, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, October 8, 2005, 

published in Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Disarmament, A Global Model for a 

Safer World, Washington, D.C., 2006.

227

CHAPTER 8

Assisting Russia in Eliminating Nuclear 

Submarines, ICBMs, and Infrastructure

The Russian government’s experiences with its inherited 

strategic nuclear, chemical and biological weapons differed 

profoundly from that of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. 

Not only did Russia retain nuclear weapons; it declared that 

it intended to remain a major world military power with 

operational sea, land and air nuclear forces. In the 1990s 

Yeltsin and the government adopted a foreign policy that 

insisted, even demanded the other nations in the region 

renounce the use of nuclear weapons, sign and ratify 

international nonproliferation and arms reduction treaties, 

and send all their nuclear warheads and nuclear materials to 

Russian storage depots and reprocessing facilities. Thus, only 

Russia retained a massive nuclear weapons complex manned 

with thousands of military officers, scientists, technicians and 

security specialists. In 1996, when Ukraine, Kazakhstan and 

Belarus became non-proliferation states, Russia’s president 

declared that his nation possessed 40,000 tons of chemical 

weapons that had to be destroyed under the protocols and 

provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty. In 

addition, Russia inherited an extensive network of former 

secret biological weapons production facilities and scientific 

research institutes.

By 1996, the U.S. Defense Department had approximately 

100 people, including contractors and government officials, 

working on bilateral CTR programs negotiating, planning, 

estimating, acquiring, managing and sending reports to 

Congress.1

 Coordinating every new project with DOD 

officials, the White House and Congress, the CTR Program 

Office had increased its obligation rate by nearly nine-fold 

between 1994 to 1996; going from approximately $100 

million to over $1 billion.2

 As this rapid expansion was 

underway, Secretary of Defense Perry asked John Deutsh, 

his deputy, to broker a major reorganization of the CTR 

program that transferred funding and responsibility for some 

programs and projects from the Department of Defense to 

the State, Commerce and Energy departments.3

Known as the “grand bargain” in program lore, this 

reorganization was driven by defense officials’ desire to 

stop interagency committees in the White House from 

“micromanaging” all CTR programs. Secretary of Defense 

William J. Perry and Ashton Carter, the CTR program’s 

senior policy manger, wanted to accelerate implementation 

of more than a dozen bilateral cooperative agreements, and 

to move faster on more than 50 projects already initiated 

with the new nations. They thought it was high time to 

move from bilateral negotiations on policy agreements and 

technical requirements to acquisition, delivery and actual 

project implementation.4

 Perry also wanted to focus CTR 

more on programs that worked directly with the Russian 

government and ministries to achieve compliance with the 

START I and II Treaties. In pushing this reorganization, the 

Defense Department was accused of policy domination and 

of “Balkanizing” the U.S. government’s nonproliferation 

policies and programs with the newly independent states. 

Ambassador James Goodby and Rose Gottemoeller were 

concerned about loss of a centralized point of contact for 

administration policy.5

 The U.S. Congress did not share 

these concerns and endorsed the reorganization in the FY 

1996 CTR authorization that appropriated new funds for 

nonproliferation, fissile material control and accounting, 
228

With Courage and Persistence

and the international science centers. Success of the 

cooperative assistance programs in the next few years, and 

the continuation, even expansion of other CTR programs by 

Congress proved these concerns unfounded.6

In the fall of 1996, U.S. Congress went even farther 

to reform and expand the entire Nunn-Lugar assistance 

program. For the time, the FY 1997 National Defense 

Authorization Act named Cooperative Threat Reduction 

programs for a projected five-year funding period.7

 Senators 

Nunn and Lugar had been requesting a multi-year program 

plan from DOD for several years. Now the department 

responded, projecting its CTR projects and programs out to 

FY 2001.8

 The CTR Program Office instituted a bottom-up 

planning review that required every program manager to 

develop a separate, detailed plan for each CTR project. Using 

the Defense Department’s standard planning format, the new 

project plans included a long-term funding profile for each 

project, a set of objectives, acquisition strategies, schedules, 

specific measurements of effectiveness and the basis for 

cost estimates. When all projects had been put through 

this analytical process they were then added to the five-year 

CTR program plan presented to Congress. Compared with 

previous managerial systems, this new process provided a 

more structured approach for the expanding program. From 

1997 until 2000 all new CTR projects fit within one of the 

following five broad program objectives.9

n Assist Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to 

become non-nuclear states

n Assist Russia in accelerating strategic arms 

reduction to the START Treaty levels

n Enhance the security, control, accounting, and 

centralization of nuclear weapons and fissile 

material in Russia to prevent their proliferation 

and encourage their reduction

n Initiate and accelerate Russia’s chemical 

weapons destruction program

n Encourage military reductions and reform in the 

former Soviet Union states

Within the Russian government, Ministry of Defense 

and General Staff senior officials altered their opinion of the 

American assistance being offered. Russian officials, military 

and civilian, watched intently how CTR program managers 

worked with the governments of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and 

to a lesser degree, Belarus. Lieutenant General Vasily F. Lata, 

who served as the First Deputy Chief of Staff for the Strategic 

Rocket Forces in the 1990s, commented, “The eliminations 

in Ukraine were the first time that we had ever seen the 

(decommissioning and dismantlement) process carried 

out at such a rapid pace. So, later on in Russia, we naturally 

relied on General Mikhtyuk’s experience with missile 

elimination.”10 As the director of strategic plans, Lieutenant 

General Lata briefed General Igor Sergeyev and the entire 

Strategic Rocket Forces’ leadership on the experience of 

decommissioning and dismantlement of the 43rd Rocket 

Army. Lata explained that discussions went far beyond the 

briefing. General Sergeyev had his senior staff review and 

study how the Americans worked with the 43rd Rocket Army 

in Ukraine; how Bechtel’s managers worked with Ukrainian 

subcontractors; and most significantly, how to transfer that 

experience to the Strategic Rocket Forces.11

Clinton – Yeltsin Summit in Helsinki, 

March 1997

When Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin held their sixth 

summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, the dominant topic 

was the pending enlargement of NATO. Yeltsin opposed it 

strongly, while Clinton supported it.12 The Russian president 

even threatened to leave the Conventional Forces in Europe 

Treaty, not ratify the START II Treaty, curtail military 

cooperation with the United States, and reexamine any 

further diplomatic cooperation on the ongoing conflict in 

Bosnia. With a crumbling Russian economy, a weak central 

government, a continuing internal rebellion in Chechnya, 

and growing pressures from central European and Baltic 

nations seeking entry into the western military alliance, 

Yeltsin’s influence was weak. By contrast, Clinton was in an 

exceptionally strong position. He had won reelection in the 

previous fall, the American economy was expanding and the 

nation was prosperous. During negotiations, Clinton rejected 

any secret deals but assured Yeltsin that any enlargement 

of NATO would be transparent, deliberate and that special 

provisions would be made for consultation with Russia. 

Clinton further promised Yeltsin that the United States would 

support and advance Russia’s membership into the World 

Trade Organization, the Paris Club, the Organization for 

Economic Cooperation and Development, and the annual 

meetings of the world’s seven wealthiest economies, the G-7.13
229

Frustrated by his inability to stop NATO enlargement, but 

with little leverage, Yeltsin dropped his threats and accepted 

the right of new nations to petition and join the alliance.

In joint statements, the presidents declared they intended 

to eliminate chemical weapons, reduce nuclear forces and 

cooperate on future research on anti-ballistic missiles. With 

regard to chemical weapons, Clinton and Yeltsin reaffirmed 

their resolve to expedite ratification of the Chemical Weapons 

Convention (CWC) Treaty, which was slated to enter into force 

the following month. The United States, Clinton declared, 

would seek congressional appropriations to build a facility 

in Russia for destruction of “neuroparalytic toxins” (nerve 

gas). On nuclear forces, the two presidents acknowledged 

that implementation of START I was ahead of schedule, while 

the Russian Duma still refused to ratify the 1993 START II 

Treaty. They agreed to delay until 2007 the date for final 

compliance to induce the parliament to ratify the treaty. 

They also affirmed that Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine 

were nuclear free. Further they declared that once the START 

II treaty had been ratified and entered into force, the two 

nations would immediately begin negotiations on the next 

treaty. Those treaty negotiations would have four principle 

objectives: lowering the aggregate strategic nuclear weapons 

to 2,500 by December 31, 2007; increasing transparency on 

nuclear warhead inventories and their destruction; ensuring 

the START treaties would be extended for an unlimited 

duration; and placing in a deactivated status by the end of 

December 2003 all strategic nuclear delivery vehicles slated 

for elimination under START II. Recognizing the last objective 

would be the most pressing issue for Russia, President Clinton 

declared, “[T]he United States is providing assistance through 

the Nunn-Lugar program to facilitate early deactivation.”14

Linkage: From presidents to programs

Three weeks after the Helsinki summit, DOD CTR 

senior officials Roland Lajoie and Laura S. Holgate signed 

amendments to four existing CTR implementing agreements 

in Moscow.15 These amendments authorized new projects and 

expanded existing ones. Holgate and Zinovy Pak, Minister 

U.S. President William Clinton (l.) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (r.) at Clinton-Yeltsin Summit in Helsinki, March 1997

William J. Clinton Library
230

With Courage and Persistence

of Defense Industries, signed an amendment to the Strategic 

Offensive Arms Eliminations (SOAE) Agreement increasing 

the level of assistance from $231 to $295 million. With 

Lieutenant General Igor Valynkin, 12th Main Directorate, 

General Staff, Holgate initialed an amendment to the 

Nuclear Weapons Storage Security agreement, adding $15 

million to the existing $101 million program.16 On another 

project, construction of a fissile materials storage facility at 

Mayak, Holgate and Alexei A. Markov, the Deputy Minister 

of Atomic Energy signed an amendment that added $84 

million to $74 million already obligated, for a total of $158 

million. For destruction of chemical weapons, Holgate and 

Pavel Syutkin of the President’s Committee on Conventional 

Problems of Chemical and Biological Weapons signed an 

amendment that doubled U.S. assistance for a facility that 

would destroy organophosphorus agent-filled artillery 

shells from $68 to $136 million. All in all, the United States 

increased its commitments by more than $200 million.17

The expansion included a series of new projects. Among 

them a large multi-year program, financed completely 

by Nunn-Lugar funds, to assist the Russian government 

in eliminating 480 submarine-launched ballistic missile 

(SLBMs) launchers and 31 ballistic missile submarines 

(SSBNs), including five Typhoon-class submarines by 2003.18

Another new project would fund removal of spent nuclear 

fuel from the Russian strategic submarine force and transport 

it to designated storage sites. A third project would provide 

dismantlement equipment and facilities to the three Russian 

shipyards located in the Arctic Sea and Pacific regions. To 

purge SS-18 rocket residual liquid fuels and then eliminate 

missile shells through a cutting and crushing process, U.S. 

CTR officials proposed to renovate an existing facility at 

Surovatikha, Russia. Two other new projects focused on 

eliminating large quantities of liquid and solid rocket 

fuels.19 Plans envisioned a solid rocket fuel destruction 

facility at Votkinsk and new liquid fuel oxidizer elimination 

equipment for defueling SS-18, SS-19 and SS-20N missiles. 

The Russian ministries responsible for elimination of 

strategic offensive arms accepted these recommendations, 

and worked closely with American engineers and missile 

specialists, estimating the scope and complexity of the work. 

To fund the new projects, DOD asked Congress to increase 

the Russian SOAE program by $598.5 million. This increase 

raised the CTR budget request for 1997 to 2001 from $365 

to $964 million.20

Without a doubt, these new bilateral programs 

constituted a major expansion of the CTR effort with Russia. 

The desire to safeguard and reduce the number of weapons 

of mass destruction was at the heart of both nations’ 

commitments, even though their motivations differed. 

President Clinton offered the Russian government new 

CTR assistance as an incentive to ratify the START II Treaty 

and further reduce the nation’s strategic nuclear forces. 

Secretary Perry reiterated these goals to his counterpart, 

Defense Minister Gravchev, trying to convince him to 

accept the Nunn-Lugar aid to eliminate excess Russian 

strategic weapons to comply with deadlines set in START 

I, II, and the CWC treaties. In Congress, Senator Lugar 

persisted in persuading Congress to allocate funds for the 

new nations to use in meeting their nonproliferation and 

nuclear safety and national security objectives.

Following discussions with their colleagues, Yeltsin 

Lieutenant General Igor Valynkin and Gravchev accepted the expanded CTR assistance to RIA Novosti
231

eliminate the excessive weapons. More importantly, the 

abysmal state of the Russian economy made acceptance of 

funds imperative. As Nikolai Shumkov, the Russian official 

responsible for managing all eliminations explained, 

“Finally, there came a time when the Russian budget 

had absolutely no money for compliance with treaty 

obligations or elimination of weapons systems, and the 

systems continued to deteriorate to the point that they were 

unsafe for us and, well, for the entire world.”21 Political and 

military leaders acknowledged there was no alternative to 

accepting American and foreign assistance if they wanted 

to protect, secure and destroy the weapons and meet the 

treaty commitments.22

In 1998 deteriorating economic conditions in Russia 

propelled cooperation even farther. In August the Russian 

ruble collapsed suddenly; the government defaulted on 

private holders of government bonds, the stock market 

collapsed, banks closed, stores emptied, and foreign 

and Russian investors lost billions. Taking emergency 

measures, the government devaluated the currency, fired 

senior ministers, slashed its budget and announced a bank 

moratorium. Among Russian elites a backlash developed 

against Yeltsin’s western policies and the assistance 

programs he had accepted enthusiastically.23 In the Clinton 

administration, collapse of the Russian economy caused 

a reevaluation of its policies toward Russia. For six years 

the president had asserted in numerous international and 

domestic forums that assisting Russia in its transformation 

into a stable, democratic nation was his major foreign policy 

objective. Now that policy was severely undermined. In 

the months that followed, the administration turned away 

from direct financial aid and moved toward increasing 

security assistance to help Russia in its nonproliferation 

and anti-terrorism efforts.24 Vice President Gore and his 

national security advisor, Leon Fuerth, led the effort.25

In the January 1999 State of the Union address to 

Congress, President Clinton declared the United States 

must increase its nonproliferation programs, specifically 

expanding “our work with Russia, Ukraine and the other 

former Soviet nations to safeguard nuclear materials and 

technology so they never fell into the wrong hands.”26

Clinton called on Congress to authorize spending 

$4.5 billion from FY2000 to FY2004; an increase of 

approximately 60 percent for all nonproliferation projects 

and programs with nations of the region.27 While Congress 

did not agree on every aspect, it expanded CTR funds 

for the Departments of Energy and State significantly. In 

addition, a new consensus emerged among congressional 

and administration leaders that CTR programs with Russia 

would last for at least another decade.

The Department of Energy and Department of State 

both expanded existing programs and established new 

ones.28 The Department of Energy expanded existing 

agreements and developed new programs in the Materials, 

Protection, Controls and Accounting (MPC&A) area, 

plutonium disposition, security for nuclear cities and 

proliferation protection.29 By 1999, DOE had committed a 

total of $800 million to MCP&A programs with 53 Russian 

nuclear cities and at those sites where highly enriched 

uranium or plutonium had been produced or stored.30

The State Department had responsibility for funding and 

managing the International Science and Technical Center 

(ISTC) in Moscow, providing employment for more than 

25,000 Russian nuclear scientists and technicians through 

project grants.31 By the late-1990s, Russian and American 

bureaucracies had both adapted to these major program 

shifts and the well-established process of negotiating 

bilateral agreements, defining requirements, signing 

contracts, acquiring equipment and services, and managing 

projects was well underway. When Congress established 

the final CTR budget for FY 2000, they appropriated 

$485.5 million to the Department of Defense, $264.7 

million to the Department of Energy, and $ 250.5 million 

to the Department of State. For the first time, the combined 

appropriation for state and energy exceeded that of the 

defense department.32

Strategic Offensive Arms Eliminations 

(SOAE) in Russia

By 1999 the Clinton Administration and DOD agreed 

to align all CTR programs and projects against the CTR 

program’s second major objective: assisting Russia in 

accelerating strategic arms reductions to Strategic Arms 

Reduction Treaty levels. When the Russian Duma still 

refused to ratify START II, this time due to the Kosovo war, 

the deadline for reducing strategic weapons under START I 

reverted to the original date of December 2001. Both sides 

used treaty compliance date as bureaucratic leverage. Under 

the broad CTR program objective, American and Russian 
232

With Courage and Persistence

officials developed requirements for 11 major projects 

and programs. Four of these programs assisted Russia in 

eliminating submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), 

the missile’s liquid propellants, the submarine’s radioactive 

waste materials, and the submarine, itself. Other programs 

assisted Russia in eliminating its land-based and mobile 

strategic rocket forces. In addition, there were two projects 

that would eliminate the number of excess Russian strategic 

bombers to the limits in START I treaty. These programs fell 

into the following three categories:

Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination Projects

Ballistic-Missile Submarines and Missiles

n SLBM Launcher/SSBN Elimination SLBM 

Launcher Elimination Equipment

n Liquid Propellant ICBM/SLBM Elimination

n Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) Reduction

Fixed and Mobile Strategic Rocket Forces

n ICBM Launcher and ICBM Elimination 

Equipment

n Liquid Propellant Fuels Transportation, Storage, 

and Disposition Systems

n Solid Propellant Missile Elimination

n Liquid Propellant ICBM/SLBM Elimination 

Emergency Response Support Equipment

Heavy Bombers and Emergency Equipment

n Heavy Bomber Elimination Equipment 

n Emergency Response Support Equipment

As of January 2001, senior Defense Department 

officials had signed 38 CTR implementing agreements; 

14 with Russian ministers and officials. In planning, 

organizing and managing the Russian Strategic Offensive 

Arms Elimination (SOAE) program, Nikolai Shumkov, 

Ministry of Defense Industry, was the key senior official. 

Key U.S. CTR officials managing and leading the SOAE 

program were Roland Lajoie, director of the CTR program 

office from 1994 to 1997 and Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., his 

successor from 1997 to 2003. Air Force Colonel Jim Reid 

served as Kuenning’s deputy. Navy Captain Ken Trass 

was responsible for managing all activities as the Russian 

Federation CTR country manager.

Russian SSBN submarine dismantlement: 

New levels of cooperation

When President George H.W. Bush and President 

Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START I Treaty in July 1991, 

the Soviet Navy had 248 nuclear submarines, 62 of which 

were ballistic-missile submarines.33 The Soviet Navy declared 

it had six types of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), 

equipped with 940 SLBMs, and 2,804 warheads.34 The 

missiles had an estimated range of more than 9,000 nautical 

miles.35 During the Cold War the Soviet Navy organized its 

strategic nuclear submarines by class (Yankee, Hotel, Delta I, 

II, III or IV, and Typhoon), by combat patrol divisions (eight 

submarines per division), and then assigned them to fleets. 

By the mid-1990s, the Northern Fleet had one division of 

Typhoon-class submarines, two divisions of Delta III and 

IVs, and a few Yankee and Delta I-class submarines, slated 

for decommissioning. These submarines had been included 

in START I. The Pacific Fleet operated and maintained 

two submarine divisions of Delta I and IIIs, both based at 

Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base, located on the Kamchatka 

Peninsula. The Pacific Fleet also had numerous older, 

obsolete submarines slated for decommissioning.36 Under 

normal conditions during the Cold War the Soviet Navy 

deployed 15 to 25 percent of its strategic submarine force 

at sea.37 The table identifies designation, quantity, missiles, 

and warheads of the Soviet Union/Russian and the United 

States navies:

Russian nuclear submarine in dock

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
233

Even before the treaty was signed in July 1991, the 

Soviet Navy planned to meet its treaty reduction limits 

by decommissioning and dismantling all of its second 

generation SS-N-6, SS-N-8 and SS-N-17 strategic submarines, 

because their service life would expire by 1999. Altogether, in 

these three classes there were 29 submarines, 484 SLBMs and 

484 treaty-accountable warheads. When Presidents Yeltsin 

and Bush signed the START II Treaty in January 1993, the 

Russian government agreed to a 50 percent reduction below 

previous treaty limits in attributed warheads for deployed 

ICBMs and SLBMs. Under this treaty, the Russian Navy 

planned to reduce the number of deployed SLBMs from 

2,804 to 1,750 attributed warheads.38

In the 1990s, several forces compelled the Russian 

Navy to decommission more than 80 percent of its nuclear 

submarines. The Russian Duma cut the defense budget 

so severely it forced the Navy to order drastic cuts in its 

operational submarine and surface forces. Many of these 

submarines had been in service for more than 25 years 

and had exceeded their operational life. In addition, some 

boats had been damaged in accidents, a few so severely 

they were beyond repair. By late 1993 the Russian Navy 

decommissioned 90 nuclear-powered submarines; in 1996 

it ordered another 60 submarines removed from service and 

in 1999, another 30.39 As the Russian Navy’s operational 

fleet shrank, the number of its decommissioned nuclear 

submarines grew alarmingly large.

Submarine deactivation was a complex process, 

requiring modern shipyards with a technical infrastructure; 

specifically liquid-waste storage facilities, provisions for 

offloading spent nuclear fuel, special railroad vehicles for 

transporting radioactive fuel, and secure storage facilities. 

Since few of these facilities existed in the Russian Navy, 

virtually all the decommissioned nuclear submarines 

sat in storage in the Northern and Pacific Fleet’s bases 

and harbors, with little maintenance or activity. As 

environmental, safety and security concerns grew over the 

future of these submarines, they became major issues for 

the Russian Navy, Ministry of Defense and the Russian 

government.40

To deal with these issues, as early as July 1992 

the Russian government directed the transfer of nine 

older decommissioned nuclear submarines, slated for 

dismantlement, from the Russian Navy to three naval 

shipyards that fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of 

Defense Industry.41 This decree established a pattern for all 

subsequent submarine dismantlement work. One of the 

naval shipyards was located near Severodvinsk, a closed city 

Table 8-1. U.S and USSR Start Nuclear Weapons Systems - 1991

U.S. Nuclear Weapon 

Systems SLBMs

Quantity

Deployed 

SNDVs

AccountableWarheads

USSR Nuclear 

Weapons

Systems 

SLBMs

Quantity

Deployed 

SNDVs

Accountable 

Warheads

Poseidon 192 1,920 SS-N-6 192 192

Trident I 384 3,072 SS-N-8 280 280

Trident II 96 768 SS-N-17 12 12

SS-N-18 224 672

SS-N-20 120 1,200

SS-N-23 112 448

Total 672 5,760 940 2,804

Source: Annex A, B, and C of the START Treaty, 31 July 1991
234

With Courage and Persistence

located on the White Sea. On an inlet, there were two large 

shipyards; the Zvezdochka Machine Building Enterprise 

and the SevMash Production Association. Together, these 

two shipyards constituted the largest nuclear submarine 

construction and ship repair facilities in all of Russia, 

covering some six square miles. Another naval shipyard, the 

Nerpa Ship Repair Facility was located on the Kola Peninsula 

in the Arctic Sea. In the Pacific, the Zvezda Far East Factory 

at Bolshoi Kamen, Vladivostok was the third naval shipyard 

identified as a submarine dismantlement site. In 1994 and 

again in 1995, the Russian government announced plans 

for improvements and construction of new dry docks 

at Zvezdochka, Sevmash, and Nerpa and for acquiring 

specialized new equipment to remove the decommissioned 

sub’s spent nuclear fuel. Although these promises from 

Moscow were empty and never fulfilled, the assignment of 

specific naval yards proved to be significant.42

From the beginning, Russian officials based their decrees 

on the assumption that decommissioning and dismantling 

nuclear submarines would be self-financing. Engineers 

estimated that each submarine contained thousands of tons 

of scrap metals; metals that could be sold on international 

markets. A Delta I-class sub would produce 2,300 tons of 

scrap metals, including tons of stainless steel, non-ferrous 

metals, titanium alloy, copper wiring and lead.43 A Yankeeclass sub would generate 3,600 tons of commercial-grade 

scrap metal. The government granted the three designated 

shipyards the opportunity to set up joint ventures with 

commercial enterprises. In October 1992, the northern tier 

shipyards and naval design firms set up Ekon, a new Russian 

stock corporation in Severodvinsk. Led by former senior 

Russian Navy officers, Ekon received the initial contracts 

to dismantle decommissioned nuclear submarines at the 

Zvezdochka naval shipyard.44 Engineers at Rubin Central 

Design Bureau in St. Petersburg, which had designed the 

Delta class submarines, drew up detailed dismantlement 

plans. The sequence of deconstruction was removal of the 

submarine’s ballistic missiles, removal of spent nuclear fuels, 

and dismantlement of the missile launchers. Destruction 

also included radiological decontamination, removal of 

internal equipment to be recycled, removal of the reactor 

compartment and its delivery to a secure location, cutting up 

of the submarine hull and compression of salvaged metals 

into universal cubic meter blocks for sale. Dismantling a 

Delta I-Class submarine required an estimated 32,000 man 

hours.45

Dismantlement of Russian nuclear submarine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
235

By the spring of 1993, the Russian government, its 

ministries, and the Russian Navy had defined the various 

roles and missions to begin submarine decommissioning 

and dismantlement. At this point, U.S. Defense Department 

CTR officials met with Ministry of Defense Industry officials 

in Moscow and discussed technical requirements for new 

American-purchased equipment that would assist Russia 

shipyards in dismantling the submarines. In these initial 

meetings, Colonel Jim Reid and Commander Michael Demio 

explained to Nikolai Shumkov that Congress had limited 

American assistance to dismantlement of “submarinelaunched ballistic missiles and the launchers for such 

missiles.”46 This meant U.S. assistance would be provided 

only to the Zvezdochka, Zvezda and Nerpa shipyards.47

In August 1993 Russian and American officials signed an 

annex to the Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination (SOAE) 

implementing agreement, and U.S. program managers in 

Washington began the process of acquiring, receiving and 

shipping the new technical equipment to Russian shipyards.48

Initial equipment included cranes with magnetic lifting 

devices, cutting tools, excavators with dismantlement blades, 

guillotine balers and cable choppers. Services included 

equipment delivery and periodic maintenance at the site, 

which was important due to severe weather conditions 

in northern arctic shipyards.49 Actual deliveries began in 

September 1994 and were completed two years later. In those 

years submarine dismantlement was a Russian program; 

the ministry and naval shipyards controlled the schedule, 

cost and results. Dismantlement work began in 1994, but 

went slowly in the designated yards since there was little 

or no existing infrastructure equipment, and the Russian 

government’s financial conditions declined precipitously.

Crisis in the Russian Navy

In 1994 the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet budget 

requested 600 billion rubles for all operations. In fact, it 

received less than 35 percent of that amount.50 The following 

year it received even less. In both the Northern and Pacific 

Fleets, naval officers and seamen had their wages cut, then 

suspended entirely for several months. Some officers refused 

to go to sea. The Russian Navy curtailed all operations, 

postponed maintenance and halted almost all new 

construction projects. When ballistic-missile submarines 

went on combat patrol, the complement of qualified 

officers had to be reduced. Shipyard workers were not paid. 

Thousands of workers at Sevmash, Zvezdochka and Nerpa 

worked without pay, accumulating wage arrears.51 One day 

in late September 1995, the local power company shut 

off electricity to a naval base at Gadzhiyevo. Apparently, 

the Russian Navy owed the company $4.5 million in 

unpaid bills.52 When power was quickly restored quickly, 

the Northern Fleet Commander characterized the event as 

episodic, indicating it would not occur again. Five days later, 

electric power was shut off again, this time at another naval 

base.53 Admiral Yerofeev, the Northern Fleet’s Commanderin-Chief spoke out on the issue and the increasing number 

of decommissioned and inactive nuclear submarines. “The 

problems of storing spent nuclear fuel, radioactive waste, 

inactive submarines, and the lack of servicing for submarines 

in active service are a problem,” the admiral stated, “not 

only for the Northern Fleet, but also for the Russian state. If 

measures are not taken to address the situation today, over a 

period of time, the situation could become critical and lead 

to an ecological disaster.”54

In Washington Secretary of Defense Perry became 

alarmed because it appeared that American CTR assistance, 

and assistance from other nations, would fail to assist Russia 

to convert their defense industries and meet requirements of 

the START Treaty.55 Norway was especially worried about an 

ecological disaster if the Russian government abandoned its 

decommissioned radioactive nuclear submarines in arctic 

waters.56 In Moscow, Director Shumkov admitted, “There 

came a time when the Russian budget had absolutely no 

money” for treaty compliance or for elimination of weapons 

systems.57 In August 1996, Shumkov accompanied Lajoie, 

Reid and Captain Trass to the Arctic naval shipyard at 

Severodvinsk. There they met with Russian shipyard general 

directors Nikolai Y. Kalistratov of the Zvezdochka Machine 

Building Association, Valery A. Maslakov from the Zvezda 

Far East Factory and Pavel Steblin from the Nerpa Ship 

Repair Factory.

They were ready to discuss every aspect of SSBN and SLBM 

dismantlement and elimination. In three years, American 

CTR project managers and Russian shipyard directors had 

developed a degree of mutual trust. The directors pointed out 

their shipyards were trying to become commercial enterprises, 

and needed work. For policy reasons, however, the Americans 

could only offer CTR funds for those programs leading to 

elimination of treaty designated strategic ballistic missile 
236

With Courage and Persistence

submarines.58 The Americans further explained how the U.S. 

government had used an “integrating contractor” concept 

to organize, schedule and manage all aspects of strategic 

weapons system dismantlement.59 The directors were not 

persuaded, arguing that they were trying to become business 

enterprises, capable of managing naval dismantlement and 

construction projects. They made this point again in October 

1996 when Secretary Perry and Senators Nunn, Lugar and 

Lieberman toured the Zvezdochka shipyard to observe 

workers dismantling a nuclear submarine.60

Perry, who was extraordinarily interested in defense 

conversion at the time, listened carefully. The shipyard’s 

record of performance was not convincing. In three years, all 

Russian naval shipyards had worked on four START Treaty 

ballistic-missile submarines but had yet to dismantle a single 

SSBN completely. Combined, the shipyards had eliminated 

64 SLBM launchers, but to meet the Russian government’s 

START Treaty obligations by 2001, the shipyards would have 

to eliminate an additional 492 SLBMs.61 Complicating any 

resolution were problems of storing the missiles’ liquid and 

solid fuels, downloading and storing the submarines’ spent 

nuclear fuel and offloading, storing and transporting the 

radioactive waste. Everyone knew these problems would be 

technically difficult and expensive to resolve.

At the site, Secretary Perry told CTR program managers 

to find better ways to work with the Russian shipyards. 

This decision set in motion more than a dozen technical 

meetings in Moscow and Washington over the next year 

and a half that essentially reshaped the entire submarine 

dismantlement effort. As negotiations proceeded there were 

two major developments. The Russian Minister of Finance 

declared there was no money in the government’s budget for 

deactivating and dismantling Russia’s START Treaty strategic 

submarines, missiles and bombers. If the work was to be 

done, the United States and other foreign nations would have 

to foot the bill. At Secretary Perry’s urging, the department’s 

CTR managers reexamined their assumptions regarding the 

Russian government’s capacity to do the work. Russia had 

become a financially weak nation, incapable of carrying out 

its international obligations, whether it involved sending 

troops to Bosnia, paying its foreign debts or dismantling 

nuclear submarines. Gradually, American defense officials 

came to accept a larger, more direct role in financing and 

managing deactivation and dismantling Russian strategic 

weapons systems.

Firm, fixed-price contracts for 

dismantling ballistic-missile submarines

Negotiations leading to direct contracts with Russian 

shipyards took nearly 18 months. Both groups, Russian 

shipyard directors and American CTR officials, were uncertain 

at first. The Russian shipyard directors had spent their entire 

professional careers in a state-controlled system and had 

no experience with commercial contracts. The American 

CTR program managers were only too aware of this fact and 

were deeply skeptical of the Russian shipyards’ ability to 

undertake and carry out complex new projects governed by 

U.S. laws and regulations. Despite the support of Secretary 

Perry and Senators Nunn, Lugar and others, American CTR 

officials were concerned about the specter of failure and 

with it, public and congressional criticism. In the end, after 

countless meetings examining every detail of the submarine 

dismantlement process, Russians and Americans both took 

risks, and in doing so demonstrated courage.

In late fall 1997, General Kuenning and Colonel Reid, 

the DOD’s senior CTR program officials recommended 

through OSD to Secretary of Defense William Cohen that the 

program contract directly with each of the Russian shipyards. 

Risk existed, they explained, but the contracts would be firm, 

fixed-price, requiring each shipyard to defuel and eliminate a 

specific ballistic missile-class submarine. Cohen agreed and 

in December, he told Russian defense officials visiting the 

Pentagon that the department would try this new contracting 

Ashton Carter, Secretary of Defense Perry, Senators Nunn, Lieberman and Lugar at Zvezdochka shipyard, October 1996

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
237

method with the Russian naval shipyards. At the meeting, 

Edward Baal, deputy director of production at Zvezdochka, 

reacted with surprise, “because we honestly didn’t expect 

such a proposal.”62 Less than six months later the two sides 

had negotiated formal statements of work, dismantlement 

schedules and agreements on wages and prices.

Using the new fixed-price contracts had several advantages 

for the United States. The first was that this arrangement did 

not require continuous access to the Russian shipyards, which 

would be difficult at best, since the Russian Navy had active 

contracts to build new submarines and surface ships with 

these same shipyards. The second factor was cost. CTR officials 

estimated that contracting with an American corporation to 

serve as an integrating contractor would add approximately 

$2 million per dismantled submarine, or $62 million for 

the entire project.63 Finally, a firm, fixed-price contract would 

have significantly less risk. When this type of contract was 

awarded, the funding party had little or no risk if the work 

was not completed on schedule because it would not have to 

pay until it had been completed to its satisfaction.64

Nikolai Kalistratov, general director of the Zvezdochka 

Machine Building Enterprise in Severodminsk, signed the first 

direct contract in March 1998 for $4,254,241 to dismantle 

and eliminate a Delta-class SSBN.65 David Freeman, a 

Defense Department senior contracting specialist, together 

with Reid, Trass, Lieutenant Colonel Ron Alberto and 

Lieutenant Commander Mark Baker evaluated the proposal 

and awarded the contract. Since the Delta-class submarine 

was already at the dock in the Zvezdochka shipyard, and had 

been partially dismantled, this first contract was somewhat 

smaller. The submarine’s ballistic missiles had been removed 

and defueled, the launch tubes had been cut out and the 

nuclear reactor partially defueled. At the same meeting, 

American CTR officials announced they would fund a 

separate CTR project, estimated at $881,337, to provide the 

Zvezdochka facility with new equipment for infrastructure 

improvements in the submarine elimination areas.66 Two 

months later, in May 1998, Pavel Steblin, director of the 

Nerpa Ship Repair Facility signed a firm, fixed-price contract 

for $12,157,501 to dismantle and eliminate two Delta-class 

strategic submarines.67 On the same day, CTR officials also 

offered new submarine infrastructure equipment, estimated 

at $842,762 for the Nerpa facility. In the Far East, Valery 

Maslakov, director of the naval shipyard at Bolshoi Kamen, 

signed the initial firm, fixed-price contract in January 1999 

for $11,489,630 to eliminate one Delta-class and one Yankeeclass submarine.68 That shipyard also received the same CTR 

package of infrastructure equipment for eliminating the 

SSBNs.

These direct contracts provided a much needed cash 

infusion into a desperate situation. A few months after 

signing the initial contracts, the Zvezdochka shipyard had 

1,000 workers dismantling ballistic-missile submarines. The 

Nerpa facility had hired approximately 600 workers, and in 

the Far East at the Vladivostok shipyard there were between 

800 and 1,000 workers, depending on the stage of submarine 

elimination. All three naval facilities began receiving new, 

modern dismantlement equipment, which would remain 

at the yards when the projects had been completed.69 At 

Zvezdochka, dismantlement work was so robust that CTR 

officials awarded another contract in June 1998 to eliminate 

two Delta-class subs for $12,594,081, and they announced 

that additional lighting towers and defueling equipment 

for the shipyard would be funded under the CTR program 

for $1,270,175.70 In the process, Russian shipyards learned 

American business practices, which they used years later in 

soliciting and bidding for naval dismantlement work from 

other nations.71

In all these direct contracts, the process began when the 

general directors of the shipyards received notification from 

the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Navy that a SSBN sub 

had been decommissioned and was ready for dismantling. The 

shipyard director then submitted a formal contract proposal 

to DOD, requesting a firm-fixed price contract to carry out 

the SSBN/SLBM dismantlement work. In Washington, 

CTR specialists analyzed the Russian proposal, developed 

independent government cost estimates, and then traveled to 

the respective shipyards to negotiate specific milestones and 

a series of deliverables, so that the dismantlement work could 

be verified in stages prior to payment. In 1999, additional 

direct contracts went to all three Russian shipyards. That same 

year the Russian government identified a fourth shipyard, 

the SevMash Production Association in Sverdominsk, as a 

New Development

Firm, Fixed-Price Contracts
238

With Courage and Persistence

dismantlement site for Typhoon-class submarines. Without 

a doubt, American contracts accelerated the submarine 

dismantlement process. Before 1998, Russian shipyards 

planned to dismantle one submarine every 16 to 18 months, 

after 1998, the rate was one every six to nine months. The 

chart indicates the accelerated rate.

At some point in 2000, the Russian Navy and Ministry 

of Defense proposed that DOD expand the cooperative 

programs to dismantle additional ballistic-missile nuclear 

submarines. Instead of 31 strategic submarines and 452 

ballistic missiles, Russian officials proposed dismantling 

a total of 42 submarines and 612 SLBM missiles and 

launchers.72 After negotiations and further senior-level 

discussions, the CTR bilateral implementing agreements 

were amended and program planning initiated to expand 

and extend the program through 2008.73

Cycle of submarine, missile, and launcher 

dismantlement

The basic process for dismantling ballistic missile 

submarines was well established. It had been set by the 

Russian submarine design bureau, the Russian Navy and 

Ministry for Defense Economy. First the Russian Navy 

transferred decommissioned submarines, with its missiles, to 

one of the designated shipyards. Prior to decommissioning, 

the Russian Navy and MinAtom nuclear technicians had 

removed warheads from the missiles. Next, the ballistic 

missiles would be removed from the submarines. By 1997, 

the Navy had identified 597 liquid-fuel missiles, specifically 

SS-N-6, SS-N- 8, SS-N-18 and SS-N-23 missiles, for removal. 

The submarines were based in the Northern and Pacific Fleets. 

The Navy also identified 80 solid-propellant missiles for 

elimination; these were deployed on SS-N-20 submarines.74

The removal process for liquid rockets began when Russian 

shipyards contracted with local firms to remove ballistic 

missiles from the submarines. These Russian firms used 

American equipment, provided by the CTR program, to lift 

the liquid fuel rockets, resting in specially-designed canisters, 

from the sub to the dock. From 1993 to 1997, the work went 

slowly, delayed by the lack of equipment and funding. In 

1998 two American CTR contracting officers, Lieutenant 

Colonel Ron Alberto and Commander Mark Baker, began 

working with the shipyard’s engineering staffs to define 

technical requirements for a series of shipyard infrastructure 

improvement projects. These included contracting with 

Russian firms for new concrete foundations for heavy cranes, 

new lighting towers, modern scaffolding and electrical 

distribution systems at each shipyard.

Working with these Russian officials, Baker developed 

a SLBM project that involved using CTR funds to refurbish 

a Russian Navy defueling facilities at the Revda Naval Base, 

the Sergiev Posad Design Institute, and the Krasnoyarsk 

KrasMash facility. In June 1998, Commander Baker 

awarded a direct contract to the Scientific Test Institute for 

Chemical and Building Machines at Revda to refurbish its 

SLBM defueling and neutralization facility. Other direct 

contracts funded improvements at the SLBM liquid-fuel 

defueling and neutralization project at Sergei Posad, and 

the refurbishing of a defueling facility in the Far East at the 

Table 8-2. SSBN Contracting Schedule, 1998-2001

FY1998 FY1999 FY2000 FY2001 FY97-FY01

Zvezdochka 3 2 0 0 5

Zvezda 2 4 0 3 9

SevMash 0 1 0 0 1

Nerpa 2 3 0 0 5

Totals 7 10 0 3 20

Source: Fact Sheet, SLBM launcher Elimination/SSBN Dismantlement, December 2000, CTR Directorate, DTRA.
239

Yuzhnorechensk Naval Storage Facility near Vladivostok.75

Under this CTR project, the U.S. provided heavy cranes to 

lift missiles from the submarines, transportation systems to 

move the missiles into defueling facilities, and equipment 

to dismantle the empty missile casings: metal cutting tools, 

scrap balers, and emergency response equipment. The 

objective, when the three facilities were operating at full-tilt, 

was to defuel and neutralize approximately 100 submarine 

ballistic missiles annually.76

This cooperative project worked well, as the number of 

SLBMs eliminated jumped from 30 in mid-1999 to 238 as 

of December 2001.77 In the next step, Baker used CTR funds 

to contract with local shipyard firms and the Krasnoyarsk 

State Enterprise to begin defueling liquid rockets on-site in 

the refurbished defueling and neutralization facilities. As the 

missile defueling program accelerated, rocket fuel was placed 

into temporary effluent storage tanks. By 2001, the five-year 

cost for these projects was projected at $40 million.78

Following neutralization, rockets were displayed in the 

shipyard’s open storage areas for 90 days as required by 

inspection protocols in the START Treaty. Using satellite 

technology, the U.S. could observe the number and type 

of ballistic missiles removed from the submarines. Two 

additional steps completed the process. After the mandatory 

treaty display period, Russian workers placed the defueled 

rockets into a special box-like cutting machine, and the 

empty missile’s metal shells were shredded, compacted and 

then bundled into metal bales. The metal bales were then 

prepared for sale on the international scrap metal market.79

The final step was to transport and dispose of ballistic 

missile liquid rocket fuel. Since many of these submarine 

liquid fueled rockets had been adapted from land-based 

ICBMs, specifically SS-18s, SS-19s and SS-23s, Russian missile 

specialists proposed a plan as early as 1993 to transport excess 

fuel from both SLBMs and ICBMs. Their plan was to transport 

an estimated 33,000 tons of heptyl fuel, and 135,000 tons 

of the oxidizer, amyl, to a central elimination facility in 

the Urals. In April 1995, after protracted negotiations, the 

Defense Nuclear Agency awarded a design contract to Thiokol 

Corporation for a new liquid-fuel heptyl conversion facility 

in Krasnoyarsk. By 2001, the U.S. CTR program had obligated 

$94.4 million toward this new project.80 At the same time, 

the CTR program also contracted with the Russian rail system 

to transport rocket fuel from the naval shipyards to MOD 

fuel storage bases in Ilyino, Moshkovo, Mulyanka, Rada, 

Turinskaya and Vanino, and from there to the Krasnoyarsk. 

The contract provided the Russian rail system with 125 

flatbed railcars, 670 intermodal tank containers and seven 

cranes for lifting containers from the dock to railcars. From 

1995 to 2001, the CTR program obligated $47.8 million for 

transporting and temporarily storing liquid fuels.81

The bulk of the liquid rocket fuel was in the oxidizer, 

for which U.S. officials proposed to Nikolai Shumkov and 

engineers at the Russian Ministry of Economy, to fund and 

deliver two new American-made systems that would convert 

amyl oxidizer into nitric acid. Shumkov accepted and decided 

that the new amyl disposal systems would be placed in 

Krasnoyarsk and Aleksin. In June 1999, Bechtel National was 

awarded a contract to design, fabricate and test two mobile 

conversion systems. Once again, CTR funds flowed out and by 

mid-2002 the program had obligated $17.1 million.82 In midSeptember 1999, U.S. CTR officials had signed direct contracts 

with the Russian shipyards to dismantle 10 ballistic-missile 

submarines. The following year, another seven submarines 

would be under contract. At that time, Russian and American 

officials projected the Russian submarine program would 

eliminate a total of 31 SSBNs and 452 SLBM launchers and 

missiles.83 By 2001 the two nations were projecting Russia 

would eliminate 41 ballistic-missile submarines and 612 

SLBMs. CTR program officers estimated the five-year cost 

Dismantlement of Russian nuclear submarine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
240

With Courage and Persistence

would be $385 million.84 To sustain operations at such a rate, 

Russian shipyard directors and American program managers 

were already implementing a series of projects that would 

enable the shipyards to maintain, and possibly accelerate the 

pace of dismantling ballistic-missile nuclear submarines.

One of these projects, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste 

Reduction System became operational at the Zvezdochka 

Shipyard in October 2000 and at the Zvezda shipyard in 

August 2001.85 This system, completely financed with CTR 

funds, sought to reduce the liquid and solid radioactive waste 

products generated from dismantlement of each submarine’s 

two nuclear reactors. Not one of the Russian shipyards 

had a system or equipment capable of treating the large 

volume of low-level radioactive water that resulted 

from laundering contaminated clothing and washing 

dismantlement equipment. Excess water was simply 

discharged into the sea. In August 1998, Lockheed-Martin 

Corporation and Aspect Association, a Russian firm, received 

a CTR-funded contract to build and maintain a Low-Level 

Radioactive Waste Reduction System at the Zvezdochka yard. 

The $16 million contract stipulated construction of a solidwaste treatment facility, with decontamination equipment 

and a low-force compactor. It also included installation of 

a liquid-waste treatment system that used Russian sorbent 

technology, and a laundry waste-water treatment system. 

These systems reduced the volume of liquid coolants by more 

than 176,000 cubic feet a year and solid waste products by 

more than 7,000 cubic feet annually. Essentially, these new 

systems filtered and chemically removed radioactive isotopes 

from dismantlement-related liquids, then stabilized the 

isotopes and reduced the volume of liquids and solids. Of 

special interest was the demand by Russian nuclear regulators 

that the project meet the standards of the UN’s International 

Atomic Energy Agency. Once completed, Russian workers at 

the Zvezdochka shipyard operated the systems.86

International cooperation and 

participation

When the Zvezdochka Low-Level Radioactive Waste 

Treatment facility opened in October 2000, representatives 

from Japan, Norway, France and the United Kingdom 

traveled to the arctic shipyard to see the new facility and be 

briefed on the new technologies.87 Jens Stoltenberg, Prime 

Minister of Norway and Toshiyuki Kawakami, Secretary 

General of the Japan-Russian Committee for Cooperating on 

Reducing Nuclear Weapons, were especially interested in the 

environmental aspects of these new technologies. Each year, 

the Northern Fleet generated approximately 390,000 cubic 

feet of liquid radioactive waste and more than 123,000 cubic 

feet of sold radioactive waste. In addition, during the 1980s 

and 1990s the Northern Fleet had stored approximately 

25,000 spent fuel assemblies at naval storage facilities that 

lacked sufficient capability for reprocessing the radioactive 

waste.88 The Pacific Fleet had a smaller number of spent 

fuel assemblies, but the excess of radioactive materials was 

still a major issue. For nations sharing the same oceans 

and currents, this amount of radioactive waste represented 

an environmental threat. One direct consequence was 

that Norway, Sweden, Japan and other nations developed 

new cooperative projects with the Russian Federation. The 

Japanese government was especially active in the Far East.

Secretary General Kawakami explained that Japan had 

committed $200 million to cooperative projects that reduced 

excess nuclear materials in the Russian Federation.89 They 

proposed, and Russia accepted a project that would convert 

low-level liquid radioactive waste by cycling it through a 

Japanese produced floating filtration plant, which would 

be docked at the Zvezda Shipyard at Bolshoi Kamen. The 

Japanese barge and filtration plant, called the “Landysh,” 

was capable of processing up to 7,000 tons of liquid waste 

annually. Built at a cost of $29 million, the new floating 

plant became operational in October 2000.90 Together with 

the CTR-funded Low-Level Radioactive Waste Reduction 

System at the Zvezdochka yard, the Japanese plant reduced 

systemic delays in processing the dismantled nuclear 

submarine’s low-level radioactive waste and the associated 

environmental threat.

As the submarines were being dismantled another 

major technical issue surfaced; what to do with the large 

quantities of the nuclear submarines’ spent naval fuel? 

Most Russian nuclear submarines had two reactors. They 

operated continuously, and even the decommissioned 

nuclear submarines contained full loads of radioactive 

fuel. During dismantlement, these reactors had to be 

safely defueled and removed. Since the reactors’ spent 

fuel contained highly enriched uranium (U-235) and 

plutonium (U-239), it constituted both an environmental 

problem and a proliferation threat if the spent fuel was not 

safely removed and securely stored securely91 In the past, 
241

when the Russian Navy ordered the spent fuel assemblies 

removed from reactors, they were lifted out by specially 

built cranes mounted on naval service vessels, and then 

transported to naval bases for temporary storage. After three 

years the spent naval fuel was placed in special containers 

and transported by rail thousands of kilometers to the 

Urals, then placed into a secure, central storage facility 

at the Mayak Chemical Combine. However, the Russian 

rail system had just 18 special railroad containers that 

could be assembled into the trains and transported from 

either the Russian Navy’s Northern or Pacific Fleet storage 

facilities to Mayak. The number of containers was simply 

insufficient. Severe backlogs developed, accentuated by the 

Russian Navy’s financial and technical problems.92 When 

the American CTR program contracted directly with the 

Russian shipyards to eliminate ballistic-missile subs, the 

pace at which subs were dismantled increased, and so did 

the volume of spent naval fuel.

Consequently, CTR manager Alberto concluded that 

spent fuel had become a “nemesis” holding back the entire 

submarine dismantlement program.93 Essentially, there were 

four major technical issues: inadequate spent fuel offloading 

capacity at the shipyards, lack of adequate interim storage 

facilities, lack of transport containers and special railcars, 

and lack of facilities for long-term processing and storage 

of the highly radioactive reactor compartments. Like the 

issues surrounding the low-level radioactive waste plants, 

resolution of the spent nuclear fuel issues would involve 

American, Russian and other nations.94

The Russian government requested U.S. CTR assistance 

to manage the large volume of spent naval fuel offloaded 

from the ballistic-missile subs being dismantled at the 

Zvezdochka, Nerpa and Zvezda shipyards.95 The U.S. 

government agreed to support disposal of the spent fuel of 

up to 15 dismantled subs. A new amendment to the Strategic 

Offensive Arms Elimination Implementing Agreement was 

signed in August 1999, and shortly thereafter the Mayak 

Association was awarded a contract to reprocess the spent 

naval fuel’s uranium for use in Russian civilian reactors, and 

store the plutonium in the association’s storage facilities. This 

CTR agreement and contract involved DOD, DOE, MinEcon, 

MinAtom and the Mayak Association. It provided a discrete 

system for reprocessing spent naval fuel and a tentative 

commitment for American inspections of the process at 

the Mayak facility.96 When submarine dismantlement work 

began, the Russian shipyards had contracted with the Navy 

to use its spent naval fueling vessels to offload fuel from the 

submarines to temporary storage tanks in the shipyards. Jim 

Reid explained that shipyard directors were not satisfied with 

this arrangement since the Russian Navy’s vessels had poor 

equipment, aging components and lacked international 

safety certifications for handling nuclear materials.97 After 

U.S. engineers certified these conditions, Reid agreed to 

contract with the Russian shipyards for replacing and 

repairing the defueling components on the Navy’s vessels and 

securing international safety certifications. Simultaneously, 

the CTR program agreed to fund construction of new onshore defueling facilities at Zvezdochka and Zvezda.98

With these decisions, shipyard directors and CTR program 

managers solved the immediate problems associated with the 

Russian Navy’s spent fuel offloading vessels and a longer-term 

issue of providing the shipyards with a permanent on-shore 

defueling facility. In addition, American CTR program officers 

contracted with the Mayak Association to process and store 

the submarine spent naval fuel for up to 15 ballistic-missile 

subs. Spent fuel from any additional dismantled subs would 

be dry stored. Even before that decision, there was discussion 

of a cooperative international environmental project 

between the United States, Russia and Norway to design, test, 

develop and manufacture new containers for spent naval 

fuel. In September 1996, U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry, 

Russia’s Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov, and Norwegian 

Defense Minister Jorgen Kosmo, agreed to establish an Arctic 

Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) program with 

the objective of enhancing environmental security in the 

Low Level Radioactive Waste Volume Reduction Project

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
242

With Courage and Persistence

region by developing specific projects to prevent pollution 

from radioactive and conventional sources.99

Norway is a small, but wealthy maritime nation. It 

engaged the Russian Navy, Ministry of Defense and regional 

governments, producing a series of bilateral agreements and 

projects. Norway funded construction of four additional 

special railcars for transporting spent naval fuel from 

arctic naval facilities to the Mayak reprocessing and storage 

plants.100 Russian, Norwegian and American engineers 

worked together, designing and testing new containers, 

called casks, for storing spent fuel before it was transported 

to Mayak. Initial designs called for construction of 44-ton 

concrete storage casks capable of storing spent fuel and then 

serving as a container when the fuel was transported via rail 

to distant permanent storage facilities. When Russian officials 

certified the new casks as safe and secure, Commander Mark 

Baker awarded a contract to Sevmash shipyard in November 

2001 to build the first 25 spent nuclear fuel casks. At that 

time, the program projected contracting for 180 casks to 

store all excess spent naval fuel from 26 additional ballisticmissile submarines projected to be eliminated in the next 

decade. The projected five-year cost for these spent naval fuel 

projects was $86.3 million in FY 2001.101

While these casks would be used to store and transport 

spent naval fuel from strategic submarines, the design 

could also be used for spent fuel from any of the Russian 

Navy’s decommissioned nuclear submarines. By the late 

1990s the Russian Navy’s Pacific and Northern Fleet had 

decommissioned 170 nuclear-powered submarines, five 

surface ships and eight icebreakers.102 Norway, Japan, Sweden 

and Great Britain also worked with the Russian government 

on the broader range of problems associated with defueling 

and dismantling nuclear submarines and nuclear-powered 

vessels. While the international assistance efforts started 

before 1997, they accelerated thereafter, as nations developed 

a series of new cooperative agreements with Russia to lessen 

the environmental danger from decommissioned radioactive 

nuclear vessels rusting in arctic and pacific waters. The Arctic 

Military Environmental Cooperation program was very 

successful. It helped convince other nations the Russian 

Federation was serious about developing and implementing 

new joint projects. By the time of the G-8 meeting in 

Kananaskis, Canada in 2002, participating governments 

agreed that a major, multi-year effort was necessary to defuel 

and dismantle Russian nuclear-powered naval vessels and 

reactors safely and securely.103

Renewal of U.S.-Russian Federation CTR 

framework agreement

In the midst of the substantial expansion of SLBM 

and ICBM eliminations in Russia, the United States 

approached the Russian government in early 1999 about 

extending the CTR program’s bilateral Strategic Offensive 

Spent nuclear fuel cask

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Flags of the United States, Sweden, Japan, Russia, Norway and 

the United Kingdom
243

Arms Elimination framework agreement for another seven 

years. Yeltsin’s government refused, however, and suggested 

that it be renegotiated. Specifically they wanted to change 

those amendments that addressed tax exemptions, liability 

protections and the granting of special privileges and 

immunities to CTR officials, firms and individuals. These 

provisions had been in the original agreement, in part due 

to U.S. Congress insistence that none of the former Soviet 

Union states should be given assistance that could be 

subject to national taxation. Local and regional governments 

throughout Russia never liked the exemptions, but their 

grievances grew particularly acute following the financial 

collapse of August 1998. In the arctic regions where the naval 

shipyards were located, and in Mayak and in Shchuch’ye, 

the CTR program’s direct contracts paid millions of dollars 

to shipyard enterprises and workers, but regional and local 

governments were not able to tax these contracts, or any 

equipment or services. In addition, by 1999 the Russian 

Duma had enacted a significant body of domestic laws and 

administrative regulations that granted the localities taxing 

powers. These new laws, which were not on the books in 

June 1992 when the original CTR framework agreement was 

signed, contained sections on liability laws and the right to 

sue for damages in case of accidents or incidents. Finally, 

the U.S. government had signed other CTR framework 

agreements in the 1990s, which did not have these 

objectionable provisions. A combination of these issues 

persuaded the Russian government not to sign the proposed 

seven-year extension, offering instead a series of major 

changes and key deletions in the agreement.104

An impasse developed. The U.S. rejected Russia’s 

proposed changes and deletions. According to Susan Koch, 

a senior American defense official, the stalemate was broken 

when the Russian Ministries of Defense, Atomic Energy and 

Defense Industry formed a “stakeholders” coalition that was 

able to fashion a provisional solution.105 These ministries 

and their key allies, the shipyard directors and military 

planners, argued the CTR program’s financial commitments 

were so significant and that their continuance was critical to 

their enterprises and workers. They argued that the bilateral 

framework agreement should be renewed and extended 

provisionally.

Nonetheless, bickering among competing ministries 

in Moscow continued for months. In mid-May 1999, with 

American patience running out, General Kuenning, CTR 

director, issued a contractually required 30-day shutdown 

notice to all American and Russian contractors, declaring 

all programs would shut down on June 16 if the extension 

was not signed. Shaken by the American ultimatum, the 

Russian Foreign Ministry, the powerful ministry that led 

the interagency group, came forth quickly with a solution. 

The Russian government would sign the CTR Framework 

Agreement extension provisionally. It would be provisional 

because some aspects of the agreement conflicted with 

domestic law; and the Russian Duma would have to pass 

new financial compensation provisions or even new laws 

resolving the conflicts.106 U.S. State Department lawyers 

determined that once the CTR extension was signed by the 

two governments, the “national procedure” of the other 

signatory nation’s legislative process would not delay 

implementation. The American Ambassador to Russia 

signed the CTR Framework Agreement Extension in Moscow 

on June 15, and the Russian Ambassador to the United States 

signed it in Washington the following morning.107

Russian ICBM dismantlement: Defense 

ministries expand cooperation

When General Igor Sergeyev, commander of the Strategic 

Rocket Forces, reviewed the command’s status in December 

1996, it had 19 missile divisions and 756 operational ICBMs 

deployed.108 Many of these deployed strategic missiles had 

already exceeded their service life, and he expected that a 

significant portion of them would be decommissioned and 

General Igor Sergeyev

RIA Novosti
244

With Courage and Persistence

eliminated in the next decade under the pending START II 

Treaty. General Sergeyev supported the START I and START 

II treaties as a structured, verifiable way to reduce the United 

States and Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. He declared the 

Russian Strategic Rocket Forces had sent more than 2,500 

warheads for dismantlement and had placed 22,000 tons of 

liquid rocket fuel in military storage depots. A new, modern 

ICBM, the Topol M (SS-27) would replace the old weapons. 

Three regiments of SS-27s had been activated and were on 

combat duty by late 1996. The general warned that if the 

nation’s financial problems continued, the Strategic Rocket 

Forces would face difficult decisions and further reductions.109

Three months later at the Helsinki Summit, Presidents 

Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to reduce their respective strategic 

nuclear forces in a two-stage process: first ratification of 

START II, then open, bilateral negotiations for a START III 

Treaty.110 The American president pledged additional CTR 

funds to assist Russia in meeting START II compliance 

levels. The Russian president declared he would secure treaty 

ratification by the Duma. Six months later, Secretary of State 

Madeline Albright and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov 

exchanged letters legally codifying the two presidents’ 

Helsinki commitments to deactivate all American and 

Russian strategic nuclear delivery vehicles in START II by 

December 31, 2003.111 These decisions laid the groundwork 

for a series of new cooperative assistance projects for 

decommissioning and dismantling excess strategic missiles 

and weapon systems.

The Russian Federation had inherited slightly more than 

1,000 ICBMs in eight different types of missiles. In the field, 

these missiles could be launched from fixed silos, special 

military railroad trains or from road-mobile launch vehicles. 

In a war, they could launch nearly 3,600 warheads. When 

START I entered into force in December 1994, the Russian 

Ministry of Defense and General Staff implemented its 

weapon systems reduction programs to reduce its Strategic 

Rocket Forces to meet the final treaty compliance deadline 

of December 2001. By then, Russia, the United States, and 

Table 8-3. Russian Federation ICBM Eliminations under the START I Treaty

USSR - September 1990 RUSSIA - January 1998

ICBMs Missiles Warheads Missiles Warheads

SS-11 326 326 0 0

SS-13 40 40 0 0

SS-17 47 188 0 0

SS-18 308 3,080 180 1,800

SS-19 300 1,800 188 1,128

SS-24 silo 56 560 56 560

SS-24 rail 33 330 36 360

SS-25 road 288 288 360 360

Total 1,398 6,612 822 4,210

Note: Ukraine inherited 130 SS-19s and 46 SS-24s; Kazakhstan had 104 SS-18s. These missiles were included in the USSR totals. 

Sources: START I Treaty, Memorandum of Understanding Data, and ACDA, January 1, 1998. See Arms Control Reporter, 1998, p 611. 

E-Russia-1.
245

the other nations had to reduce their strategic forces to levels 

at or below START treaty limits of 1,600 strategic nuclear 

delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads. These treaty figures 

included ICBMs, SLBMs and strategic bombers. When the 

treaty’s first three-year phase ended in December 1997, Russia 

reported its reductions to the five-nation Joint Compliance 

and Implementation Commission. Listed in the table below, 

reductions in the other Commonwealth of Independent 

States, specifically Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, are 

included under Russia’s missile and warhead totals, as 

specified in the Lisbon Protocols to the START Treaty.

The SS-19 and SS-18 (2,820) warheads transferred 

from Kazakhstan and Ukraine to Russia made up the 

bulk of reported Russian warhead reductions between 

1990 and 1997. Another 630 warheads were attributed to 

strategic missiles and bombers based in Russia. In its 1997 

START Treaty report, Russia declared it had eliminated 

326 SS-11s, 40 SS-13s, 47 SS-17s and 76 SS-18 missiles. To 

decommission and eliminate its missiles and bombers, 

the Russian Ministries of Defense and Defense Industry 

developed a state program, starting in 1992-1993. They 

established the reduction schedule, financed the effort 

and ensured compliance with START Treaty elimination 

protocols. In the program, the Strategic Rocket Forces 

worked with Rosobshchemash (later Rosaviakosmos), 

a large MOD enterprise, to decommission operational 

regiments, remove warheads, remove missiles from silos 

and launch pads, and transport them to a rocket division’s 

temporary storage facilities. The final stage required by the 

treaty was to detonate the missile silos and launch pads, 

and dismantle the mobile vehicles that served as launchers. 

Initially, General Sergeyev ordered the decommissioning 

of older, single-warhead, fixed SS-11 and SS-13 missiles. 

The Russian Ministry of Defense turned these missiles 

and silos over to the Ministry of Defense Industry and the 

Rosobshchemash enterprise to defuel and eliminate, then 

destroy the reinforced launch pads in accordance with 

START.112 By 1997, the Russians eliminated ICBMs and 

CTR provided power saw dismantling missiles

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
246

With Courage and Persistence

silos at the six START-designated elimination facilities at 

Pibanshur, Uzhur, Sechuga, Surovatikha, Sergeiv Posad 

and Yedrovo.113 The U.S. CTR program assisted the Russian 

defense ministries by providing lifting cranes, bulldozers, 

plasma cutters, grinders, power saws and other tools used to 

dismantle missiles and launch sites. This process was similar 

to another CTR project for eliminating strategic bombers. 

Other equipment was acquired in the United States, shipped 

to Moscow, and then transported to Engels Air Base where 

local Russian firms dismantled the Tu-95 heavy bombers. 

From 1994-1997, Russian workers dismantled 20 bombers 

following the elimination protocols in START I.114 During 

the same period, the Russian Ministry of Defense Industry 

and Rosobshchemash contracted with local firms and other 

enterprises to defuel and eliminate 431 strategic missiles 

under provisions of the treaty. Destruction of launch silos 

proceeded more slowly, with 54 silos dismantled in 1997.115

Russia opens the silo door: multiple, new 

CTR projects, 1997-2001

By 1997 General Sergeyev was one of the most respected 

military officers in Russia. President Yeltsin promoted him to 

the rank of marshal, and then selected him as defense minister. 

Marshal Sergeyev developed a new national military strategy 

that called for modernization of the strategic nuclear forces 

and compliance with reciprocal, verifiable strategic arms 

reduction treaties. He intended to eliminate excess obsolete 

missiles, submarines and bombers that fell under the arms 

control treaties and those weapons systems that no longer fit 

with the nation’s war plans. These strategic weapons would 

be eliminated with international assistance, predominantly 

from the established U.S. CTR program. In addition, Sergeyev 

strongly supported consolidation and modernization of 

Russia’s military nuclear weapons complexes.

For American CTR officials that meant the silo door was 

opening. One important new project involved U.S. CTR 

assistance to eliminate SS-18 launchers. Under the signed, but 

not ratified START II Treaty, Russia declared it would eliminate 

all multiple warhead capable missiles. Accordingly, the General 

Staff and Ministry of Defense planned to eliminate 154 SS-18 

strategic missiles and 16 launch control centers by December 

2007. When the financially starved Russian Ministries of 

Defense and Defense Economy requested assistance, Roland 

Lajoie, Colonel Jim Reid and senior CTR policy officials 

reviewed the technical and financial requirements, and 

decided that the CTR program would fund elimination 

of these SS-18 missiles and silos. Because of the project’s 

scope, they preferred to contract with an American firm to 

be the project’s integrating contractor. The Russian General 

Staff, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Defense Industry and 

Strategic Rocket Forces agreed with this approach. In 2000, 

Bechtel National became the U.S. integrating contractor and 

immediately began work in the SRF’s rocket division located 

near Aleysk in the Urals. They subcontracted with Russian 

enterprises and began dismantling the massive SS-18 missiles, 

with concrete and reinforced steel silos, and the underground 

launch control centers.116

A separate U.S.-Russian CTR project addressed elimination 

of the SS-18 missiles. The Russian Strategic Rocket Forces 

established a neutralization and elimination facility at the 

Surovatikha Arsenal and was already processing the first 

of 104 SS-18 missiles shipped to Russia from Kazakhstan. 

The planned CTR project would deliver new equipment 

and structural improvements. In August 2000, Brown and 

Root Corporation became the U.S. integrating contractor, 

responsible for neutralization and elimination of SS-18 

missiles at the renovated Surovatikha facility.117 As part of 

the same project, Brown and Root renovated and equipped 

another existing Russian missile elimination facility in 

Piban’shur. Combined, the two missile elimination facilities 

would eliminate 206 SS-18s, 87 SS-17s and 73 SS-19 missiles 

by 2007.118 All these SRF missiles were liquid-fueled rockets.

When the SS-17s, SS-18s and SS-19s were removed from 

their silos, they were defueled at the launch site. The toxic 

fuel was placed into tanker trucks and transported to the 

SS-18 ICBM disassembly facility

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
247

missile division’s storage facilities. Under CTR, American 

contractors assumed responsibility for planning and 

managing shipment of the estimated 169,000 tons of liquid 

rocket fuel via rail to a central elimination facility. The fuel 

came from storage areas in the missile divisions and seven 

Ministry of Defense fuel storage sites, located at Nizhnaya 

Salada, Mulyanka, Moshkovo, Rada, Turinskaya, Vanino and 

Latyshskaya. Because the volume was so great, CTR officials 

agreed to purchase and deliver 125 flatbed railcars, 670 

intermodal containers and seven cranes for transporting 

the fuel to a central liquid propellant disposition facility in 

Krasnoyarsk that was still under construction.119

Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces also had three types of 

solid-fuel rockets: SS-24s, SS-25s and SS-N-20s. Although 

solid-fuel rockets were among some of Russia’s most 

advanced systems, the SS-24 missiles, each capable of 

delivering 10 warheads, had been deployed on special military 

trains, which by the late 1990s were deemed inflexible and 

ill- suited for Russia’s strategic forces in the future. There 

was also one regiment of SS-24s, with 10 missiles based in 

fixed silos at Teykovo. As a strategic rocket system, the SS24 had many problems. Developed and fielded in 1988, the 

missile guidance system had a design life of only 11 years, 

which meant that by the end of the century, the weapons 

system would be technically unreliable and obsolete. Also, 

critical replacement items and system parts were not readily 

available in Russia since both silo- and rail-based systems 

had been designed and manufactured in Ukraine.

Further, since 1994 the Strategic Rocket Forces, at the 

specific direction of President Yeltsin, had restricted that 

the SS-24 missiles, mounted on the special military trains, 

remain stationed in their rail garrisons. Located in garrisons 

in Kostroma, Bershet and Krasnoyarsk, these trains and 

missiles sat rusting away year after year.120 Finally, the 

START II treaty, which the Russian government intended to 

implement if passed, required elimination of all multiplewarhead missiles such as the SS- 24s. All these factors placed 

decommissioning and dismantlement of the SS-24 missile 

systems high on the Russians’ list for elimination.

Another SRF solid-fuel rocket weapons system, the SS25, consisted of a modern, fifth-generation, single-warhead 

missile mounted on a large military road vehicle and then 

deployed in large, restricted areas. The Strategic Rocket Forces 

fielded this missile system in very large numbers; there were 

360 SS-25 missiles deployed operationally across Russia in 

40 regiments. When operational, the missiles were driven 

through the vast Russia forests and steppe to designated 

launching points. The SS-25 mobile launcher systems had a 

measure of tactical mobility and a degree of invulnerability. 

The transporter-erecter-launcher systems were costly to 

Russian nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons sites

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
248

With Courage and Persistence

maintain and operate, however, because they required 

more manpower, constant maintenance and more support 

equipment than fixed-silo ICBM systems. In times of declining 

budgets, Marshal Sergeyev decided these SS-25 mobile missile 

systems could be decommissioned and eliminated since they 

were excess to the SRF’s future force structure.121 The SS-25s 

three-stage solid rocket motors were very reliable and could, 

if transferred, be used in Russia’s space launch program.

Finally, the SS-N-20 solid-fuel missiles were submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, which had been deployed on 

Russia’s ballistic missile subs. Now they were judged excessive, 

and needed to be eliminated under provisions of START. In 

1997 the Russian Ministry of Defense requested the United 

States provide CTR assistance in eliminating 51 SS-N-20 

missile solid rocket motors and components.122 U.S officials 

agreed, accepting Russian recommendation to eliminate the 

rocket motors through an open burning process. In 1999, the 

Russian Ministry of Defense increased its request, adding 40 

excess SS-N-20 solid rocket motors. This set the scope of the 

project at eliminating 91 SS-N-20 rocket motors.123

The Russian request for CTR assistance for the elimination 

of the SS-24 missiles and launchers was larger and more 

complex. To comply with the START I Treaty, Russian officials 

decided to eliminate 66 SS-24 missiles and 39 SS-24 missile 

launchers deployed on three special military trains.124 Missiles 

and launchers would both be eliminated. In addition, 

Russian ministry officials requested the CTR program plan, 

finance and manage elimination of the three rail garrisons 

and dismantle 87 other vehicles associated with the 

weapon system. Elements of the weapon system, including 

the rail garrisons, were located at Bryansk, Perm, Bershet, 

Khrizolitovyy, Surovatikha, Kostroma and Krasnoyarsk.125

In 1997, U.S. officials agreed that eliminating the SS-24 

weapons system would be a CTR project and negotiations 

began on technical requirements for equipment, services, 

and process design. The design phase took several years.

Finally in 2001, the CTR project manager for SS-24 

eliminations issued contracts to American firms to repair SS24 railcars at the rail garrisons so they could be moved to 

the rail transfer facility at Bryansk. Under subsequent CTR 

SS-25 ICBM launch canister

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
249

contracts, the SS-24 missiles on the launcher railcars were 

unloaded and transported to a missile disassembly facility in 

Perm. Finally, the rocket motors were sent to the renovated 

storage and elimination facility at Surovatikha. Additional 

contracts funded design of a new SS-24 rocket motor 

disassembly facility at Perm and dismantlement of the three 

rail garrisons.126

The Strategic Rocket Forces deployed 360 SS-25 missiles 

in 40 regiments. In 1997 Russian defense ministry officials 

requested the U.S. CTR program assist in eliminating 

the entire weapons system consisting of up to 400 SS-25 

missiles, including missile spares, 360 mobile launchers and 

1,600 support vehicles.127 These SS-25s had been deployed 

across Russia, in nine missile divisions, with division 

headquarters, command posts and support units located 

at missile bases at Barnaul, Drovyanaya, Irkutsk, Kansk, 

Nizhniy Tagil, Novosibirsk, Teykovo, Yoskhar-Ola and 

Yurya. Since these were new missiles, launchers and support 

bases, and they constituted a formidable strategic rocket 

force, the rocket forces commanders planned to stretch the 

actual decommissioning of the SS-25 rocket divisions over 

many years. The schedule became the subject of extended 

negotiations when U.S. CTR officials decided to support 

Russia’s request for assistance.

For Marshal Sergeyev and the Strategic Rocket Forces 

commander, the rate of decommissioning SS-25 regiments 

was tied to deployment and commissioning of new SS-27 

regiments. If the rate of fielding new Topol-M SS-27 regiments 

slowed for technical or financial reasons, then slowing 

the decommissioning rate of operational SS-25 regiments 

would be a hedge against loss of strategic power.128 For the 

American CTR officials, Kuenning and Reid, the flow of funds 

determined the project’s schedule. They insisted that such a 

major commitment would obligate the program to provide 

multi-year commitments of funds to American integrating 

contractors directly, and to Russian subcontractors indirectly, 

to dismantle the hundreds of missiles and launchers in 

the field. It would require committing funds to design and 

construct new facilities to store the excess rocket motors 

and manage and contract for transport of the rocket motors 

and ancillary equipment via rail to a central elimination 

facility.129 This uncertainty and facility modifications and new 

construction delayed actual elimination of the first regiment 

of SS-25s until 2003.

There was no uncertainty among American program 

managers and Russian officials, however, about the need for a 

new solid-fuel rocket disposition facility. The Strategic Rocket 

Forces had no facilities for disposing of the hundreds of SS-25 

and SS-24 solid-fuel rocket motors. These were modern, fifthgeneration strategic missile systems and the SRF had no plans 

or facilities for their destruction. Nikolai Shumkov, Deputy 

Director of the Ministry of Defense Industry estimated that 

more than 900 rocket motors, approximately 19,200 tons of 

rocket propellants, and up to 320 missile canisters required 

elimination and disposal.130 U.S. CTR managers examined the 

requirement and agreed that eliminating the more than 900 

solid-fuel rocket motors could be a major bottleneck if a new 

disposal facility was not ready when the missile divisions were 

decommissioned and missiles and launchers dismantled.

After technical negotiations, Russian and American 

officials decided the project’s scope would include designing 

and constructing a new facility, and developing a process 

to eliminate solid propellants in at least 916 rocket motors 

and destroy up to 320 missile canisters. To plan and manage 

Elimination of SS-24 railmobile launchers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

CTR Director Thomas Kuenning

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
250

With Courage and Persistence

such a large project, Kuenning decided to use an American 

integrating contractor to design, construct and equip a new 

centralized solid rocket elimination facility. In May 1997, 

Lockheed Martin Advance Environmental Systems won a $54 

million contract to design a new Solid Propellant Disposition 

Facility in the vicinity of Votkinsk.131 The contract stipulated 

that the American contractor would train Russian workers 

in operation and maintenance of the elimination systems, 

and provide technical support through 2004. A Russian 

contractor would operate the facility under a separate CTR 

contract. After considerable technical negotiations and trials, 

the Russian ministries agreed the solid rocket motors would 

be eliminated using a low-pressure, contained burn system at 

the planned new facility.132

Thus, at the end of the 20th century profound changes 

were underway in the strategic relationship between the 

two nuclear superpowers. Russia began the transformation 

of its strategic nuclear forces and the shedding of excess 

and obsolete Soviet-era strategic missiles, submarines and 

bombers. The range of the projects was significant:133

n SS-18 launchers and silos in SRF rocket divisions 

(dismantle and eliminate)

n SS-18 dismantlement facility at Surovatikha 

(renovate, equip, operate)

n SS-17 and SS-19 dismantlement facility at 

Pibanshur (renovate, equip)

n Liquid Propellant Disposal Plant at Krasnoyarsk 

(design, construct, equip, operate)

n Liquid Propellant Oxidizer Conversion Systems 

(design, transport, equip, operate)

n Railcars and intermodal containers (acquire, 

deliver, and transport fuels)

n SS-20-N rocket motor destruction through open 

burning (design, equip, operate)

n SS-24 rail and silo systems elimination and 

destruction (design, equip, dismantle)

n SS-25 road mobile missile system elimination 

(design, equip, dismantle, eliminate)

n Solid Rocket Motor Disposal Facility at Votkinsk 

(design, construct, equip, operate)

For American CTR officials, like Ted Warner, Laura 

Holgate, Thomas Kuenning and Jim Reid, the scope of this 

engagement required developing trust and persistence in 

working with General Sergeyev, Colonel General Igor Yakolev, 

Strategic Rocket Forces commander, N.I. Shumkov, Director, 

Ministry for Defense Industry, and many senior Russian 

military officers and project managers. It required working 

closely with U.S. integrating contractors, most of whom were 

major international corporations with experienced managers 

and staffs. On one level, the range of new projects was like 

a huge order book filled with future CTR work in Russia. 

On another, implementing all the projects successfully in a 

foreign nation – a former enemy – assumed American and 

Russian managers would be able to manage and control each 

project from design to completion.

That assumption was frequently challenged. Marshal 

Sergeyev, the defense ministry staffs and Russian generals 

and admirals controlled the number of missiles, submarines 

and bombers that would be eliminated. They determined 

the location, even the buildings, where elimination work 

would take place, and controlled access to these sites. 

They also controlled the timing for decommissioning the 

operational missile regiments and submarine units, setting 

the pace of eliminations. The Russian government used a 

Soviet-era command system that worked through complex 

bureaucratic managerial systems and sought to leverage 

authority of the Moscow-based defense ministries to match 

the requirements of operational and logistics commands in 

the field with services and products provided by large-scale 

defense enterprises and local firms. That system broke down 

frequently, especially when local military commanders, 

provincial officials and local bureaucrats asserted their 

authority. Systematic delays, bottlenecks and provincial 

roadblocks emerged. Consequently, while the number, scope 

and range of the planned new CTR projects was impressive, 

implementation would uncover many major, unanticipated 

difficulties.

Turmoil within the Russian Ministry of 

Defense

These difficulties were minor when compared with 

the turmoil resulting from announcement of a major 

reorganization within the Russian armed forces and the 

national security apparatus. In 1998, Marshal Sergeyev 

announced a reorganization of the multiple commands and 

fleets in the Russian Armed Forces. There would be only three 

military services, along with a new strategic nuclear forces 
251

command; the Strategic Deterrent Forces. That new command 

would unite the SRF’s ICBM rocket forces, the Air Force’s 

strategic heavy bombers and the Navy’s ballistic-missile 

submarines, with the forces of the 12th Main Directorate. 

It would shift financial resources to modernization of the 

strategic nuclear forces. To lead the new combined nuclear 

forces, Marshal Sergeyev selected Colonel General Vladimir 

Yakolev. Once Sergeyev’s new plan was announced, a fierce 

“roles and missions” power struggle ensued within the 

General Staff and Defense Ministry, which ended only with 

President Yeltsin’s decision to reject the marshal’s plan.134

Ironically, this rejection led directly to a loss of power 

for the Strategic Rocket Forces. In 1999, General Yakolev 

explained that the service’s top priorities were completing the 

Topol- M program by deploying new mobile and fixed SS-27 

missile systems and fulfilling a program to extend the service 

life of SS-18s, SS-19s and SS-24s.135 Missile reductions would 

continue, but so would modernization. The following year, 

Yakolev announced the rocket forces would decommission 

approximately 250 strategic missiles in the next decade and 

convert many of these missiles into commercial space launch 

vehicles.136 He also announced publicly that the rocket forces 

would release 10,000 servicemen the following year, and 

another 60,000 would be retired or discharged in the next 

five years.137

The Russian Security Council endorsed these strategic 

force reductions and linked the rate of missile reductions 

directly to force modernization, extension of the missiles’ 

service life and to the U.S. remaining part of the ABM Treaty. 

Faced with such a bleak future, a significant number of 

SRF officers and warrant officers resigned from the service. 

In some missile divisions, such as at Drovyanaya in the 

Chita Oblast, commanders were unable to pay the missile 

base’s electric bill, causing intermittent power outages for 

thousands of military personnel and their families.138 At 

another base, when the local electrical company cut off 

power for nonpayment, soldiers stormed the company’s 

offices, taking plant personnel hostage and getting the power 

restored. Although this novel way of resolving overdue bills 

worked, these incidents caused alarm at Strategic Deterrent 

Forces headquarters and at the Ministry of Defense.139

If the Russian national security system was in turmoil 

during these years, the American-Russian security relationship 

was severely strained by NATO’s war against Serbia over 

Kosovo in 1999, by the repeated failure of the Russian Duma 

to ratify START II and by U.S. plans, to withdraw from the 

ABM Treaty. In the middle of this crisis, America and Russia 

elected new leaders. In late 1999, Russian President Yeltsin 

resigned and Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, became 

his successor. In the United States, George W. Bush narrowly 

defeated Albert Gore in the presidential election. Along 

with the new governments, the security consensus between 

the nations changed. To compound the situation, in early 

2001, President Putin dismissed Marshal Sergeyev and 

named Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB colleague, as Minister 

of Defense.140

The new governments had different agendas. Even with 

the political shifts and the Defense Ministry’s turmoil and 

disarray, American and Russian program managers were 

able to move ahead and implement cooperative reduction 

programs in the missile divisions, naval fleets and bomber 

commands. In April 2001, Senator Lugar recommended an 

agenda for American-Russian relations, one of “common 

security interests” in preventing proliferation of weapons 

of mass destruction. “In many ways,” he said,” the [NunnLugar CTR] program has represented the cornerstone and, at 

times, almost the totality, of the U.S.-Russian relationship. It 

has given expression to an area of cooperation where only 

competition might have existed, were it not for our common 

goal of dismantling the weapons of the Cold War.”141

Financing and managing the multiple 

CTR projects

Russian strategic offensive arms elimination projects 

required increased Congressional funding and intensified 

Defense Department and Ministry of Defense management. 

In 1997 Senator Lugar had persuaded Congress to increase 

CTR funding for ICBM and SLBM elimination projects by 

$964 million over the next five years. Implementing multiple 

projects across Russia required more project managers and 

more comprehensive managerial systems. For the Russian 

government, managerial responsibility was fixed in the 

Ministry of Defense and Ministry for Defense Industry. 

Unlike the Ukrainian government, the Russian Ministry 

of Defense never empowered a senior general officer or a 

deputy minister of defense to be responsible for all missile, 

bomber and submarine dismantlement programs.142 In 

the General Staff, Lieutenant General Lata, First Deputy 

Chief for Strategic Rocket Forces set up the Nuclear Hazard 
252

With Courage and Persistence

Reduction Center, a special section to monitor all activities 

in the field and plan and coordinate an annual plan for 

decommissioning and dismantling strategic nuclear forces. 

The Ministry of Defense established a central planning 

section, as did the SRF, Navy, and Air Force. The Ministry of 

Defense developed a master plan, which the military forces 

coordinated and then followed. According to General Lata, 

“The annual plan is the current plan, but they also have longterm plans – for five years.”143

The real work planning and managing missile eliminations 

was done by the Ministry for Defense Industry in Moscow. 

There, Nikolai Shumkov led a small staff of 20 to 30 planners 

and project managers. This ministry’s principle agent in the 

field was the Rosobshchemash enterprise, the large Soviet-era 

bureau that had manufactured and installed strategic missiles 

at many of the SRF operational missile bases. The enterprise’s 

directors and staffs functioned similarly to the American 

integrating contractors, organizing the dismantlement 

program, hiring local firms, planning weekly and daily 

work schedules, and coordinating major developments and 

progress with military commands and ministries. If there was 

a difference, it was that Russian enterprise managers in the 

field had greater authority and control. At the missile silo 

sites, enterprise managers worked with Ministry of Atomic 

Energy’s technicians to remove warheads from missiles. As 

the numerous ICBM dismantlement and elimination projects 

developed after 1997, Rosobshchemash employed hundreds, 

if not thousands, of men across Russia. Many of them were 

former Strategic Rocket Forces officers and men.144

In 2002, Rosobshchemash received a CTR subcontract 

to decommission and dismantle the SRF’s 59th Division, 

equipped with seven regiments of SS-18 missiles. The 

U.S. CTR program contracted with Bechtel, the American 

integrating contractor, to plan, manage and coordinate 

the project with the Russian subcontractors. Bechtel also 

provided U.S. delivered elimination equipment and supplies 

to the missile sites. However on these projects, the senior 

Russian project manager determined the schedule and, to 

a degree, the performance criteria, for ensuring that missile 

eliminations and silo dismantlement projects had been 

completed in accordance with the contract and the START 

I Treaty protocols. If differences arose, more often than 

not, Russian and American project managers discussed and 

resolved issues on-site. Major decisions involving contract 

modifications or new requirements had to be determined 

by the American CTR project manager. As these projects 

unfolded, many American managers became acutely 

aware their Russian counterparts worked in a hierarchal 

bureaucratic system that did not share information across 

ministries or agencies.

By contrast, the American system of financing, 

monitoring, and managing these Russian ICBM projects 

was larger and more complex. It began with Congress. By 

the end of 2001, Congress had appropriated approximately 

$3.9 billion for the CTR program.145 These funds were 

provided to the Departments of Defense, Energy and 

State for execution. Defense Department officials signed 

the original U.S.-Russian CTR Framework Agreement 

in 1992 as the U.S. government’s executive agent. In the 

next decade, department officials and Russian ministries 

negotiated 19 separate implementing agreements and 

memoranda of understanding. By the end of the decade, 

these bilateral programs with Russia, Ukraine and 

Kazakhstan were viewed by senior political and military 

leaders as a major success. In March 2000, General Henry 

H. Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke 

for the military service chiefs and the Commander of U.S. 

Strategic Command when he wrote to Senator Lugar that 

the program’s “visionary goal” of eliminating former Soviet 

threats “at the source” clearly served the most vital interests 

of the United States. “At a cost of less than two-tenths of one 

percent of the Defense budget,” the general continued, “the 

CTR program provides enormous efficiencies.” Shelton and 

Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly endorsed CTR and called on 

Congress to fund it fully.146

Within DOD, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy was 

the primary official who developed the program’s objectives, 

scope and direction. The Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics had responsibility for 

implementing and managing the multinational program and 

projects. The CTR Program Office, led first by Roland Lajoie 

and then by Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr. developed annual and 

long-range program plans, managed all programs and projects 

and monitored all CTR activities with recipient nations.147 In 

October 1998 a major DOD reorganization established a new 

agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) that 

incorporated the CTR Program Office into its organization as 

one of its core directorates.

From that point forward, DTRA’s CTR directorate was the 

program’s principal implementing organization, providing 
253

program oversight, direct project management, acquisition 

and contract expertise, and financial management.148 A smallbusiness firm operated the Threat Reduction Support Center, 

providing administrative support, technical expertise and 

project continuity. From 1997-2001, there were more than 

30 major CTR programs underway; each program manager 

had to answer for every aspect of the contract and specific 

project. By this time, Kuenning and the directorate’s program 

managers were essentially running, with considerable 

oversight from the department’s policy and professional 

staffs, the Defense Department’s multi-faceted, multi-nation, 

multi-million dollar CTR effort.

From the beginning there was some suspicion, 

especially in Congress, that the international cooperative 

program’s equipment, services and funds would not be 

used as intended by the Russian government or by any of 

the new states’ governments. Congress insisted the Defense 

Department develop and institute a program of audits and 

examinations to inspect on-site all equipment, materials, 

training programs, and services provided to the recipient 

nations under bilateral CTR agreements.149 By the end 

of 2001, there had been 112 audits and examinations; 

each inspection team issued a report that went to senior 

department officials and key Congressional committees.150

Congress also used its investigative powers to commission 

the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct 

research-based analytical investigations of CTR program 

management and implementation. The GAO conducted 

more than a dozen field-based investigations of every aspect 

of CTR assistance in Russia, and each one produced a formal 

report to Congress and the Secretary of Defense with specific 

recommendations.151

Far more important, however, than these congressional 

efforts at monitoring the CTR programs in Russia, Ukraine 

and Kazakhstan, was the direct managerial effort by 

American project managers who made frequent site visits to 

Russia. Project managers usually led small teams of technical 

advisors, linguists, acquisition specialists and logisticians to 

the project site where they would meet Russian and American 

project directors, and review every aspect of the project. In the 

1990s and next decade, hundreds of American CTR officials 

traveled across the length and breadth of Russia. Traveling 

in small teams, they would fly from Moscow to local 

airports and then, accompanied by Russian officials, drive 

to Russian military bases and dismantlement, elimination 

or construction sites. On-site, they worked directly with 

American integrating contractors, Russian enterprise project 

managers, Russian subcontractors, and at times, local 

military and naval commanders. During 2001 alone, there 

were 169 CTR program management site visits to Russia, 

Ukraine and Kazakhstan.152 In any given week there were 35 

to 40 American CTR team members, traveling to Moscow 

and working with the special staff at the U.S. Embassy.153

In Russia, U.S. program managers controlled CTR 

assistance through the contracting process. Using Federal 

Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and DOD regulations, they 

negotiated, coordinated and signed acquisition contracts to 

carry out various CTR projects in Russia. At times they used 

direct contracts, as with the arctic and pacific naval shipyards. 

Other times, they contracted with Russian or foreign firms to 

build and deliver equipment such and railroad cars or special 

containers, but the preferred method of managing projects 

in Russia was by contracting with American corporations to 

work as an integrating contractor, as mandated by Congress. 

Although many Russian defense analysts complained about 

this policy, pointing out that it was extraordinarily expensive 

to pay U.S. firms to establish and maintain project managers 

and staffs at remote military sites and facilities, most 

American CTR program managers in the field thought the 

Congressional policy was correct.154 Speaking to reporters in 

May 1999, Jim Reid stated that when the Russian Ministry 

of Economics requested CTR support dismantling SS-18 

silo launchers, DOD officials decided to issue a competitive 

Jim Reid (l.)

National Archives - Still Picture Branch
254

With Courage and Persistence

contract to an American firm. “That project,” Reid explained, 

“is going to require enough scheduling, oversight and 

management that it’s really beyond what our office can 

support directly.”155 Luke Kluchko, another CTR official, 

addressed the issue of which American corporations got the 

major integrating contracts in Russia:

Essentially these were big U.S. firms that acted 

as our agent (CTR program) to do a particular 

job. Bechtel, Brown and Root, Morrison-Knudsen, 

Raytheon, they all had international operations.... 

They have worked in all kinds of environments. 

And because they are private industry, their people 

can act, can behave in a certain way that we cannot, 

because we are government people, and we have 

to follow certain procedures. We don’t have their 

maneuverability. ... There was also our comfort 

factor, because a lot of these programs were huge, 

complex, and very spread out.156

Assisting the Russian government in eliminating its excess 

ICBM forces, American integrating contractors managed the 

following projects:

A New Initiative

Besides weapons eliminations in Russia, American 

integrating contractors also managed CTR projects to 

improve security at nuclear weapons storage areas. This 

included designing and delivering an inventory control 

and management system for storage of nuclear warheads. 

Other firms delivered equipment and training services for 

Russian guard forces, and still others acquired new security 

equipment for nuclear weapons storage sites and provided 

site assessments, training and logistics. American integrating 

contractors also managed projects providing improved 

security for transportation of nuclear weapons, constructed 

a large new secure fissile materials storage facility, designed 

and constructed a new chemical weapons destruction facility, 

and even designed and managed a biological weapons 

proliferation prevention program across the region.

After 2000, when the number of CTR projects and contracts 

grew dramatically, Ann Bridges-Steely, DTRA’s Director of 

Acquisitions and Logistics recommended a new contracting 

procedure. In the new approach, the implementing agency, 

DTRA would use a multiple award, indefinite delivery/

indefinite quantity contract that would cover the entire CTR 

mission for the next five years. At $5 billion, this contract 

award would be the largest in the agency’s short history. 

Table 8-4. U.S. Integrating Contractors for ICBM 

Projects in Russia, 1997-2003

Project U.S. Contractor Year

Initiated

SS-18 silo

dismantlement

Brown and Root 2000

SS-18 Neutralization/Elimination 

Facility at

Surovatikha

Brown and Root 2000

SS-17/SS-19 

Neutralization/

Elimination Facility 

at Piban’shur

Raytheon Technical 

Services 

Corporation

2003

Liquid Rocket Fuel 

Conversion Plant 

at Krasnoyarsk

Thiokol 1995

Oxidizer Liquid 

Rocket Fuel Conversion Systems

Bechtel National 

Inc.

1999

Solid Fuel 

Disposition Facility 

at Votkinsk

Lockheed Martin 1998

Solid Propellant 

ICBM/SLBM and 

Mobile Launcher 

Elimination

Washington Group 

International

2003

SLBM SS-N-20 

Rocket Motors

ParsonsDelaware2003

CTR Logistics in 

Russia

Raytheon Technical 

Services

Corporation

1995

Source: DOD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress FY 2003, data as of 

January 2002.
255

John Connell and Herbert Thompson, two experienced CTR 

managers, led the contract definition and selection process. 

Following legal notifications on the Commerce Business 

Daily (now FedBizOps) in November 2000, the agency set up 

a special website, communicated electronically with potential 

contractors and conducted a one-day briefing, which was 

attended by 120 firms. “Because of the dollar value of the 

contract,” Thompson explained, “senior decision makers in 

the agency were involved in all stages of the process.”157

When bids came in, Connell and Thompson set up a 

source-selection evaluation board with teams to evaluate 

technical proposals, conduct performance risk assessments 

and examine cost issues. Following reviews and approvals 

by senior legal, acquisition and management officials, 

the CTR Integrating Contract (CTRIC) was awarded in 

September 2001. Parsons Delaware, Bechtel National, 

Washington Group International, Raytheon Technical 

Services Company, and Brown and Root Services shared 

the contract award. The five corporations constituted a pool 

of firms with international experience. Each of the firms 

had managed and planed previous CTR projects in Russia, 

Ukraine or Kazakhstan. All had worked with foreign 

governments, and national and local enterprises. With the 

new contract in effect, CTR program managers anticipated 

they would be able to define and award a contract within 55 

to 80 days, instead of 9 to 12 months under the old system.158

With award of this major contract in September 2001, the 

Cooperative Threat Reduction program approached a series 

of major benchmarks.

START I Treaty compliance, CTR 

program at ten years, and the Bush 

administration’s CTR program review and 

revalidation

On December 5, 2001, the five START I Treaty nations – 

the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus 

– had to declare they were in compliance with final force 

levels required by the treaty. All were. That date also marked 

the 10th year of the Nunn-Lugar CTR Program. By this time, 

the program’s premier objective was to “Assist Russia in 

accelerating strategic arms reductions to the Strategic Arms 

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush at Crawford, Texas, November 2001

George W. Bush Presidential Library
256

With Courage and Persistence

Reduction Treaty levels.” There was no doubt the Nunn-Lugar 

CTR programs helped Russia meet its treaty compliance 

levels. This conclusion, acknowledged by Russian defense 

officials and general officers, was particularly accurate in 

reduction and elimination of the Russian Navy’s ballisticmissile nuclear submarines.159 That same month, President 

Bush announced his administration had completed a 

comprehensive review of nonproliferation programs and 

threat reduction assistance to the Russian Federation.

In November 2001, Bush had hosted Putin at his 

Texas ranch, and they pledged to make further reductions 

in strategic offensive weapons and deployed strategic 

warheads.160 During their discussions, Bush and Putin 

focused on the threat of international terrorism and the 

recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the 

Pentagon. They talked about new joint cooperative programs 

on the physical protections required for Russia’s nuclear 

storage sites and new programs to assist with accounting 

for nuclear weapons in storage. They also touched on new 

efforts to provide equipment and training for the Russian 

government to use in resisting terrorist attacks.

Finally, the two heads of state reviewed plans to accelerate 

reductions in chemical weapons stockpiles, and new efforts 

to monitor and secure biological technologies.161 “Together, 

we must keep the world’s most dangerous technologies out 

of the hands of the world’s most dangerous people,” Bush 

declared three weeks later in a speech at The Citadel, The 

Military College of South Carolina. “The President has made 

it clear repeatedly,” White House officials announced in late 

December, “that his administration is committed to strong, 

effective cooperation with Russia ... to reduce weapons of 

mass destruction and to prevent their proliferation.”162 For 

2002 CTR Scorecard

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

New CTR Contract

	 H Multiple Award, Indefinite Delivery

/Indefinite Quantity
257

the Bush administration, stemming international terrorism 

became a new foreign policy objective.

Four areas were identified for expansion: securing and 

consolidating Russia’s weapons-grade nuclear materials, 

providing assistance for the storage and transparency of 

fissile materials and warheads; accelerating construction of 

a chemical weapons destruction facility at Shchuch’ye and 

planning new programs that would engage and redirect the 

work of Russia’s and the other new nations’ biotechnical 

institutes and scientists. Clearly, these new areas reflected the 

Bush administration’s policy of redirecting CTR programs 

toward assisting Russia to secure its nuclear materials, 

chemical arsenals, and biological weapons scientists and 

technologies from terrorists.

Table 8.5-. START I Treaty, 1990-2001

Category 1. Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles – ICBMs, SLBMs, and Bombers

1991

(Signature)

1994

(Entry into Force)

Jan 1998

(+3 years)

2001

(7 year goal)

United States 2,246 1,838 1,485 1,600

Former USSR 2,498 1,956 1,594 1,600

Russia 1,596 1,484

Ukraine 196 110

Kazakhstan 104

Belarus 36

Category 2. Strategic Warheads (Attributed)

1991

(Signature)

1994

(Entry into Force)

Jan 1998

(+3 years)

2001

(7 year goal)

United States 11,796 8,824 7,989 6,000

Former USSR 10,271 9,568 7,612 6,000

Russia 6,914 6,680

Ukraine 1,438 932

Kazakhstan 1,040

Belarus 36

Sources: Annex A, B, C of Start Treaty MOU, 31 July 1991, Start MOU, January 1995, Start MOU, January

1998, and December 2001.

To measure these major benchmarks, the table below 

compares the START Treaty’s starting, mid-point, and final 

reduction levels. The treaty began as a bilateral U.S.-USSR 

treaty when Presidents Gorbachev and Bush signed it in 

Moscow in July 1991. A year later in Lisbon, it became a fivenation treaty. When all five nations completed ratification by 

December 1994, the treaty entered into force. In Lisbon, the 

United States agreed to include strategic-weapons reductions 

in Kazakhstan and Ukraine with Russia’s reduction figures. 

Finally by December 2001 all five nations reported to the 

treaty’s commission that they were in compliance with the 

treaty’s final reduction levels. All reductions were verified 

by on-site inspections. The START Treaty levels for strategic 

bombers, submarines and missiles were:
258

With Courage and Persistence

Another way to measure assistance to Russia and the other 

nations was to examine the scope of CTR programs against 

a benchmark of requested assistance in a series of strategic 

offensive weapons and systems categories. The Department of 

Defense developed a single chart, known as the “Scorecard” 

(p. 256) for measuring its current and projected status for ten 

major CTR programs against a baseline of requested assistance. 

The Scorecard for 2002 revealed significant reductions in 

ICBMs, ICBM silos, strategic bombers, air-launched cruise 

missiles, SLBM launchers, submarine-launched ballistic 

missiles, ballistic-missile submarines, and sealed nuclear 

testing tunnels. 

Endnotes

1

 Within the Defense Department CTR program officers were 

located in four offices: OSD International Security Policy, OSD 

Atomic Energy, the CTR Program Office, and the Defense Nuclear 

Agency. In addition, there were people located in the Threat 

Reduction Support Center (TRSC), working under CTR support 

contract.

2

 Interview, Dr. Harold P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 December 

2001; Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, West 

Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004. For the increase in CTR 

obligation rate see, Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 121-

122.

3

 Presidential Directive-41, “U.S. Policy on Improving Nuclear 

Material Security in Russia and the Other Newly Independent 

States,” September 1995 transferred nine programs from defense 

to other departments. For the context and controversy surrounding 

this directive see Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 122-124.

4

 Carter articulated this position strongly: “When the White 

House attempted to give technical and programmatic guidance the 

effect was to hinder the implementation of Nunn-Lugar.” Interview 

cited in Ellis, Defense By Other Means, p. 124.

5

 Rose Gottemoeller, “Presidential Priorities in Nuclear Policy, 

in Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling the Cold War, 68; 

Interview, Ambassador James Goodby, U.S. Ambassador for the 

Safe, Secure, and Dismantlement Talks, 1993-1994, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 March 2005.

6

 See Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 122-124.

7

 Ellis, Defense By Other Means, pp. 8-10.

8

 Interview, Ms. Laura S. Holgate, OSD Special Coordinator for 

Cooperative Threat Reduction, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian 

DTRA, Washington, D.C., 20 June 2002.

9

 See, Department of Defense, FY1997 Semiannual Report to 

Congress, “Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program,” March 

31, 1997. These departmental objectives remained fixed for the 

next five years, except for some minor changes. The point is that 

the program objectives gave CTR a more rational approach to 

developing and managing the projects and programs.

10 Interview with Major General (Retired) Vasily F. Lata, 

Director, Strategic Plans, Strategic Rocket Forces, General Staff, 

Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Moscow, Russia, 25 

January 2005.

11 Ibid.

12 For background and context see Goldgeier and McFaul, 

Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia after the Cold War, pp. 

206-210; Strobe Talbot, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential 

Diplomacy, pp. 238-250. Talbot, who was present in every 

discussion, is especially revealing on Yeltsin’s dilemma; For an array 

of the newsworthy issues at the summit, see Thomas W. Lippman, 

“Clinton, Yeltsin Agree on Arms Cuts and NATO,” Washington Post, 

22 March 1997.

13 “The Paris Club is an informal group of official creditors 

whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to 

the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries. As 

debtor countries undertake reforms to stabilize and restore their 

macroeconomic and financial situation, Paris Club creditors 

provide an app.ropriate debt treatment. Paris Club creditors 

provide debt treatments to debtor countries in the form of 

rescheduling, which is debt relief by postponement or, in the case 

of concessional rescheduling, reduction in debt service obligations 

during a defined period (flow treatment) or as of a set date (stock 

treatment).” Quote from “About Us” on the Paris Club Website at 

http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/ accessed on 14 November 2011.

14 Russia-United States Joint Statement on Parameters on Future 

Reduction in Nuclear Forces, Helsinki, Finland, 21 March 1997, in 

Public Papers of the Presidents, William J. Clinton – 1997, Volume 

1, (U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access), pp. 340-

341; Russia-United States Joint Statement on Chemical Weapons, 

21 March 1997, in ibid, pp. 342-343; Russia-United States Joint 

Statement on European Security, 21 March 1997, in ibid, pp. 343-

344; Joint Statement on United States-Russia Economic Initiative, 

21 March 1997, in ibid., pp. 344-346 at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.

gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi accessed on 29 November 2011.

15 News Release, Office of the Secretary of Defense (Public 

Affairs), “Additional Funds Added to Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program in Russia,” 23 April 1997.

16 GAO Report, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of CTR 

Program,” September 1996, GAO/NSIAD-96-222.

17 Ibid., Interview, Ms. Laura S. Holgate, OSD Special 

Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction , with Joseph P. 
259

Harahan, Historian DTRA, Washington, D.C., 20 June 2002; and 

Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, West Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

18 These new CTR projects are described in the 1998 CTR 

Implementation Plan to Congress. See DoD Report, CTR Program 

Office, “Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, Second-Half 

FY 1998 Semiannual Report,” 30 September 1998.

19 Briefing, Major Ron Alberto, CTR Project Manager, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, “SLBM Launcher/SSBN Elimination Project,” 

July 1999.

20 DoD Report, CTR Program Office, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction (CTR) Program, Second-Half FY 1998 Semiannual 

Report,” 30 September 1998.

21 Interview, Nikolai I. Shumkov, Director (retired), Department 

of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and Director, 

Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, Ministry 

of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 20 July 2005.

22 Arms Control Reporter, 1996, p 614.B.76.

23 Goldgeier and McFaul, Power and Purpose, U.S. Toward Russia 

after the Cold War, pp. 229-235.

24 Ibid., pp. 235-246.

25 See Joseph Ellis, Defense by Other Means, pp. 190-192.

26 Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on 

the State of the Union, 19 January 1999, in Public Papers 

of the Presidents, William J. Clinton – 1999, Volume 1, 

(U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access), pp. 62-

71 at http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi- bin/TEXTgate.

cgi?WAISdocID=IjqmgE/16/1/0&WAISaction=retrieve accessed on 

29 November 2011.

27 Report, Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, 

“Russian Nuclear Security and the Clinton Administration’s 

FY 2000 Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative: A Summary of 

Congressional Action,” February 2002. See also, Ellis, Defense by 

Other Means, pp. 190-192.

28 For instance see, Report, “FY2000 Congressional Action 

Related to Russian Nuclear Security Issues,” RANSAC, June 21, 

1999, www.ransac.org/OfficialDocuments. The funds for the 

Energy and State Department were in these department’s annual 

appropriation bills as well as the Defense appropriations act. The 

latter act labeled the U.S.–Russian cooperative assistance program 

the CTR Program.

29 Ellis, Defense by Other Means, pp. 84-88, 122-130.

30 Ibid., pp. 86-87.

31 PBS News Hour, “AWOL Arsenal”, Transcript with Jim Lehrer 

and Senator Richard G. Lugar, Robert Bell, and Jessica Stern, March 

19, 1998, at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june98/

nukes_3-19.html accessed on 29 November 2011.

32 See Ellis, Defense by Other Means, pp. 178-179.

33 Vice Admiral A.A. Sarkisov, Russian Academy of Sciences and 

Director, Russian Nuclear Safety Institute, IBREA, Report, Strategic 

Approaches in Solving Decommissioning problems of Retired 

Russian Nuclear Fleet in the North-west Region, Moscow, Russia, 

2004.

34 START Treaty, 31 July 1991, see Annex A, B, C.

35 Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces,” in Podvig, 

editor, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 234- 337; see also A.A. 

Sarkisov, Director, Russian Nuclear Safety Institute, IBREA, Report, 

Strategic Approaches in Solving Decommissioning Problems of 

Retired Russian Nuclear Fleet in the North-west Region, Moscow, 

Russia, 2004.

36 The most comprehensive account of the Russian Navy’s 

strategic nuclear forces is by Eugene Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic 

Nuclear Forces,” in Podvig, editor, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 

pp. 234-337.

37 Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces,” in Podvig, editor, 

Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 273- 279.

38 Ibid, pp. 234 -245.

39 Dmitry Litovkin, “CTR and Nuclear-Powered Submarine 

Dismantlement in the Northern Fleet,” in Ivan Sfranchuk, editor, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient, PIR Report, 

2000, pp. 35-41; See also, Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic Nuclear 

Forces,” in Podvig, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 235- 252; 

and Aleksandr Nikitin, Igor Kudrik, Thomas Nilsen, “The Russian 

Northern Fleet – Sources of Radioactive Contamination,” Report, 

Bellona Foundation, 1996, at http://www.bellona.org/reports/

The_Russian_Northern_Fleet accessed on 29 November 2011.

40 Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces,” in Podvig, ed. 

Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 272-273; Nikitin, et. al., “The 

Russian Northern Fleet – Sources of Radioactive Contamination.”

41 Litovkin, “CTR and Nuclear-Powered Submarine 

Dismantlement in the Northern Fleet, in Sfranchuk, editor, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient, PIR Report, 

2000, pp. 35-40; James Clay Moltz, “Russian Nuclear Submarine 

Dismantlement and the Naval Fuel Cycle,” Special Report in The 

Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000, pp. 76-87.

42 Nikitin et. al., “The Russian Northern Fleet – Sources of 

Radioactive Contamination.”

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., See also, Litovkin, “CTR and Nuclear-Powered 

Submarine Dismantlement in the Northern Fleet,” in Sfranchuk, 

editor, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient, PIR 

Report, 2000, pp. 35-40.

45 Miasnikov, “Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces,” in Podvig, ed., 

Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp.272-273.

46 FY1994 National Defense Authorization Act, Public Law 103-

160, 30 November 1993.

47 Interview, Mr. Jim Reid, Director, Cooperation Threat 

Reduction Policy Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Department of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, D.C., 1 May 2000. See also, Briefing, Major Ron 

Alberto, CTR Project Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “SLBM 

Launcher/SSBN Elimination Project,” July 1999.

48 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United 

States of America and the Ministry of Economics of the Russian 

Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of Strategic 
260

With Courage and Persistence

Offensive Arms, dated 26 August 1993 and amended 3 April 1995, 

19 June 1995, 27 May 1996, 11 April 1997, 11 February 1998, 

9 June 1998, 16 August 1999 and 8 August 2000. (Basic SOAE 

Agreement)

49 Briefing, CTR Program Office, DTRA, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction (CTR) Program Review, 20 May 1997; See also, Litovkin, 

“CTR and Nuclear-Powered Submarine Dismantlement in the 

Northern Fleet, in Sfranchuk, editor, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program: How Efficient, PIR Report, 2000, pp. 35-40 ; J.C. Moltz, 

“Russian Nuclear Submarine Dismantlement and the Naval Fuel 

Cycle,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000, pp. 76-87.

50 Interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern 

Fleet, Admiral Oleg Yerofeev, Nezavisimaya Gazette, 22 April 1995.

51 For a more detailed account of the economic deterioration 

see Nikitin et. al., “The Russian Northern Fleet – Sources of 

Radioactive Contamination,” section 1.3.

52 Ibid.; See also Northern Fleet Press Release, 22 September 

1995.

53 Radio Murmansk, 27 September 1995.

54 Interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern 

Fleet, Admiral Oleg Yerofeev, Nezavisimaya Gazette, 22 April 1995.

55 James Clay Moltz, “Russia: Naval Fuel Cycle: Foreign 

Assistance,” in Nuclear Threat Initiative, Research Library, April 

1998, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/forasst/

forasovr.htm accessed on 29 November 2011. See also, James Clay 

Moltz, “Russian Nuclear Submarine Dismantlement and the Naval 

Fuel Cycle,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000, pp. 76-87; 

Nikitin et. al., “The Russian Northern Fleet – Sources of Radioactive 

Contamination.”

56 The Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) was 

established in 1995 as a cooperative multinational group between 

Norway, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States. For the group’s 

reports and website see http://www.denix.osd.mil/international/

InternationalCooperation/EUCOM/AMEC.cfm accessed on 29 

November 2011. For perspective on the group’s activities regarding 

the removal of spent nuclear wastes from Russian naval shipyards, 

see The Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Program’s 

Role in the Management of Spent Fuel from Decommissioned Nuclear 

Submarines, (NATO Science Series, 2006).

57 Interview, Nikolai I. Shumkov, Director (retired), Department 

of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and Director, 

Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, Ministry 

of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 20 July 2005.

58 Ibid.; and Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. 

Army (retired), Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for 

Cooperative Threat Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, West Wilton, New Hampshire, 

31 March 2004.

59 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, West Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

60 Memorandum for Correspondents, Secretary of Defense 

Perry’s Visit to Russia,” 10 October 1996, at http://www.fas.org/

nuke/control/ctr/news/96-10-10.html accessed on 29 November 

2011.

61 Briefing, CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction (CTR) Program Review,” 20 May 1997.

62 Interview, Edward P. Baal, Deputy Director of Production, 

Zvezdochka Enterprise, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

28 January 2005, Archangelsk, Russia.

63 Briefing, Major Ron Alberto, CTR Project Manager, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, “SLBM Launcher/SSBN Elimination Project,” 

July 1999; Interview, Lt. Colonel Ronald Alberto, U.S. Army, 

International Program Manager, SSBN Dismantlement Program, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 14 October 2004, National Defense 

University, Washington, D.C.

64 Interview, Major General Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., Director 

CTR Directorate (1998-2003), DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

DTRA, Washington, D.C., 6 August 2004.

65 Fact Sheet, SLBM Launcher/SSBN Elimination, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, 14 July 1999.

66 Fact Sheet, CTR Directorate, SOAE Program, DTRA, “SLBM 

Launcher/SSBN Elimination (R),” 8 October 1999.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Interview, Lt. Colonel Ronald Alberto, U.S. Army, 

International Program Manager, SSBN Dismantlement Program, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 14 October 2004, National Defense 

University, Washington, D.C.

70 Fact Sheet, CTR Directorate, SOAE Program, DTRA, “SWLBM 

Launcher/SSBN Elimination (R),” 8 October 1999.

71 Interview, Edward P. Baal, Deputy Director of Production, 

Zvezdochka Enterprise, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

28 January 2005, Archangelsk, Russia.

72 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress FY 2002, III-7.

73 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress, FY 2003 (Data, January 2002).

74 Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, Program 

Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN 

Dismantlement Project,” 5 December 2000.

75 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperation Threat 

Reduction Multi-year Program Plan, FY 2001, January 2000, pp. 

15-16.

76 Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, Program 

Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN 

Dismantlement Project,” 5 December 2000.

77 CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Scorecard,” 15 July 1999, and 

DoD Report, CTR Program Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress FY 2003, January 2002.

78 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperation Threat 

Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, January 2000, pp. 

15-16.
261

79 Briefing, Commander Baker, U.S. Navy, Program Manager, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN Dismantlement 

Project,”5 December 2000.

80 Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, 

Report, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Liquid Propellant 

Disposition,” 30 September 2002, p. 3.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, “Cooperation Threat 

Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001,” (Data as of January 

2000).

84 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress, FY2003 (Data as of January 

2002).

85 . Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, “CTR 

Program SSBN Dismantlement Project,” to Director, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, 17 July 2002.

86 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress, FY 2002 (Data, January 

2001); Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, “CTR 

Program SSBN Dismantlement Project,” to Director, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, 17 July 2002; Interview, Edward P. Baal, Deputy 

Director of production, Zvezdochka Enterprise, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, January 28, 2005, Archangelsk, Russia.; 

Interview Alexi Dynaev, Construction Manager, Zvezdochka 

Shipyard Enterprise, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 28 

January 2005, Archangelsk, Russia

87 DTRA, “Milestone Reached in Opening of Low Level 

Radiation Waste facility,” DTRA Connection, vol 2. no. 11, November 

2000, pp. 1, 4., see also, Reuters, “U.S. Cash Helps Russia Nuclear 

Shipyard Limp On,” Severodvinsk, Russia, 22 October 2000.

88 See “Russia: Northern Fleet,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia, 

at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/norflt/

norflovr.htm accessed on 29 November 2011.

89 Toshiyuki Kawakami, Secretary General of the Japan-Russian 

Committee for Cooperating on Reducing Nuclear Weapons, “Issues 

of non-Ecological Safety of Complex Decommissioning of Nuclear 

Submarines in the Far East Region of the Russian Federation,” 

speech to the FEESS 2000 International Seminar, Moscow, Russia, 

19 July 2000.

90 Ibid. See also, James Clay Moltz, “Russia: Naval Fuel Cycle 

Foreign Assistance.”

91 James Clay Moltz, “Russia: Naval Fuel Cycle Foreign 

Assistance.”

92 James Clay Moltz, “Russian Nuclear Submarine 

Dismantlement and the Naval Fuel Cycle,” The Nonproliferation 

Review, Spring 2000, pp. 76-87.

93 Ibid, p. 79. On this point, Moltz interviewed Lt. Colonel 

Alberto.

94 Christina Chuen and James Clay Moltz, Issue Brief, “Nuclear 

Submarine Dismantlement,” July 2002, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 

Research Library, at http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_05.html 

accessed on 30 November 2011.

95 Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, Program 

Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN 

Dismantlement Project,” 5 December 2000.

96 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United 

States of America and the Ministryof Economics of the Russian 

Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of Strategic 

Offensive Arms, dated 26 August 1993 and amended 3 April 1995, 

19 June 1995, 27 May 1996, 11 April 1997, 11 February 1998, 

9 June 1998, 16 August 1999 and 8 August 2000, 9 June 2003, 

25 September 2003, and 14 January 2005, and as amended and 

extended 30 August 2002. (SOAE Implementing Agreement, with 

amendments)

97 Colonel Jim Reid, Deputy Director, CTR Directorate, DTRA, 

“On Spent Fuel Reprocessing....,” Nuclear Weapons and Materials 

Monitor, 24 May 1999, pp. 12-18.

98 Briefing, Commander Baker, U.S. Navy, Program Manager, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN Dismantlement 

Project,” 17 July 2002; See also, DoD Report, CTR Program Office, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, FY2003 

(as of January 2002).

99 Igor Kudrik, “Follow-up of the AMEC declaration, “11/06-

1997, Bellona Foundation, at http://www.bellona.org/english_

import_area/international/russia/navy/co-operation/7618 accessed 

on 29 November 2011; Igor Kudrik, “Norway’s contribution to 

nuclear safety in Russia,” 17/06-1997, Bellona Foundation, at 

http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/international/

russia/navy/co-operation/9293 accessed on 29 November 2011; 

see also, Report, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia: International 

Assistance Programs: Norway, 26 June 2007, at http://www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/forasst/intnatl/norway.htm accessed on 29 

November 2011.

100 Igor Kudrik, “Follow-up of the AMEC Declaration.”

101 Briefing, Commander Baker, U.S. Navy, “CTR Program SSBN 

Dismantlement Project,” 17 July 2002; See also, DoD Report, CTR 

Program Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to 

Congress, FY2003 (data as of January 2002).

102 Report, National Research Council and Russian Academy 

of Sciences, Strengthening U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Nuclear 

Nonproliferation, Recommendations for Action, Washington, 

2005, pp. 65-68.

103 Statement of G-8 leaders, “The Global Partnership Against 

the Spread of Weapons and materials of Mass Destruction,” 

Kananaskis, Canada, 27 June 2002; See also, Vladimir Orlov, 

Guidebook: Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of 

Mass Destruction, PIR Center, Moscow, 2006, pp. 25-43. The G-8 

commitments led to the development of a strategic master plan, 

see, Vice Admiral A.A. Sarkisov, Russian Academy of Sciences and 

Director, Russian Nuclear Safety Institute, IBREA, Report, Strategic 

App.roaches in Solving Decommissioning problems of Retired Russian 

Nuclear Fleet in the North-west Region, Moscow, Russia, 2004.

104 Susan Koch, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Negotiations: 

Lessons Learned,” published in Report, National Research Council 

and Russian Academy of Sciences, Strengthening U.S.-Russian 
262

With Courage and Persistence

Cooperation in Nuclear Nonproliferation, Recommendations for 

Action, Washington, 2005, pp. 42-46.

105 Ibid, pp. 44-45.

106 See Valery Semin, Department of Security and Disarmament 

Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation, “CTR has 

Potential for Further Development,” in Ivan Safranchuk, Editor, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient?, pp. 9-12.

107 Susan Koch, “CTR Negotiations: Lessons Learned,” in 

Report, National Research Council and Russian Academy of 

Sciences, Strengthening U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Nuclear 

Nonproliferation, Recommendations for Action,Washington, 

2005, pp. 42-46. For the DoD announcement see, ”United States 

and Russian Extend Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Agreement,” June 24, 1999 at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/

russia/forasst/ctr/programs.htm accessed on 29 November 2011.

108 “12/96: SRF Commander On START I Implementation,” 

Russia: ICBM Deactivation and Dismantlement, Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, Russia, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

weapons/icbms/icbmdism.htm accessed on 30 November 2011.

109 “5/14/97: Lockheed Martin Awarded Contract to Dismantle 

Russian Ballistic Missiles,” ibid.

110 Joint Statements, Sixth Clinton-Yeltsin Summit, March 

21, 1997. See also Steven Erlanger, “A Clinton- Yeltsin Sidelight: 

Progress on Arms Control,” New York Times, 24 March 1997.

111 “START II: Letters on Early Deactivation,” 26 September 

1997, at http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/

issues/arms-control-disarmament/us-russia.htm accessed on 30 

November 2011.

112 Interview, Nikolai I. Shumkov, Director (retired), 

Department of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and 

Director, Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, 

Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, 

DTRA, Moscow, 20 July 2005.

113 Interview, N. Shumkov, Director (retired), Department 

of Missile Technologies, with J. Harahan, DTRA, Moscow, 20 

July 2005; Interview, Lieutenant General Vasily F. Lata, Director, 

Strategic Plans, SRF, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 25 January 2005. See also, Ivan Sfranchuk, “ESOA 

Program in Russia: Results and Problems of Implementation,” in 

Safranchuk, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient?, pp. 

24-34.

114 Briefing, CTR Program Office, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

(CTR) Program Review”, 20 May 1997.

115 Ibid.

116 DTRA, CT Directorate, “Statement of Work for the 

Decommissioning of SS18 Silos at Aleysk,” 29 April 2000. In the 

SOW, see Attachment 1. It describes the work to be accomplished 

by the principle Russian contractor, JSC Rosobshemash.

117 Briefing, CT Directorate, DTRA, ”Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination, Program Overview,” February 2003.

118 See DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 1999,” February 1999. This 

report was the former semi-annual report to Congress.

119 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2000. As early as 1994, 

U.S. CTR policy officials had agreed to finance the project, and to 

employ an American contractor to construct and operate a liquid 

propellant disposition and conversion plant at Krasnoyarsk. In 

1995, Thiokol-Honeywell Corporation became the integrating 

contractor responsible for developing the conversion process for 

eliminating the anticipated 33,000 tons of heptyl fuel. In 1999, 

Bechtel National was awarded the contract to design, fabricate, test, 

deliver, and operate two other systems which would convert the 

rocket fuel’s oxidizer, approximately 135,000 tons, to nitric acid.

120 See Federation of American Scientists, Fact Sheet, Weapons 

of Mass Destruction, “RT-23/SS-24 Scalpel,” at http://www.fas.org/

nuke/guide/russia/icbm/rt-23.htm accessed on 30 November 2011.

121 See Michael Jasinski and Nikolai Sokov, “Russia: Strategic 

Rocket Forces Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 2001, at 

http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm 

accessed on 30 November 2011.

122 Briefing, Commander Mark A. Baker, U.S. Navy, 

Program Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “CTR Program SSBN 

Dismantlement Project,” 5 Dec 2000.

123 See DoD Report to Congress, CTR Policy Office, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2000,” 

February 1999.

124 See DoD Report to Congress, CTR Policy Office, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, 

data as of January 2000.

125 DoD, CTR Directorate, “Russian Country Book: Program 

Briefing,” 23 March 2005.

126 Ibid.

127 See DoD Report to Congress, CTR Policy Office, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2000,” 

February 1999; Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2000.

128 Colonel General Yakolev, SRF Commander, Remarks, 17 

December 1998 in Krasnaya Zvezda, cited in Russia: Archived ICBM 

Test Launch Developments, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia, at 

http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/icbmtest.

htm accessed on 30 November 2011. See also, article, Jasinski and 

Sokov, “Russia: Strategic Rocket Forces Overview,” Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, April 2001, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm accessed on 30 November 2011. In 

1999, the SRF projected 27 regiments of SS-27 Topol missiles.

129 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, West 

Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

130 Interview, Nikolai I. Shumkov, Director (retired), 

Department of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and 

Director, Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, 

Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, 

DTRA, Moscow, 20 July 2005.
263

131 See DoD Report to Congress, CTR Policy Office, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2000,” 

February 1999.

132 “Lockheed Martin Awarded Contract to Dismantle Russian 

Ballistic Missiles,” 14 May 1997, Russia: ICBM Deactivation and 

Dismantlement, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia, at http://www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/icbmdism.htm accessed on 

30 November 2011.

133 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2001.

134 Jasinski and Sokov, “Russia: Strategic Rocket Forces 

Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 2001, at http://www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm accessed on 30 

November 2011. 

135 See “Russia: Archived ICBM Test Launch Developments,” 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/

russia/weapons/icbms/icbmtest.htm accessed on 30 November 

2011.

136 10/31/2000: SRF Commander Recommends Converting 

Decommissioned ICBMS into Commercial Space Launch Vehicles,” 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Russia, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/

russia/weapons/icbms/icbmdism.htm accessed on 30 November 

2011.

137 See Jasinski and Sokov, “Russia: Strategic Rocket Forces 

Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 2001, at http://www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm accessed on 30 

November 2011.

138 “2/5/2002: Drovyanaya SRF Base Suffers From Electricity 

Cuts,” Russia: Archived ICBM Force/SRF General Developments, 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

weapons/icbms/icbmgen.htm accessed on 30 November 2011.

139 “9/12/2000: Unified Energy System Of Russia Shuts Off 

Power At SRF Facilities In Ivanovo Oblast, Raising Concerns About 

Safety,” Russia: Archived ICBM Force/SRF General Developments, 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

weapons/icbms/icbmgen.htm accessed on 30 November

2011.

140 “Igor Sergeyev, 68, Ex-leader of Russian Defense Ministry, 

Dies,” New York Times, November 11, 2006.

141 Senator Richard G. Lugar, “Presentation, Eisenhower 

Institute Leadership Award”, April 26, 2001, see http://www.ransac.

org/official.

142 See, Ivan Sfranchuk, “ESOA Program in Russia: Results and 

Problems of Implementation,” in Safranchuk, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program: How Efficient?, pp. 26-27.

143 Interview, Lt General (Retired) Vasily F. Lata, Director, 

Strategic Plans, Strategic Rocket Forces, Russia, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, DTRA, Moscow, 25 January 2005.

144 The Russian system of missile dismantlement is described 

in Sfranchuk, “ESOA Program in Russia: Results and Problems 

of Implementation,” in Safranchuk, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program: How Efficient?, pp. 26-34; See also, Interview, Nikolai I. 

Shumkov, Director (retired), Department of Missile Technologies, 

Federal Space Agency, and Director, Administration for Disposition 

of Weapons and Materiel, MOD, with J. P. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 20 July2005; Interview, Lieutenant General (Retired) 

Vasily F. Lata, Director, Strategic Plans, Strategic Rocket Forces, 

Russia, with J. P. Harahan, DTRA, Moscow, 25 January 2005.

145 See DoD Report to Congress, CTR Policy Office, Annual 

Report to Congress Fiscal year 2003 (with data through January 

2002). See Jason D. Ellis, Defense By Other Means: the Politics of 

US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation. This book 

is the best account of the U.S. Congress’s role from 1991 through 

1999; it covers well the congressional shifts in the multi-billion 

dollar program in the former Soviet Union.

146 Letter, General Henry H. Shelton, Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, to U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senate, 31 

March 2000.

147 This roles and mission’s description was included in every 

DoD CTR annual report to Congress. See DoD Report, CTR Policy 

Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress FY 

2003, issued in January 2002, sections I, II, and III.

148 Brigadier General Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., “Guest 

Commentary: Cooperative Threat Reduction directorate,” DTRA 

Connection, November 1999.

149 Interview, Dr. Harold P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 December 

2001; Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, 1994-1997, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, West 

Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

150 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress FY 2003, data as of January 

2002, pp. I-4.

151 By December 2001, the GAO had conducted 25 formal 

reviews and testimony statements of the CTR program for the U.S. 

Congress. See GAO, Testimony, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: 

Observations on U.S. Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation 

Programs in Russia, “Appendix 1, March 2003.

152 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress FY 2003, data as of January 

2002, pp. I-4.

153 See DTRO-M Weekly Reports, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, 2000, 

2001, or 2002.

154 Valery Semin, Department of Security and Disarmament 

Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation, “CTR has 

Potential for Further Development,” in Safranchuk, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient? pp. 9-12; and Ivan 

Sfranchuk, “ESOA Program in Russia: Results and Problems of 

Implementation,” pp. 26-27. This criticism was so widespread that 

it was exception not to find a reference to American corporations 

taking work form Russian firms.

155 Interview, Colonel Jim Reid, Deputy Director, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, “On Spent Fuel Reprocessing....,” Nuclear 

Weapons and Materials Monitor, 24 May 1999, p. 16.

156 Interview, Luke Kluchko, CTR Program Manager, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian 
264

With Courage and Persistence

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, at U.S. Embassy, Moscow, 30 

March 2000.

157 Cindy McGovern, “Billion dollar contract is new way of 

doing business for CTR,” DTRA Connection, October 2001.

158 Ibid.

159 Interview, N. Shumkov, Director (retired), Department 

of Missile Technologies, with J. Harahan, DTRA, Moscow, 20 

July 2005; Interview, Lieutenant General (Retired) Vasily F. Lata, 

Director, Strategic Plans, SRF, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

DTRA, Moscow, 25 January 2005. See also, Sfranchuk, “ESOA 

Program in Russia: Results and Problems of Implementation,” in 

Safranchuk, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient?, pp. 

24-34. Interview, Edward P. Baal, Deputy Director of Production, 

Zvezdochka Enterprise, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

28 January 2005, Archangelsk, Russia. Interview, Vice Admiral 

Ashot Arakelovich Sarkisov, Russian Academy of Sciences and 

Director, Russian Nuclear Safety Institute, IBREA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, DTRA, Moscow, 21 January 2005.

160 Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, “Joint 

Statement by President George W. Bush and President Vladimir V. 

Putin of Russia on a New Relationship Between the United States 

and Russia,” 13 November 2001, at http://moscow.usembassy.gov/

joint_11132001e.html accessed on 30 November 2011.

161 Ibid.

162 George W. Bush: “Fact Sheet: Administration Review of 

Nonproliferation and Threat Reduction Assistance to the Russian 

Federation,” December 27, 2001. Online by Gerhard Peters and 

John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project at http://www.

presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=79285 accessed on 30 November 

2011. See also, U.S. President George W. Bush, Address to Corps of 

Cadets, The Citadel, 12 December 2001.
265

CHAPTER 9

Assisting Russia in Nuclear Weapons Safety and 

Security, Fissile Materials Storage, and 

Chemical Weapons Destruction

Since the beginning of the United States’ Nunn-Lugar 

programs in Russia, General Maslin, Director of the 12th Main 

Directorate, General Staff, had watched carefully and noted 

the willingness of Defense Department officials to go the extra 

mile to deliver promised equipment and materials. For that 

reason the general felt confident his American partners would 

support his request for 150 new super containers that would 

enhance the safety and security of nuclear weapons being 

transported across Russia. Maslin made his request in January 

1995 at a Nuclear Weapons Security Group meeting he cochaired with General Lajoie in Moscow. These containers 

would provide protection from small arms fire using armor 

piercing ammunition. They would also prevent destruction 

by fire up to 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit. Additional sensors 

would preclude unauthorized access to warheads inside 

the containers. General Maslin explained that the Russian 

General Staff had estimated the Strategic Rocket Forces and 

Russian Navy would be shipping up to 2,000 warheads per 

year to the Ministry of Atomic Energy’s dismantlement and 

storage facilities. He added, “We were already talking about 

terrorism then, that those weapons could be stolen.”1

 As 

expected, Lajoie supported his request and briefed Secretary 

Perry, Ash Carter and Harold Smith about it. With the 

Pentagon’s backing secured, Lajoie proceeded with defining 

technical requirements and funding levels.2

Less than three months later on April 3, 1995, General 

Maslin and Secretary Perry signed a new bilateral agreement 

on Nuclear Weapons Transportation Security.3

 The 

Department of Defense agreed to provide up to 150 super 

containers. At subsequent technical meetings in Washington 

and Moscow, Generals Maslin, Yakolev, Lajoie and their 

staffs refined the requirements and agreed to a request 

for five modules of emergency response equipment that 

would be used if there were a nuclear accident or incident 

during transport. As a Soviet specialist, General Lajoie 

knew that the Russian nation covered the world’s largest 

landmass, so he thought the request for multiple sets of 

emergency equipment was reasonable. In addition, the staffs 

recommended including requirements for logistics support, 

training manuals in Russian and a shipping schedule. In 

the fall of 1995, the Defense Department conducted a “full 

and open” solicitation for the manufacture of the 150 super 

containers. Strachen and Henshaw Inc., a British firm won 

the contract and over the next two years the containers were 

manufactured, tested, equipped, shipped and delivered 

to the Russian 12th Main Directorate in Moscow. During 

the tests, 12th Main Directorate technicians revealed that 

the rail cargo cars would need new lashing chain restraints 

and new safety kits for before the containers could be used 

throughout the entire railroad system. Two British firms won 

small CTR contracts to manufacture and deliver these new 

items in 1997.4

As this super container project was underway, CTR 

officials in Washington acquired the new emergency response 

equipment, shipped it to Moscow in the spring of 1996 

and then scheduled training at designated sites in Russia.5

The project consisted of five large mobile kits, each with 

three containers that held modern radiological evaluation 

equipment; local area communications systems; rescue and 

access equipment; diagnostic systems; individual protective 
266

With Courage and Persistence

clothing and gear; and portable generators. Once the 

equipment arrived in Moscow and was inspected, the 12th

Main Directorate shipped one emergency support kit to each 

of five regional sites located in the Far East, Western Siberia, 

Volga-Urals, Central Russia or Northwestern Russia.6

 A key 

element of this emergency response equipment project was 

the acquisition and delivery of a new information analysis 

system that could be used in case of a nuclear accident to 

predict, update and display the effects of radiation and 

contamination over an affected area. The new analytical 

system would provide a capability for continuous oversight 

and display of events during accident remediation. It was 

also designed to exchange information, and communicate 

and track the activities of other agencies.

The system’s command and control center was located 

in Moscow for the mitigation of emergency situations. 

A separate response center was located at the Scientific 

Research Center for the Security of Technical Systems in St. 

Petersburg. It managed an electronic display map, a database 

of all sites and potential problems, and computer software 

for the system. Another two special mobile groups located 

in Moscow and St. Petersburg, each consisting of an onscene commander and a special team equipped with event 

diagnostics, position determination equipment, radiation 

surveillance and accident site operational capability. Finally, 

there were the five special emergency response units located 

in the five regional sites across Russia.7

For new ideas and project recommendations, the two 

nations set up a joint structure for dedicated program 

managers and policy leaders. By 1995 the U.S.-Russian 

Nuclear Weapons Security Group, co-chaired by Generals 

Maslin and Lajoie was meeting regularly to examine new 

requests for CTR assistance, review progress on specific 

projects and make recommendations for expanding existing 

programs. A special section in the 12th Main Directorate 

managed and directed CTR programs throughout Russia. 

Initially, this section was led by Major General Yakolev 

as the senior officer responsible for dealing with all the 

Russian aspects of CTR Nuclear Weapons Safety and 

Security programs. In that office, Colonel, then Major 

Super containers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
267

General Vladimir P. Frolov directed and managed most of 

the significant CTR projects. In the United States, General 

Lajoie assigned program management in these areas to 

Colonel Jay Stobbs of the CTR Program Office and Bill 

Moon from the Defense Nuclear Agency.

Throughout these years, the critical factors that made 

these complex international projects work were the frequent 

Nuclear Weapons Security Group meetings, weekly 

telephone calls and the trust that developed between Maslin 

and Lajoie and the program management staffs. General 

Maslin thought this new emphasis became one of the CTR 

program’s major advantages; specifically he found that 

“pragmatic concepts” were followed by program managers 

and they led to projects with “concrete implementation.”8

 Bill 

Moon, a participant in many of these meetings, concluded 

the general-to-general officer relationship developed a level 

of trust that greatly assisted the work of implementing 

these cooperative projects. Equally significant, that trust 

translated directly into cooperation when discussing and 

developing new projects. After every extended trip to Russia 

and the region, Lajoie met with Secretary Perry and his 

senior CTR advisors and briefed them on the state of the 

dialogue, issues and progress.9

Security Enhancements for Russia’ 

Nuclear Weapons Storage Sites

In April 1997, while Clinton and Yeltsin held their 

summit meeting in Helsinki, Maslin and Lajoie launched an 

extraordinary new project called the “Quick Fix.” The project, 

conducted under a CTR implementing agreement signed in 

April 1995, was designed to improve the control, security 

and safety of nuclear weapons at the Ministry of Defense’s 

nuclear weapons storage sites. At 50 Ministry of Defense sites 

located across Russia, the United States CTR program would 

fund procurement of a Quick Fix system consisting of 50 

sets of perimeter security fencing, with an inner and outer 

layer of fencing.10 These fences would surround a third fence, 

one with a vibration cable and microwave sensors. In all, the 

project called for up to 31 miles of fencing with 350 sensors 

and alarms, and 200 microwave systems.11 The project was 

very timely because an estimated 4,000 warheads would be 

placed in these nuclear storage sites during the next decade.12

While the exact number of the Ministry of Defense’s 

national-level nuclear weapons storage facilities was not 

public knowledge, one expert estimated by the year 2000 

the ministry would have consolidated warheads and nuclear 

materials into 13 to 15 national facilities and a number of 

satellite storage depots. Each national facility consisted of a 

series of large reinforced bunkers designed to hold hundreds 

of nuclear warheads. The American “Quick Fix” project 

would replace the inner fence, add new sensors and alarms, 

and include the new microwave systems. In addition, the 

project would procure snow blowers, special installation 

equipment and some fire protection equipment. U.S. 

CTR officials declared they would contract with a Russian 

manufacturing firm to produce the fencing and assemble the 

equipment. The 12th Main Directorate officials stated they 

would accept and inspect everything, finance delivery to the 

nuclear security depots and pay Russian firms to install it.13

The initial “Quick Fix” project, which was conducted 

under the Nuclear Weapons Storage Security Agreement, 

moved quickly ahead during the summer months of 1997. 

Bill Moon, program manager, and Lieutenant Colonel 

William Conner, the project officer contracted directly 

with Tensor, a Russian firm, to make the security fencing.14

A major hurdle in implementing the project was Congress’ 

insistence that auditors must have access to military storage 

facilities to determine if the materials (fencing, sensors 

and microwave cables) were being used as intended. 

In September, the Russian Ministry of Defense agreed 

to discuss with the United States how to document the 

system’s installation at some of the sensitive sites. Everyone 

knew reaching an agreement would be difficult because 

the Russian General Staff had no intention of allowing 

Major General Ronald Lajoie and Colonel General Yevgeny 

Maslin

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
268

With Courage and Persistence

any American auditors or inspectors access to its sensitive 

nuclear weapons storage sites. To resolve this dilemma, 

Russian and American officials worked out a compromise 

agreement that would satisfy both sides. Russian military 

commanders at the site would place a camera in a locked 

box at a location some distance away from the storage site, 

and both sides would have seals and joint custody. 

During an American audit, the team chief would unlock 

the box and give the camera to a Russian officer who would 

go to the nuclear weapons storage facility, take photos of 

the newly installed fencing and sensors, and date and time 

stamp the photos. Upon his return, the Russian officer 

would give the photos to the American inspector. Because 

of the remoteness of the sites, the short amount of time for 

taking photos, and the locked and sealed box, American 

officials concluded they had sufficient physical evidence 

to satisfy Congressional scrutiny. Senator Lugar and his 

staff agreed; the senator used his influence to persuade key 

legislators to endorse this practical method of documenting 

the work.15

With the issue of documentation resolved, Quick Fix 

moved ahead rapidly in the fall of 1997. In October, the 

Defense Department approved production and shipment 

of the first three sets of Quick Fix equipment from the 

Tensor Manufacturing Association to the military facility 

at Sergei Posad. When these sets were accepted by the 

military command, CTR program managers purchased, 

inspected and transferred the complete Quick Fix system to 

the Ministry of Defense’s 12th Main Directorate. Beginning 

in 1998, Tensor manufactured and delivered the security 

fencing and anti-intrusion devices to the Ministry of Defense 

storage warehouses in Moscow for the 12th Main Directorate 

to install at the first of 50 nuclear storage sites.16

That year, reorganization of the Russian military forces’ 

nuclear missions sought to standardize safety and security 

procedures and practices at all Ministry of Defense nuclear 

weapons storage facilities and sites. In the process, 42 

Russian Navy bases, six Air Force sites and 25 Strategic Rocket 

Forces bases transferred responsibility for nuclear warhead 

security to the 12th Main Directorate. Since the 12th Main 

Directorate was already straining to finance the upgrades at 

50 sites, it would be unable to do so for an additional 73. 

As a result, Colonel General Igor Valynkin, the directorate’s 

new commander, requested that the U.S. CTR program fund 

the purchase of Quick Fix fencing and sensors for all 123 

warhead storage sites. American officials readily agreed to 

expand the program to all sites, planning to increase its 

contracts with Russian firms, and revising its annual CTR 

budget request to Congress. Regardless of the bleak Russian 

New CTR security fencing

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Colonel General Igor Valynkin

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
269

financial situation, the working assumption remained: the 

Russian Ministry of Defense would pay for and install the 

fencing and equipment. As a consequence, while the CTR 

order book filled up, actual security upgrade installations at 

nuclear storage sites proceeded at a snail’s pace. Although 

American program managers would have preferred a 

quicker pace, both Russian and American defense ministries 

remained determined to proceed with this project and other 

programs that would improve Russian nuclear safety and 

security.

Another major project that evolved under authority of the 

bilateral Nuclear Weapons Storage Security Implementing 

Agreement of 1995 was the Automated Inventory Control 

and Management System (AICMS). It was designed to 

enhance the Ministry of Defense’s capacity to account for 

and track nuclear warheads scheduled for dismantlement.17

The project would automate an existing system that was 

dependent on manual accounts and older computers. When 

completed it would connect the nuclear weapons storage 

sites with central command posts in an integrated network. 

General Maslin agreed to the project in 1995. Following the 

normal process of defining technical requirements, making 

financial estimates, declaring program obligations and 

notifying Congress, Bill Moon broke the project into several 

phases.

Initially, it would provide personal computers, software 

and training in Russian for Ministry of Defense technicians 

and military officers. The new computers would replace 

obsolete ones in use across the system. In the fall of 1996, 

U.S. officials flew to Moscow and demonstrated a prototype 

AICMS system to Ministry of Defense officials, with new 

computers, network servers and software. At that time, 

General Maslin and his staff estimated that the final system 

architecture, which they would develop in coordination with 

U.S. technical experts, would encompass 30 sites, including 

operational nuclear storage sites in the field, regional storage 

sites, a central command center, a national inventory control 

center, and a site for developing and testing the system. U.S. 

officials estimated that the project’s budget would be $22.6 

million.18

In the project’s next phase, the Russian Ministry of 

Defense set up and staffed a small, new developmental office 

to evaluate the new AICMS system. In 1998, the U.S. acquired 

and delivered to Moscow an additional 100 computers 

and peripherals to assist the Russian staff in testing and 

accepting the equipment.19 This staff would also develop 

the system’s architecture and initial database configuration. 

Joint program documents required that the Russian Ministry 

of Defense inspect and certify the system prior to proceeding 

with the final, operational phase. RNT, a Moscow hightech firm, received a contract in 1999 to assist Ministry of 

Defense officials in the certification process and develop a 

security profile for the entire system.20 Still, the operational 

phase was delayed several times. Then in June 2001, General 

Valynkin and ministry officials decided to make major 

changes in the system’s requirements, eliminating the need 

for an integrated weapons inventory control system and 

accounting for all nuclear weapons in the national stockpile. 

The new operational configuration would provide computer 

hardware and software for an integrated system at 18 nuclear 

storage sites: two central command posts, two central storage 

facilities, four regional facilities, and 10 storage sites in the 

operational forces. To simplify the architecture, Russian 

officials agreed to use a common design at the central 

command post level, and a common design for the AICMS 

sites that were below the command echelon level.21

Anticipating the start of the operational phase, the 

CTR program awarded an integrating contract to Black 

and Veatch in 2000 and a separate contract to Cherokee 

Information Systems for technical support services. At 

that time, CTR officials estimated it would take five years 

William M. Moon

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
270

With Courage and Persistence

and approximately $60 million to acquire and deliver 

all computer hardware and software, track inspections, 

certifications, and security accreditations, develop a 

common facility and site designs, manage installation of 

computers and network communications, and schedule 

and conduct training and logistics. If all went as scheduled 

the AICMS would be installed and operational at 18 

Russian nuclear storage sites by 2005.22

General Maslin’s new Security 

Assessment and Training Center

In the Soviet era, nuclear security was constructed around 

a “3G” concept: guards, guns and gates. That system worked 

during the Cold War because military guards were trained, 

compensated and rigorously inspected. It also helped that 

the nuclear storage sites, indeed the entire USSR, were 

isolated from the rest of the world.23 That changed during 

the 1990s, and General Maslin recognized that modern 

technology could be added to the nation’s existing nuclear 

security system. During a joint Nuclear Weapons Security 

Group meeting in Moscow, Maslin proposed to use CTR 

funds to establish a new Russian Ministry of Defense 

Security Assessment and Training Center (SATC) at Sergei 

Posad, a military site located northeast of Moscow.24

The new center’s mission was to become the Ministry of 

Defense’s test and evaluation center for the nation’s future 

nuclear security requirements. The center would have several 

missions, including testing and demonstrating new U.S. 

and international security equipment for the national and 

regional nuclear weapons storage facilities and establishing 

a modern center for training the ministry’s security guard 

forces on the equipment and systems. An unwritten, but 

discussed assumption was General Maslin’s concept that 

a “curtain” would separate the new center’s missions and 

facilities, where access would be relatively transparent and 

Security and Assessment and Training Center, Sergei Posad

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
271

open, from the Ministry of Defense’s actual nuclear weapons 

storage sites, where access would remain tightly controlled 

and closed. From the beginning, General Maslin and the 

senior staff at the 12th Main Directorate drove this project.25

Upon review, General Lajoie, Harold Smith, Ted Warner, 

Laura Holgate and other Defense Department officials agreed 

with the center’s concept and missions, and proceeded 

to award a small contract to a Russian firm, Eleron, for a 

feasibility study. Eleron produced a design concept for the 

new security center, which was reviewed by the joint Nuclear 

Weapons Security Group in December 1997. To manage 

design and construction of the rapidly developing project at 

Sergei Posad, CTR officials selected Bechtel as the American 

integrating contractor. In Moscow, General Maslin assigned 

oversight and management of the project to Major General 

Yakolev and Colonel Frolov. At this point, American CTR 

program managers and their Russian partners assumed 

the new center would become the focal point for defining 

and requesting new equipment that would be purchased, 

delivered and installed with CTR funds. Once tested and 

proved, equipment would be ordered and manufactured in 

large quantities for installation at nuclear weapons storage 

sites across Russia. Both sides managed this program through 

joint planning documents, coordinated schedules and 

frequent meetings with the integrating contractor at the site. 

Colonel Frolov recalled that he spoke with Bill Moon and 

Lieutenant Colonel Ben Conner, the Security Assessment and 

Training Center project manager, by telephone practically 

every week.26

On Friday February 13, 1998, just eight weeks since the 

center’s design concept was approved, Secretary of Defense 

Cohen and Minster of Defense Marshal Sergeyev participated 

in a ceremony establishing the Security Assessment and 

Training Center.27 Following a tour of the partially built 

facilities, which were being renovated or under construction, 

Sergeyev and Cohen spoke to the press and assembled 

visitors.28 Both leaders commented on the new center’s 

important work in developing and sustaining the highest 

standards of safety and security for the nation’s nuclear 

arsenals. Secretary Cohen declared this work a “solemn 

responsibility of all nuclear powers.”29 At the same time, there 

were two additional projects underway for the new Security 

Assessment and Training Center. U.S. military officers had 

demonstrated to Russian security officers a program widely 

used by American strategic nuclear forces. For more than 20 

years U.S. military commanders had used a special Personal 

Reliability Program (PRP) to register, train, evaluate and 

track all military personnel handling or working with nuclear 

weapons with drug and alcohol testing devices, polygraph 

equipment, and a site drug analysis and testing laboratory. 

Among Russia’s military forces, the Strategic Rocket Forces 

had developed and instituted a similar personnel program, 

but General Maslin decided certain aspects of the American 

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Russian Minister of 

Defense Marshal Igor Sergeyev at SATC dedication ceremony, 

February 1998

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Security camera provided by CTR

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
272

With Courage and Persistence

program could be useful within the 12th Main Directorate and 

its 30,000 personnel, and requested equipment associated 

with each component. Lieutenant Colonel Conner acquired 

the equipment and had it delivered to Sergei Posad, where 

they began teaching a 10-week training course for Russian 

nuclear security experts at the Security Assessment Training 

Center.30

Another project was a computer simulation program, 

called Analytic System and Software for Evaluating Safeguards 

and Security (ASSESS), that could model and evaluate the 

physical protection system at a nuclear weapons storage site 

against a series of internal and external threats. This system 

was also able to evaluate the material, protection, control 

and accounting systems being used to track nuclear warheads 

and materials. Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy 

for use at American storage sites, ASSESS was a preventive 

system for thwarting possible theft or sabotage. Although this 

system was included in the Security Assessment and Training 

Center project, it would take many years and considerable 

negotiations and testing before the Russian Ministry of 

Defense agreed to its use.31

On November 1, 1999, General Colonel Valynkin and 

Brigadier General Kuenning, General Lajoie’s as successor as 

director of the CTR Program at the Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, officially opened the Security Assessment and 

Training Center at Sergei Posad.32 The opening ceremony 

was attended by Russian Ministry of Defense officials, 

local government representatives, and approximately 50 

members of the Russian and international media.33 When 

General Kuenning spoke to the Russian military, public 

and international press, he explained that the new center’s 

purpose was to serve as a central site in Russia for testing new 

security technologies and procedures, and he declared that 

the CTR program anticipated funding comprehensive sets 

of new security equipment for installation and operation at 

Russia’s nuclear weapons storage sites. For his part, General 

Ribbon cutting by General Colonel Valynkin (l.) and Brigadier General Kuenning (r.) at the Security and Assessment and Training

Center at Sergei Posad
273

Valynkin welcomed American assistance while maintaining 

that Russia’s weapons were and would remain secure. He 

declared that Russian guard forces would be trained at the 

new facility to operate and maintain the new equipment 

in the field. Anticipating the media’s question of why the 

United States was funding the project, Kuenning, explained: 

“It’s inherently in the interest of the United States to ensure 

that nuclear weapons remaining in Russia are secure and do 

not proliferate.”34 As the day was ending, Bill Moon added 

a different perspective, “The big accomplishment of this 

(ceremony) is the openness of the Russians. They allowed 

international news media access to the site and even invited 

their own Russian press.”35

From this point, Russian and American project managers 

turned to negotiating the technical requirements that would 

define a comprehensive suite of new security and safety 

equipment. Colonels Frolov and Lieutenant Colonel Conner 

led a joint task force of Ministry of Defense officials, 12th Main 

Directorate officers, American contractors and U.S. nuclear 

security experts.36 Meeting frequently for more than year and 

a half at the new Security Assessment and Training Center, 

the task force developed a series of program objectives for 

each nation’s directorates. The comprehensive requirements 

package, known as the Physical Protection System included:37

n Physical Protection System command and 

control system

n Closed – circuit television system (CCTV)

n Intrusion detection equipment (interior and 

exterior)

n Rapid deployable sensor systems

n Access control systems

n Vehicle barrier and personnel access delay 

systems

n Hazardous and prohibited materials detection 

systems (metal, explosive, nuclear)

n Fire and safety systems

n Guard Force equipment

n Comprehensive training packages

n Logistics for all systems

Once the list was complete, the task force recommended 

a new U.S.-Russian CTR implementing agreement be 

developed and signed by the respective defense ministries. 

In June 2000, General Valynkin and Jim Reid signed the 

new agreement.38 At that time, U.S. CTR program managers 

projected the five-year cost would be $27.2 million for 

acquiring prototype physical protection systems, delivering 

them to the center, establishing testing protocols, conducting 

actual tests, integrating the results into standard suites, 

training, and providing logistics and maintenance support. 

Work began immediately, with Bechtel program managers 

installing new equipment at the SATC facility and instituting 

training courses for the first echelon of Russian military 

security officers. The Russian staff developed the center’s 

testing protocols and procedures, and began multiplelevel tests to integrate the computer system’s software and 

hardware. After the implementing agreement was extended 

in January 2000, the Russian-American task force developed 

a coordinated schedule for the entire program, which 

projected equipment testing, final check out and acceptance, 

integration and training would occur from 2001 to 2005.39

While this program schedule was slower than some 

CTR managers desired, one project developed along a faster 

path. At one of the bilateral nuclear weapons security group 

sessions in Moscow, Bill Moon recommended that General 

Frolov and the 12th Main Directorate consider a project that 

would provide the troops guarding nuclear weapons sites 

with new small arms training systems, and live-fire shooting 

ranges, specialized equipment and logistics support.40 After 

study, General Valynkin requested the CTR program fund 

the small arms training systems that could be placed at sixty 

nuclear weapons sites across Russia. Accepted, reviewed and 

funded quickly in 2001, the CTR managers of the Guard Force 

Equipment and Training project acquired and delivered 60 

sets of small arms training systems with modified weapons. 

The following year, the training required to operate and 

maintain the live-firing ranges was carried out at the Security 

Assessment and Training Center.41

A review of the assumptions governing these bilateral 

nuclear security assistance programs revealed that Russian 

leaders operated under the “curtain” concept. Discussions, 

negotiations, acquisition and delivery of new CTR 

equipment and training would be done in Moscow or Sergei 

Posad; but no American would be given access to Russian 

national nuclear weapons storage facilities, or to military 

nuclear storage areas or weapons transfer depots. Under 

Russian law and military regulations, locations of the storage 

facilities remained a state secret and General Valynkin 

denied foreigners any access to these secret locations.42
274

With Courage and Persistence

Bill Moon acknowledged these assumptions, but insisted 

that at some point U.S. auditors would need access to 

the sites and facilities to certify that equipment was being 

used as intended.43 Congress demanded that the Defense 

Department negotiate and conduct audits and examinations. 

As a result, a protracted stalemate developed.

By 2001, Moon concluded that the CTR program had 

run out of nuclear security projects he could justify funding, 

without access to the sites. At the same time, General 

Valynkin’s senior staff was requesting CTR funding for major 

new projects that would provide American technologies, 

equipment and services to enhance safety and security 

at Ministry of Defense nuclear storage facilities holding 

thousands of nuclear warheads and materials. The Americans 

believed that if the Russian government wanted this assistance, 

then the Russian ministry and security directorates had to 

make concessions. The impasse continued, unresolved. A 

solution finally presented itself, one that involved adapting 

methods used to verify projects developed and carried out by 

the Russian Navy and U.S. Department of Energy.

Securing the Russian Navy’s HEU nuclear 

fuels and warheads

For six years, from 1995 to 2001, a parallel program 

between the Russian Navy, the Kurchatov Institute, U.S. 

National Laboratories and Department of Energy had 

resolved many of the same access and auditing issues. In 

March 1995, Admiral Gromov, Commander in Chief of the 

Russian Navy requested that Kurchatov Institute develop a 

program for instituting a material protection, control and 

accountability (MPC&A) program for the Northern Fleet’s 

approximately 73 tons of highly enriched uranium nuclear 

fuel, 4,000 nuclear warheads, and substantial quantities 

of spent naval fuel. With security at its nuclear storage 

sites deteriorating, some theft of nuclear fuel had already 

occurred and seemed likely to happen again. Less than a 

year after Admiral Gromov’s request, Kurchatov Institute 

and the Russian Navy partnered with Department of Energy 

and the U.S. National Laboratories to develop a protocol for 

material protection, control and accountability assistance at 

Site 49, the fleet’s fresh HEU storage site near Murmansk. 

The Russians insisted the U.S. provide a small four-person 

technical team who would work at this and all other sites. 

The initial work of rapidly upgrading security at Site 49 was 

so successful, it became a model for cooperation between 

the Department of Energy and the Kurchatov Institute as the 

general contractor.44

In 1997 Admiral Vladimir Kuroydev, new Commander in 

Chief of the Russian Navy signed a comprehensive agreement 

for additional HEU storage site security improvements with 

Francisco Pena, Secretary of Energy. In the following years, 

the Department of Energy worked closely with the Russian 

Ministry of Atomic Energy to establish materiel protection, 

control and accountability projects at 53 sites across Russia 

where highly enriched uranium or plutonium had been 

produced or stored. By December 1998, working cooperatively, 

teams at Ministry of Atomic Energy and Department of Energy 

had protective upgrade systems in place at more than half of 

the 53 HEU and plutonium sites.45 While the Russian Navy 

deemed the Northern Fleet’s HEU storage facilities most at 

risk, it signed another bilateral agreement in 1999 requesting 

Department of Energy implement a series of security upgrades 

at the Pacific Fleet’s nuclear storage facilities. By 1999, these 

efforts were so successful that the Russian Navy and the 

Energy Department agreed to plan and carry out a series of 

rapid and comprehensive security upgrade projects at all of 

the fleet’s nuclear warhead storage facilities.46

The Russian Navy controlled each project tightly. Admiral 

Nikolay Yurasov, Chief of the Inspectorate for Nuclear 

and Radiation Safety and Security led the effort to identify 

Northern and Pacific Fleet facilities and sites with inadequate 

security, and fix them rapidly. Each project was carried out 

under a confidentiality agreement that stipulated nothing 

could be released or published without the consent of all 

parties. The small American technical team that had worked 

in Murmansk remained intact and contracted with the 

Kurchatov Institute and Russian subcontractors for the security 

upgrades. Together they provided comprehensive security 

improvements inside and outside the warhead bunkers: 

installation of new security cameras, electronic access control 

systems, and microwave and anti-intrusion devices within 

approximately six months. The work was documented and 

results demonstrated prior to payment. Admiral Yurasov and 

his staff inspected every upgraded facility and the Russian 

Navy certified, in writing, each project’s completion before 

U.S. representatives inspected the finished work.47

By 2002, as a result of cooperation at multiple levels 

and across military commands and scientific institutes, 

security upgrades had been completed at nuclear storage 
275

sites holding 99 percent of the Russian Navy’s estimated 

4,000 nuclear warheads. More comprehensive upgrades were 

completed at an estimated 40 percent of the 42 sites, with 

the remaining naval nuclear weapons storage sites being 

completed in 2003. Security at all of the Russian Navy’s 

facilities holding the estimated 73 tons of HEU fuel had been 

upgraded and improved.48 These concrete results stood in 

stark contrast to the slow progress installing the “Quick Fix” 

rapid upgrades at the 12th Main Directorate’s national-level 

nuclear storage sites. Russian and American security analysts 

began asking why the two defense ministries could not work 

together and rethink their intractable positions on auditing 

and access. That question was at the forefront of negotiations 

over funding and implementing new large-scale Ministry of 

Defense site security enhancements.

Enhancing security at the Ministry of 

Defense’s Nuclear Weapons Storage 

Sites after 1999

In developing this project, Russian and American officials 

worked under the assumption that a comprehensive set of 

site security upgrades for all, or most, of the Ministry of 

Defense’s national and military nuclear weapons storage 

facilities would follow from the testing and evaluations 

being done at the Security Assessment and Testing Center at 

Sergei Posad. Out of that process, which defined the joint 

requirements and tested the items, grew a comprehensive 

set of new security equipment, communications systems, 

training packages and services. Called the Physical Protection 

System, American CTR managers estimated in early 2000 

that the cost of acquiring and delivering the equipment and 

systems to the Russian sites would be $572.4 million.49 While 

this figure was only an estimate, it was sufficiently large to 

force new negotiations over the issue of access with the 12th

Main Directorate and Ministry of Defense. Initially, these 

negotiations had limited success. As a good faith effort, the 

Ministry of Defense granted access to American contractors 

at a single nuclear storage site located at the Aleysk military 

base where an SRF SS-18 missile division had been 

decommissioned. There, Bechtel International had managed 

the work of Russian subcontracting firms who installed the 

first set of comprehensive security upgrades in the spring of 

2001.50 In the meantime, Russian technicians at the Security 

Assessment and Training Center completed all of the tests of 

CTR-provided comprehensive security equipment. Both sides 

agreed the next step would be vulnerability assessments at 

each of the nuclear weapons security sites. Those assessments 

would be followed by acquisition, delivery and installation 

of security upgrades at each Ministry of Defense site, but only 

if the access and auditing problems could be resolved. When 

that did not happen, the bureaucratic impasse continued 

until a single shocking historic event altered everything.

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked 

by Al Qaeda terrorists. They seized commercial jet airliners 

and flew them into the World Trade Center and the 

Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.51 The attacks were 

so well planned and organized that both Russian and 

the U.S leaders recognized quickly the consequences of 

maintaining poorly secured stockpiles of nuclear, chemical 

or even biological weapons. Within weeks, the 12th Main 

Directorate’s senior generals and Department of Defense 

CTR officials had reached an agreement on what kind 

of access would be granted and what kind of procedures 

would be followed to allow program managers to proceed 

in allocating funds in early 2002 for completing installation 

of the Quick Fix upgrades and for initiating comprehensive 

site security enhancements.52

In Moscow, the Russian Minister of Defense submitted 

a formal request to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which 

directed the 12th Main Directorate to grant access to American 

officials and contractors working at selected nuclear storage 

sites. Subsequently, General Anatoly Kvashnin, Chief of the 

General Staff wrote the Secretary of Defense, identifying eight 

sites where the work could begin.53 In Washington, Moon 

and Conner moved ahead quickly, planning a project to 

Security fencing and cameras provided under the Physical

Protection System, Russia

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
276

With Courage and Persistence

install upgrades and new security equipment at those eight 

sites. They were poised to fly to Moscow in May 2002 when 

President Bush refused to certify to Congress that the Russian 

government was in compliance with the provisions of NunnLugar authorization.54 This sudden decision in effect shut 

down all new contracts with Russian firms working on the 

site security enhancements. Although the president signed 

a temporary waiver six months later, this work stoppage 

delayed the effort significantly. From then on, delays became 

the norm rather than the exception in the site security 

enhancement program. 

Nuclear Weapons Transportation Security 

Enhancements after 1999

Throughout the 1990s, the Russian defense ministry and 

General Staff were concerned about the large numbers of 

nuclear weapons that had to be transported over the Russian 

railway system from operational sites to the national and 

regional storage sites. In 1995, General Maslin stated that 

the 12th Main Directorate would be responsible for planning 

and managing the transport of 2,000 warheads every year. 

When Minister of Defense Marshal Sergeyev decided in 1998 

to reduce the size of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Russian 

naval fleets, and the number of tactical nuclear weapons 

substantially, even more nuclear warheads and materials 

had to be transported to the Ministry of Defense’s national 

nuclear storage sites and to the Ministry of Atomic Energy’s 

dismantlement and permanent storage facilities. In response, 

Russian Ministry of Defense officials requested that American 

CTR managers consider a new project that would help 

the 12th Main Directorate keep its more than 200 nuclear 

weapons railcars and trains operational.55 The Russians 

justified their request based on security and safety concerns 

stemming from a major operational increase in transporting 

nuclear weapons. In turn, the Americans agreed to fund the 

request based on congressional and administration nonproliferation objectives for enhancing the security, safety 

and control of Russia’s nuclear weapons. In November 1999, 

officials from the Department of Defense and the Ministry 

of Defense signed an amendment to the Nuclear Weapons 

Transportation Security Agreement, directing that the project 

be developed in three phases.

In the first phase, the 12th Main Directorate’s specialized 

nuclear weapons railcars were sent to the Tver Rail Car 

Factory, north of Moscow, for basic depot-level maintenance 

and certification. This same Russian factory had installed 

the security enhancement kits in 100 rail cars and 15 guard 

railcars in 1995 and 1996.56 For this new project, Tver 

engineers and technicians would be working as Russian 

subcontractors, with Sandia National Laboratory, as the 

American integrating contractor, to reequip up to 200 of 

the specialized rail cars. The performance objective was 

to obtain the Russian railway ministry’s two-year depot 

maintenance certificate and its 10-year capital maintenance 

certification. Railcars began arriving at the plant in January 

2000, and the work proceeded on schedule. Periodically, the 

U.S. Defense Department would request reviews of service 

maintenance documentation, and its auditors would carry 

out physical inventories of the newly certified rail cars. If 

discrepancies were discovered, Tver plant managers and 

CTR program managers would meet, review the process 

and make changes.57

In phase two, the Russian Defense Ministry requested a 

program to fund factory-level maintenance and repairs that 

would extend the service life of up to 115 heated nuclear 

weapon cargo and guard force rail cars. During Russia’s long 

arctic winter, special military trains were required to transport 

nuclear warheads in heated rail cars from the Ministry of 

Defense’s national storage sites to Ministry of Atomic Energy’s 

dismantlement and permanent fissile materials storage 

facilities. Consequently, U.S. CTR managers committed to 

funding the Tver Plant to manufacture and equip up to 115 

new heated railcars, if the Russian government requested 

them, and if they agreed to eliminate up to 215 of the older 

specialized rail cars.58

As the initial phase of the railcar maintenance and 

certification program unfolded, the Russian Defense Ministry 

requested direct financial assistance to pay for the special 

military trains moving nuclear warheads across the nation. 

Within the Russian government, defense funding, even for 

critical national missions like transporting nuclear weapons, 

had dried up. The situation grew critical in August 1998 when 

the Russian ruble collapsed.59 The Clinton administration 

reacted to Russia’s financial crisis by reemphasizing the 

importance of cooperative security and nonproliferation 

efforts, especially the Cooperative Threat Reduction 

program. In January 1999 President Clinton proposed in his 

State of the Union address that Congress expand CTR and 

other Nunn-Lugar cooperative programs with the Russian 
277

government.60 The president singled out those programs 

that would ensure the safety of nuclear materials and 

would assist in dismantling warheads. In Moscow, Duma 

Chairman Gennadiy Seleznev, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, 

and First Deputy Prime Minister Yurily Maslyukov all stated 

publically the Russian government’s willingness to accept 

U.S. assistance in securing the nuclear weapons.61 Out of this 

Russian-American consensus, a project emerged that would 

have been neither proposed, nor accepted, a few years earlier.

Throughout 1999 the two sides met and discussed 

ways to contract with the Russian Ministry of Railways 

and provide American CTR officials with a mechanism 

for independent oversight and assurances that the money 

was indeed used to pay for special military weapons trains 

moving nuclear weapons from Russian national and regional 

nuclear storage facilities to the Ministry of Atomic Energy’s 

permanent dismantlement plants and storage facilities. 

Finally, the negotiators agreed to include a provision within 

the contract authorizing “facilitating agents” who would 

provide independent oversight of military train movements 

and who would certify that the conditions of the contract 

had been met, prior to payment in dollars.62 In November 

1999, the two defense ministries signed the Nuclear Weapons 

Transportation Security Implementing Agreement. Since the 

movement of military trains was extremely sensitive, special 

arrangements had to be developed between the 12th Main 

Directorate and the U.S. firm, GeoLogistics Incorporated. 

At no point would the American firm inspect the cargo of 

sealed and guarded rail cars. Instead, they would monitor 

movements of the special trains, and then recommend 

payments to the railway ministry based on published tariffs 

for the kilometers traveled.63 During 2000, the first year, the 

CTR program funded the movement of approximately 10 

trains transporting 800 warheads from the national nuclear 

storage facilities to the permanent dismantlement and storage 

sites. The payment was $5 million.64

In following years, this project grew in scope and cost. 

In 2002, the 12th Main Directorate stated it planned to 

Refurbished railcars

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
278

With Courage and Persistence

ship 66 military special trains each year for the next five 

years. CTR program managers projected the total cost for 

funding these Russian trains and the American contractor 

for five years at $120.9 million.65 Two years later, General 

Valynkin’s directorate announced it had increased its annual 

projection to 72 trains per year. This expanded operational 

tempo caused Hunter Lutinski, a CTR program manager, 

to increase the cost projection for the next five years to 

$226.2 million.66 Part of this substantial increase was to 

absorb tariff increases instituted by the Russian Minister of 

Railways. Raytheon Technical Services Corporation won a 

competitive contract to be the “facilitating agent,” providing 

oversight and assurances. Commander Scott Crow, another 

project manager, estimated the CTR program would fund 

the movement of Russian nuclear weapons trains through 

2011.67 Many of these special military trains moved nuclear 

warheads and materials to a new Russian Minister of Atomic 

Energy’s storage facility at Mayak. There the United States 

CTR program had funded and managed the construction of 

a new large, fissile materials storage facility. In early 2000, the 

two efforts intersected: movement of nuclear weapons across 

Russia by rail, and construction of the massive new fissile 

material storage facility.

Negotiating, designing, and constructing 

the new Fissile Material Storage Facility 

at Mayak

At the very beginning of U.S.-Russian discussions on 

cooperative projects, Victor Mikhailov, Russian Minister 

of Atomic Energy, recommended that Nunn-Lugar funds 

be used to design a modern fissile material storage facility, 

because Russia’s existing nuclear storage facilities did not 

meet contemporary international standards for safety, 

security or the environment.68 At that time, Minister 

Mikhailov warned that without a new secure, modern storage 

facility the entire process of dismantling nuclear weapons 

would come to a halt, since there was no storage facility for 

the plutonium and highly enriched uranium components in 

Russia. American officials agreed and included Mikhailov’s 

recommendation for a new nuclear storage facility in the 

first American-Russian CTR framework agreement in June 

1992, signed by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin.69 Three months 

later, Minister Mikhailov and Donald Atwood, from DOD, 

signed the first U.S.-Russian implementing agreement for 

design of the fissile material storage facility (FMSF).70 When 

finally completed in December 2003, the Mayak project had 

become one of the largest and most complicated of all CTR 

construction projects with the Russian government. From 

concept to completion, the project took 11 years and cost 

nearly $400 million.

Like many of these massive cooperative projects, the 

fissile material storage facility began with one set of shared 

assumptions that changed dramatically as economic and 

political conditions deteriorated in Russia; and then changed 

again, as the project reached its completion. Along the way, 

there were design and construction delays, congressional 

investigations, major policy shifts, managerial changes, 

project redefinitions and reoccurring issues concerning 

schedule, performance, taxes, customs and site access. On 

many occasions, the project tested the limits of RussianAmerican managers’ patience and tolerance for meshing 

completely different systems for designing, constructing, 

equipping, securing and operating the modern, complex 

nuclear weapons storage facility.

As originally conceived, the fissile materials storage 

facility was not even to be located at Mayak. Instead, Minister 

Mikhailov selected the Tomsk-7 nuclear complex, for which 

the Russian facility design team developed a concept for 

a massive, modern facility for storing up to 110,000 fissile 

material containers.71 In October 1992, the U.S. CTR program 

obligated $15 million for work on the initial design concept.72

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ International Division 

became the contracting office, with work accomplished 

under a contract with the All-Russian Research and Design 

Institute of Energy Technologies in St. Petersburg. Another 

CTR contract with Sandia National Laboratories and the 

St. Petersburg design institute developed a concept for a 

specialized storage container for fissile materials that met 

United Nations sanctioned international standards for safety, 

security and permanence. In this early Nunn-Lugar project 

the United States agreed to provide Russia with up to 10,000 

new fissile missile containers.73 When the final plans were 

completed, the St. Petersburg design team envisioned that 

the new Tomsk fissile materials storage facility would be a 

very large hardened, underground facility that used a Russian 

horizontal storage concept, with the fissile containers sitting 

on hundreds of storage racks. U.S. construction engineers 

worked closely with Russian designers, contributing 

computer-assisted structural evaluations and engineering 
279

analyses of the new facility’s safety systems. In September 

1993 the U.S. amended the basic implementing agreement, 

stating it would obligate up to $75 million to acquire and 

deliver American construction and storage facility equipment 

to assist the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy in constructing 

and equipping the new Tomsk facility. From the beginning, 

Mikhailov asserted that the Russian government would pay 

for the cost of constructing the new storage facility and in 

late 1993, he sought the Russian government’s approval for 

final site selection, facility design, construction schedule and 

budget commitments.74

At that point, the minister’s plans unraveled. A major 

explosion at the Tomsk-7 complex’s radiochemical plant 

reinforced local opposition to constructing the massive 

new fissile material storage facility. As the protests grew in 

intensity, Mikhailov cancelled the Tomsk site and directed 

that the storage facility would be built at the Mayak Chemical 

Combinet, located in the Chelyabinsk oblast.75 At Mayak there 

were five large plants; all were involved in manufacturing 

and production of nuclear weapons, and the nuclear reactor 

industries. Combined, the five plants and complex employed 

approximately 20,000 people.76 The Mayak Production 

Association was a critical complex, one that supported 

Russia’s nuclear power cycles, military nuclear fuels, and fuels 

and nuclear materials used in research reactors. Mayak was 

already a major fissile material storage site, with an estimated 

thirty tons of reactor-grade plutonium stored at its plants.77

The new American-Russian funded fissile materials storage 

facility would encompass 42 acres and be situated on the 

edge of the Mayak combine.

No sooner had Minister Mikhailov made this crucial 

decision, than he directed to change the design schematic 

from a horizontal to a vertical storage concept. This decision 

altered virtually every aspect of the facility’s plans, forcing a 

Site plan for Fissile Material Storage Facility, Mayak

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
280

With Courage and Persistence

major redesign. Construction did start, however, schedules 

soon lapsed due to inadequate funding.78 Then in 1995, 

Mikhailov appealed directly to Secretary of Defense Perry 

to have the CTR program finance up to 50 percent of 

construction costs. Perry agreed and signed amendments to 

the basic implementing agreement.79 He authorized Roland 

Lajoie at the CTR program office to move forward with its 

plans to identify an integrating contractor to manage the 

large-scale construction project.

When Bechtel National won the competitive contract 

from the U.S. Corps of Engineers in March 1996, it was a 

cost-plus award fee.80 At the time many senior U.S. officials, 

including Lajoie, were skeptical the storage facility would 

ever be completed. In 1996, the Government Accountability 

Office recommended to Congress that it withhold U.S. 

funds for the Mayak project until Department of Defense 

officials could resolve issues of access to the facility and 

assurances from the Ministry of Atomic Energy that it would 

provide data on the type and amount of nuclear materials 

that would be stored there permanently.81 While Congress 

was deliberating, Bechtel moved ahead with establishing 

a small field office at Mayak and awarded subcontracts 

to the Russian firms, Research and Design Institute of 

Energy Technologies, the Scientific Research Institute 

of Experimental Physics, the South Urals Construction 

Company and various other Russian enterprises and 

institutes. Construction moved into the second phase, with 

work starting on the storage facility’s foundation.82

In 1996, Laura Holgate, a senior CTR official, estimated 

that the 50 percent share of the projected two-wing, 

50,000-container facility would cost the U.S. $275 million.83

Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy was expected to take the 

lead on design, construction, licenses and securing local 

approvals. Overcommitted and underfunded, the Russian 

ministry had difficulty meeting these commitments. In 

June 1997, Mikhalov met with the Mayak plant managers. 

Speaking to the press, the minister acknowledged that the 

central government owed the Mayak complex more than 

300 billion rubles for state orders that had been completed 

by the respective plants.84 Workers were owed 1.3 billion 

rubles in back wages. Mikhalov made a public promise to 

pay these wage arrears, but few funds arrived from Moscow. 

In January 1998, Mikhalov admitted to U.S. officials that the 

Russian government could not fund its half of the projected 

costs for the fissile materials storage facility.85 By late July 

the situation in the region had grown so desperate that local 

miners blockaded the Trans-Siberian Railway, preventing 

delivery of coal to the Mayak combine’s power plant.86

Ten days later, a power shortage triggered the shutdown of 

the automatic protection systems at Mayak’s two tritiumproducing facilities. To make matters worse, the Russian 

ruble collapsed a month later, triggering a financial crisis and 

severe retrenchment in all government ministries.

An immediate American response to the crisis was for 

the CTR program to assume the majority of all funding 

required for constructing, equipping and integrating the 

environmental, safety and security systems into the new 

fissile material storage facility. Simultaneously, a joint U.S.-

Russian decision reduced the projected facility to a single 

wing, with capacity for storing approximately 25,000 fissile 

canisters of weapons-grade materials. According to experts, 

this meant Russia would be able to permanently store the 

fissile materials from 6-8,000 nuclear weapons.87 The new 

storage facility had a design capability for storing 50 tons 

of plutonium and 200 tons of highly enriched uranium. In 

late 1998 Defense Department officials reported to Congress 

that the project could be completed by mid-2002 at a revised 

cost of $413 million.88 At the same time the department 

estimated it would ask Congress for up to $650 million 

over five years to assist Russia in preparing, packaging and 

transporting plutonium from national weapons storage 

areas to the new facility.89 As of December 1998, the CTR 

program had purchased 32,293 fissile materials containers 

and had delivered 26,456 containers to Russia for use in the 

new storage facility.90

New manager, new energy

In spring 1999 Thomas R. Rutherford became the 

Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility program manager 

in Washington. After an initial assessment, he concluded 

that the massive construction project was approximately 

30 percent complete, but five to six years behind schedule. 

Trained as a civil engineer, Rutherford held an advanced 

degree in construction management, and had more than 

35 years experience in managing complex construction 

and engineering projects for the Department of Defense. 

“I’d never been to Russia before,” he explained, “so I felt it 

would be a good time, a good opportunity to close out my 

career with a large, complex facility involving all disciplines 
281

of engineering and a new discipline for me, which was 

nuclear materials management.”91 Rutherford’s program 

management objective was to oversee the design, planning 

and construction of the new complex at Mayak that would 

provide centralized, safe, secure and ecologically sound 

storage of fissile materials derived from the dismantlement 

of nuclear weapons. The large-scale construction project 

involved integrating multiple systems to provide power, 

heating, cooling, material handling, material control and 

accounting, physical protection, radiation monitoring, fire 

detection and protection, and explosive detection with all 

aspects of the physical construction.

To give but one dimension of the project’s scale and 

complexity, the major storage building’s 23 feet thick 

walls and 26 feet of solid concrete roof were capable of 

withstanding earthquakes, artillery fire, and aerial bombs.92

After only a few months in his new position, Rutherford 

recalled, “It became obvious to me that I needed to be on 

the job site once a month. I needed to walk down into the 

facility, let myself be seen by everybody involved, appraise 

what they were doing and compare performance against 

plan.”93 From then on and for the next four years, Rutherford 

traveled constantly to Russia to visit the site and meet with 

John Linderman, the Corps of Engineers’ resident engineer 

and Alexander Superfin, Bechtel’s project manager. The 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managed the design and 

construction contracts for the new facility. At the site, Russian 

officials restricted the number of Americans working to 10 

people. Bechtel was responsible for day-to-day operations 

and executing the various construction subcontracts. 

As Rutherford drove the construction project forward, 

securing VAT waivers from the Russian government for 

subcontracting firms, acquiring customs waivers for 

American equipment shipped to Russia, increasing site 

access for Bechtel’s managers and construction engineers and 

persuading MinAtom’s bureaucracy in Moscow to assist in 

resolving these issues, he learned that these were persistent 

issues. He worked directly with Ministry of Atomic Energy 

on each of these problems. On the VAT, the South Urals 

Construction Company requested a waiver of 2.3 million 

rubles for contract work already performed. Tax bureau 

officials in Moscow and Chelyabinsk refused to recognize 

the waiver in the CTR Framework Agreement. On the issue 

of Russian customs waivers for American equipment and 

supplies, Russian officials routinely held up equipment 

at Russian ports for six to nine months, insisting that 

contractors pay customs duties. Without this equipment 

the construction schedule could have been delayed. Site 

access at Mayak had always been limited to 10 Americans; a 

number Rutherford maintained was inadequate for the size 

and complexity of the project. Since MinAtom’s leadership 

made little effort to resolve these issues, Rutherford turned 

to using the contracting process and instituted an “incentive” 

program with the main construction firm, South Urals 

Construction Company.

By 2000, that company’s senior managers, A.G. Beloshitsky 

and Vladmir Derevyanko, had transformed the enterprise into 

a private business enterprise. They and their staff learned and 

understood construction project skills: estimating, planning, 

programming, risks and profits. “They understood making 

money,” Rutherford explained, “if you can set up an incentive 

plan – take your schedule, identify the milestones that are 

critical, and then if you can pay them an additional amount, 

an incentive, to achieve that objective, on time and within 

scope, they will bust their butt to do that.”94

Besides causing difficulties and delays for construction of 

the Mayak facility, Russian officials’ determination to guard 

the secrets of its nuclear weapons programs nearly turned off 

the project’s funding stream in the United States. In 1997, 

Congress barred the Department of Defense from obligating 

FY1998 funds for the Mayak facility until the department 

and the Russian ministry negotiated an agreement on the 

facility’s use. Congress wanted written assurances from the 

Russian government and the Ministry of Atomic Energy that 

plutonium being placed in permanent storage in the new 

Mayak facility would in fact be fissile materials derived from 

Fissile Material Storage Facility, Mayak

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
282

With Courage and Persistence

nuclear weapons. The rational was that if the plutonium 

in the new facility had originated from the military force’s 

nuclear weapons systems, then this fact would provide 

evidence that the Russian government was dismantling its 

weapons. U.S. CTR policy officials had always insisted that 

the Mayak storage facility would be used for the permanent 

storage of weapons-grade plutonium, defined as plutonium 

with a high concentration of Pu-239 isotopes, and weaponsgrade uranium, defined as enriched to at least 90 percent 

U-235.95 When the U.S. proposed that measurements be 

taken as the fissile material canisters were being loaded 

into the storage facility, Russian negotiators rejected these 

demands, citing sensitive national security laws.96

In 1999 the Department of Defense requested from 

Congress an additional $172 million in CTR funds to 

initiate construction on the storage facility’s second wing.97

Congress balked at funding the new wing without the 

Russian government negotiating and signing a transparency 

agreement, permitting U.S. monitors to examine and certify 

permanent storage of the nuclear materials. In addition, 

Congress required that the Defense Department negotiate 

with the Ministry of Atomic Energy for a statement certifying 

that the second storage wing was required, and to provide 

detailed cost estimates.98 Negotiations proved futile as 

Russian ministry officials neither certified requirements for 

the projected new wing, nor provided any cost estimates. 

When U.S. negotiators asked the Russia ministry to declare 

that it would not remove any of the fissile materials scheduled 

to be stored permanently in the Mayak facility, the Russians 

refused. When U.S. officials requested the ministry grant 

American monitoring teams access to the Mayak facility six 

times a year and provide them with data from the facility’s 

materials control and handling systems to confirm the status 

of the inventory, Russian negotiators declared that they 

would consider these requests.99 Continued negotiations, 

however, failed to produce a bilateral agreement.

At Mayak, meanwhile, construction work on the new 

storage facility proceeded on schedule, with completion 

projected for December 2003. The specter of finishing all 

construction and systems work on the massive, world-class 

nuclear materials storage facility, without any agreements 

on its use or monitoring caused senior Defense Department 

officials to institute another round of negotiations. In 

early 2002 Lisa Bronson, Under Secretary of Defense for 

Technology Security Policy and Counterproliferation, 

requested a written reply from the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

designating the amount of fissile materials that would be 

stored at the Mayak facility. By May 2002, when Presidents 

George Bush and Vladimir Putin held their first summit 

meeting in St. Petersburg, there was still no reply. Although 

the two presidents signed the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty, 

reducing each nation’s nuclear warheads by two-thirds from 

the START I Treaty, there were no side agreements concerning 

the storage facility at Mayak. A visit to Mayak by Senators 

Lugar and Nunn the same month also failed to produce any 

written commitments.100 Finally, nearly a year later in April 

2003, MinAtom’s chief of international cooperation stated 

in writing that Russia planned to store 25 tons of excess 

plutonium in the Mayak facility. The letter further explained 

they planned to reprocess excess highly enriched uranium 

for resale under the existing U.S.-Russian Federation HEU 

Agreement.101

Senator Richard Lugar at the Fissile Material Storage Facility, 

Mayak

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
283

As far as the Department of Defense was concerned, the 

letter was too little and very late. Furious that the U.S. was 

funding, managing, and equipping for Russia the largest 

and most modern single storage facility in the world for 

weapons-grade plutonium, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary 

of Defense, wrote Alexander Rumyantsev, Minister of 

Atomic Energy, in June 2003 demanding that he sign a new 

implementing agreement, stating Russia’s intended use of 

the Mayak storage facility.102 The Russian minister responded 

promptly, citing the original 1993 framework agreement in 

which the United States Department of Defense agreed to 

cooperate with the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy on 

construction of the facility. Neither the Russian government 

nor the ministry, Rumyantsev declared, had agreed to anything 

further, leaving the decision on how to use the facility to the 

Russian state. He finished his letter by stating that Russia had 

already committed to the permanent storage of twenty-five 

tons of excess plutonium at the Mayak facility. The letter 

made no mention of how the Russian government intended 

to use the new facility’s capacity beyond the 25 percent of 

its capacity taken up by the plutonium, nor did it indicate 

that the Russians would sign any agreement providing the 

United States with any transparency measures for monitoring 

the new storage facility. This frosty exchange influenced 

Tom Rutherford, the CTR program manager, and the Mayak 

subcontractors as they negotiated final arrangements for 

turnover and commissioning the construction project on 

December 17, 2003.103

End Game 

Three weeks before the scheduled commissioning, 

Rutherford and his colleague, Hunter Lutinski, went to 

headquarters of the South Urals Construction Company in 

Ozersk. At that point the construction project at Mayak was 

100 percent completed, yet there were dozens of unfinished 

issues such as resolution of the VAT taxes, requirements for 

spare parts, designation of a new general contractor, fire 

station staffing and related administrative issues. A series of 

state committees had to sign certifying reports, before the 

new facility could be transferred from the U.S. to the Russian 

Federation. Vitality Sadovnikov, the Mayak complex’s general 

manager indicated that storage facility operators would carry 

out safety, security and operational tests before the loading 

process could begin. When Rutherford pressed him on the 

status of the bilateral agreement on loading the Mayak FMSF 

with plutonium and HEU materials, he declined, responding 

that national policy was established by the Ministry of Atomic 

Energy in Moscow.104

After these meetings at the site, Rutherford and Lutinski 

flew to Moscow for a meeting with Ivan Kamenskyhk, 

Ministry of Atomic Energy’s Deputy Minister for the FMSF 

construction program. The Russian minister explained 

their plans for the ribbon cutting ceremony, press releases 

and senior level participation. At that point, the American 

program managers provided a letter from Kenneth B. 

Handelman, Office of Combating Weapons of Mass 

Destruction and Nonproliferation Policy in the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense. It stated the U.S. would not participate 

in any formal ceremony at Mayak. Further, Handelman’s 

letter inquired about the status of the draft transparency and 

audit and examination agreements, which had been sent to 

the Russian ministry in June 2003.105

Handelman’s letter triggered a response. In early December, 

the Ministry of Atomic Energy sent its comments on the 

most recent draft transparency protocol. When Department 

of Defense officials reviewed the Russian response, they 

Kenneth B. Handleman

Department of Defense
284

With Courage and Persistence

judged it as insufficient since major differences remained 

over the number of monitoring visits per year, amount of 

time permitted on-site, and procedures for measuring the 

concentration of fissile materials in permanent storage. 

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz explained 

these differences in a letter to Minister of Atomic Energy 

Rumyantsev, urging him to rapidly conclude negotiations 

and signing of the transparency agreement.106 The two nations 

were far apart on these issues in December 2003, when 

the transfer ceremony took place. At the ceremony, Deputy 

Minister Kamenskyhk, Ministry of Atomic Energy signed 

the official documents accepting the most modern nuclear 

storage facility in the world without a single American official 

present. A week passed before MinAtom’s press center released 

a brief statement on the FMSF commissioning ceremony. It 

praised Mayak officials, ministry supervisors and the financial 

commitment of its American partners.107

The press release begged answers to two fundamental 

questions. Why did the Russian ministry accept the 

new storage facility at all? Part of the answer lies with 

MinAtom. For decades the Ministry of Atomic Energy, 

which included the vast state nuclear industry and research 

and production complexes, was considered one of the 

most sacrosanct “power” ministries within the Soviet and 

Russian governments. Its budget, programs, and projects 

were shrouded in secrecy.108 It always claimed special 

status, due to the Soviet Union’s and Russia’s military status 

as a super power. Its ministers, like Victor Mikhailov, had 

extraordinary power within the government, often dealing 

independently with foreign governments and international 

programs. Throughout the 1990s, Mikhailov negotiated 

directly with Secretaries of Defense William Perry and 

William Cohen, and with Secretaries of Energy Hazel 

O’Leary and William Richardson. In Minister Mikhailov’s 

view, the 1993 HEU Agreement was paramount. It provided 

financial incentives for MinAtom to destroy hundreds of 

tons of weapons-grade HEU materials, it gave employment 

to thousands of Russian nuclear workers and each year it 

returned hundreds of millions of dollars to finance the 

declining Russian nuclear complex.109 By contrast, the 

American-funded and constructed fissile material storage 

facility at Mayak not only came with conditions on its use 

and monitoring; there were new operational costs, and 

suspicions in some quarters that during the construction 

process Russian nuclear security had been compromised. 

Further, after 2002 a deep chill had developed in relations 

between Russia and the United States, a development that 

reinforced the state’s nationalistic tendencies. For these 

reasons, when the Ministry of Atomic Energy officials 

accepted the new, modern storage facility, it made no 

commitments or promises to place fissile materials there. 

The other question was why U.S. officials decided to “walk” 

away from the finished Mayak project, and then continue to 

press for a signed transparency agreement. The United States 

had a variety of reasons. Across Russia, there were a large 

array of U.S. CTR projects that were providing the Russian 

government, its defense ministry, chemical agencies and 

biological institutes with major programs and projects. There 

were continuing projects to provide security enhancements 

at the Ministry of Defense’s nuclear weapons storage sites; 

projects for equipping and funding the transportation 

of nuclear warheads to dismantlement facilities and 

consolidated storage sites; long-running programs providing 

equipment and funding for eliminating ICBM missiles, 

silos, launchers and support facilities; other programs that 

funded dismantling SLBMs and the ballistic missile nuclear 

submarines; and smaller projects that funded dismantling 

and elimination of strategic bombers. In addition, there 

were new CTR programs just getting underway that provided 

equipment for improving biosecurity and biosafety at several 

Russian centers for virology and biotechnology. Another CTR 

program was funding construction of a large-scale chemical 

weapons disposal facility at Shchuch’ye. Consequently, the 

fissile storage materials facility at Mayak was but one of 

many assistance projects across Russia.

Another unrelated, but equally if not more important 

factor in the fall 2003 was the U.S. war in Iraq. Six months 

earlier an American led coalition had defeated Saddam 

Hussein and the Iraqi Army, but now 160,000 American 

military forces remained as part of the occupation force. 

For Russia

	 H 1993 HEU Agreement was paramount

	 H Superseded by Mayak Fissile Materials 

Storage Facility
285

Beginning in October all across Iraq, sectarian violence 

threatened the stability of the provisional government and 

undermined the security of the American occupation. For 

Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and other 

senior leaders, the war in Iraq subsumed all other issues, 

including the turnover of a fissile materials storage facility 

constructed in obscure closed city in the far-away southern 

Urals of Russia. For American policy officials, the decision 

was less one of “walking” away than “moving on” to more 

pressing war issues and events. Even after the decision, 

however, U.S. CTR officials continued to press Russian 

officials for a signed transparency agreement.

The Mayak imbroglio served as the contextual backdrop as 

Russian and American CTR officials worked through hundreds 

of other issues associated with another large-scale cooperative 

construction project in Russia – the Chemical Weapons 

Disposal Facility at Shchuch’ye. This project emerged in the 

mid and late 1990s as the United States’ major contribution 

to Russia’s chemical weapons destruction program.

Russia’s Chemical Weapons Destruction 

Program

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United 

States amassed the world’s largest arsenals of chemical 

weapons. Soviet scientists weaponized blister agents such 

as lewisite, sulphur and mustard gas, and nerve agents such 

as sarin, soman and V-type nerve agents, placing them into 

millions of artillery shells and thousands of short-range 

missiles, and aerial bombs. Extremely lethal, even in the 

smallest quantities, the total stockpile of the Soviet Union’s 

chemical weapons exceeded 44,000 tons. The Russian 

government inherited these weapons and chemical agents 

and the CW plants and chemical institutes that produced 

them. In spring 1992, President Yeltsin declared that chemical 

weapons were dangerous and obsolete and that he intended 

to sign the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention, 

then in the final stages of negotiations. As a result, CW 

destruction quickly emerged as a potential project during 

the initial bilateral American-Russian discussions over the 

scope of Nunn-Lugar assistance. In July 1992, Russian and 

American officials signed an implementing agreement for 

$25 million CW destruction assistance.110

Beyond this agreement, little was accomplished during 

the next few years. Since the Yeltsin government did 

not develop a comprehensive, national CW destruction 

plan, there were no fixed ministerial and organizational 

responsibilities, no legal liability statutes, no annual 

budgets, nor any governmental policies for securing 

approvals from the local governments where the 

dangerous chemical weapons were stored and would be 

destroyed. Instead, bureaucratic infighting and ministerial 

confusion reigned. When Anatoly Kuntsevich, director of 

the Presidential Committee on Chemical Disarmament, 

declared he would lead all bilateral negotiations and 

develop and manage the Russian CW destruction programs, 

his authority was challenged, immediately. Colonel 

General Stanislav Petrov, commander of the Russian 

Army’s Chemical Weapons Command, which maintained 

and controlled the nation’s 4.5 million CW munitions, its 

storage depots and destruction sites asserted the primacy of 

the Ministry of Defense in planning, scheduling, funding 

and approving disposal technologies. Until the Yeltsin 

government resolved these internal disputes, bilateral 

negotiations on U.S. CTR assistance programs remained at 

a standstill.111

While the bickering between committees, command, 

and agencies of his government continued, President Yeltsin 

signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in Paris in 

1993.112 That treaty required all signatory parties to destroy 

their CW stockpiles no later than 2012. As of January 1997, 

106 nations had signed the CWC treaty, 65 had ratified it, 

and four states – Russia, United States, India and South Korea 

– declared existing chemical weapons stockpiles.113 When 

the Russian Duma ratified the treaty in November 1997, 

the government declared it had approximately 44,000 tons 

of chemical weapons. On ratifying the treaty in April 1997, 

the United States declared its CW stockpile at approximately 

30,000 tons. Combined, the two nations held 90 percent of 

the world’s existing chemical weapons.

Since destruction of declared national chemical weapons 

stockpiles was a treaty objective, the CWC protocols were 

explicit in defining categories of dangerous chemical 

weapons, in authorizing specific destruction methodologies, 

and in establishing destruction timelines, national reporting 

requirements and environmental and safety standards. The 

treaty included national obligations to accepting on-site 

inspections by UN chemical weapons inspectors to verify 

destruction methods and quantity of agents and weapons 

actually destroyed. In 1996, Russia declared to the UN’s 
286

With Courage and Persistence

treaty implementation organization, Organization for the 

Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), locations and 

quantities of its chemical weapons stockpiles:

At that time President Yeltsin approved the first 

comprehensive program, “Destruction of Chemical 

Weapons Stockpiles,” and Russian officials estimated the 

total cost would be $5 billion.114 Two years later in 1997, 

the Russian government developed and submitted a 

comprehensive destruction plan to the United Nations 

treaty implementation organization, and in November the 

Duma enacted the national law of ratification. Together, the 

comprehensive national plan and ratification law provided 

the legal basis for all subsequent CW destruction policies and 

programs. Under the national plan, two Russian ministries 

and a presidential committee had primary responsibility 

for planning, conducting and financing destruction of the 

nation’s CW stockpiles. The Ministry of Defense, Ministry 

of Finance, and the President’s Committee on Disarmament 

of Chemical and Biological Weapons all vied for power, 

with the Defense ministry predominant in most of the 

critical decisions. Russia’s first national CW destruction plan 

outlined a sequence for eliminating blister agents stored at 

Gorny and Kambarka first, and then destroying chemical 

weapons munitions at the remaining five locations, starting 

at Kizner and Shchuch’ye.

A series of assumptions were embedded within the 

Russian government’s national CW destruction plan and 

ratification legislation. Overarching every aspect was the 

assumption that the Russian government had accepted 

responsibility for destroying all 44,000 tons of its stockpiled 

chemical weapons. Destruction would be in accordance 

with the provisions and protocols of the CWC Treaty, and 

it would be done within the treaty’s time schedules. The 

Russian government stated it would use a treaty-authorized 

method of CW destruction; that it would destroy the toxic 

chemical agents at each of the seven disposal sites; and 

that there would be no transportation of CW munitions 

across Russian roads or rails from one site to another. In 

addition, the Yeltsin government declared it would fund 

local infrastructure projects, schools, roads and housing 

for the permanent residence of local people at all seven 

chemical weapons disposal sites. However the government 

could not afford to destroy these massive weapon stockpiles; 

consequently the Yeltsin government declared Russia would 

need foreign assistance, in addition to American and German 

donations it already received.115

Despite the appeal to other national governments, the 

United States and Germany remained the principal nations 

working with Russian ministries in negotiating, defining, 

funding and carrying out cooperative CW destruction 

projects. Within the U.S. government, Harold P. Smith, 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and 

Biological Programs, emerged as the major proponent for 

assisting Russia in destruction of its massive CW stockpiles. 

Table 9.1 - Declared Russian CW Stockpile Storage Sites, 1996

Location CW type Metric Tons (Tons)

Kambarka lewisite (blister agent) ~6,349 (6998)

Gorny lewisite, sulphur, mustard (blister agent) ~1,142 (1258)

Kizner sarin, soman, V-type, lewisite (nerve agents) ~5,745 (6332)

Maradikovsky sarin, soman, V-type, and mustard (nerve agents) ~6,890 (7594)

Pochep sarin, soman, V-type (nerve agents) ~7,489 (8255)

Leonidovka sarin, soman, V-type (nerve agents) ~6,885 (7589)

Shchuch’ye sarin, soman, V-type (nerve agents) ~5,457 (6015)

Source: Russian Federation, Special Federal Program, to Preparatory Commission, OPCW, 25 June 1996.
287

Smith believed, and testified to Congress, that proliferation 

of Russia’s chemical and nuclear weapons could pose major 

security problems for the United States and that assisting 

in destruction of the CW stockpiles would significantly 

reduce the chemical weapons threat.116 While Defense 

Department policy officials always considered Russia’s 

chemical munitions as less of a threat than its excess nuclear 

weapons, CW destruction endured as an important the U.S. 

CTR program objectives for more than a decade and a half.117

General Petrov and Russian chemical experts had 

selected a two-step process known as “neutralizationbituminization” for eliminating CW nerve agents. While 

authorized in the CWC treaty protocols, this process had 

never been tested. Smith and Kevin J. Flamm, director of CW 

destruction in the CTR program office, funded a project in 

1995 that would test and evaluate the Russian-proposed twostep process. At no point did American officials pledge to 

eliminate the Russian Federation’s entire chemical weapons 

stockpile, instead they wanted to provide Russian officials 

with a starting point, one that had been tested scientifically 

and technically.118 Russian experts insisted the process was 

safe, ecologically secure and that some commercial chemical 

byproducts could be extracted. However, these assertions 

were based on projections from laboratory experiments. 

No operational CW destruction plant used the proposed 

neutralization-bituminization elimination process; none in 

Russia or any other nation. In the United States elimination 

of CW stockpiles had been assigned to the Army Chemical 

Command, which planned to use controlled burning of 

the toxic chemicals in large, sealed incinerators that were 

constantly monitored for effluents.119 During the 1990s the 

Army began demilitarizing and destroying the nation’s CW 

stockpiles and they learned that the CW demilitarization 

and destruction process was not only expensive and 

environmentally sensitive, but that it was extraordinarily 

sensitive in local communities and with the media. 

Smith informed General Petrov that that the CTR 

program would not commit funds to design, build, or equip 

any Russian CW destruction plants until the neutralizationbituminization process had been thoroughly tested and 

evaluated. Following a meeting of Russian and American 

technical experts in January 1995, Flamm approved CTR 

funding for a specific series of Russian and American joint 

evaluation tests.120 Those tests, planned and organized by 

Bechtel, were conducted jointly by scientists and engineers 

from the Battelle Memorial Institute and the Russian 

State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry 

and Technology. The first set of tests were carried out at 

Declared Russian chemical weapons stockpile storage sites, 1996

RUSSIA

Pochep

Leonidovka Gorny

Maradikovsky

Kambarka

Kizner

Shchuch’ye

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
288

With Courage and Persistence

Edgewood Laboratories in Maryland, and then replicated 

in a laboratory at the Sartov Military Engineering College of 

Chemical Defense, using munitions-grade agents. Those tests 

confirmed the technical and scientific efficacy of using the 

Russian two-step method. 

While this collaborative work was underway, Smith 

sought other ways to accelerate the CW destruction effort. 

During negotiations General Petrov recommended that the 

CTR program fund construction of a pilot CW destruction 

facility with enough capacity to destroy more than 550 tons of 

weaponized nerve agents. The Russian general recommended 

locating the new plant at Shchuch’ye. Later, Smith recalled 

that when negotiations began the U.S. objective was to 

achieve a maximum reduction in the military CW threat 

against American forces stationed in Europe, with a minimum 

expenditure of time and money. To achieve its objective, the 

U.S. offered that the CTR program would purchase several 

large incinerators and deliver them to Russian chemical 

weapons storage sites so that the burning of toxic substances 

could begin almost immediately. When Russian officials 

rejected that concept, the Americans proposed eliminating 

Russian tactical missiles with persistent nerve agents that 

could be launched quickly and detonated in the atmosphere. 

Once again the Russian response was “Nyet.” Finally, U.S. 

officials insisted the proposed pilot CW destruction facility 

be built at a site with established power, water, roads and rail 

infrastructure, and a pool of skilled workers. That too was 

rejected. As negotiations concluded General Petrov held firm 

to Russia’s decision to place the American-funded pilot plant 

at Shchuch’ye. Summing up his experiences in negotiating 

with his Russian partners, Smith stated publically: “It is not 

an exaggeration to claim that the U.S. position was rejected 

in toto.”121

Shchuch’ye was located in the Kurgan region of 

western Siberia, some 630 miles southeast of Moscow. The 

chemical weapons depot stored 1.9 million artillery shells, 

approximately 600 rocket and missile warheads, and 6,000 

tons of nerve agents. The weapons, without burster charges, 

were stored in long, low wood and metal sheds surrounded 

by fences and barbed wire, but the security system offered 

little protection against fire or natural disasters.122 Except 

for the poorly paid military guards, few people lived in the 

vicinity. These weapons posed an extreme danger because 

not only were most of the artillery shells small enough to 

allow easy transport in suitcases or small containers, but 

their detonation mechanisms were so simple that thieves or 

terrorists could fabricate them without difficulty. When U.S. 

Senator Lugar visited the site he remarked, “This is the kind 

of stuff, at Shchuch’ye that (terrorists) are after. We have an 

opportunity to get rid of it, and we’re not moving forward.”123

This terrorist fear and Secretary Perry’s desire to assist the 

Russian government with specific CW destruction projects, at 

last provided the impetus for Smith and Petrov to sign a CTR 

implementing agreement for U.S. assistance to the Russian 

Chemical Weapons Destruction Program in mid-July 1996. 

The agreement committed both governments to cooperate 

in designing, building and equipping the first Russian CW 

destruction complex near Shchuch’ye to eliminate nerve agents 

stored in nearly two million artillery shells and warheads.

A journey of innumerable twists

With these framework agreement and decisions in place, 

the Shchuch’ye project began to take shape. Within a few 

months, the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers awarded a 

contract for engineering management support to Parsons 

Corporation, a large American construction and engineering 

firm. The company had decades of experience designing and 

constructing chemical weapons destruction facilities in the 

United States. Within weeks, Parsons had established a small 

team in Moscow and initiated technical negotiations with 

the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian chemical 

institutes. As the main U.S. contractor, Parsons worked with 

Russian chemical experts at scientific institutes and Russian 

military planners and engineers on expanding the agreed 

upon chemical agent destruction process to an industrial 

Russian Assumptions

	 H Accepted responsibility complete

destruction of CW stockpile

	 H Destruction to be in accord with

CWC Treaty

	 H No transportation of CW materials 

across Russia

	 H Foreign assistance to be solicited
289

scale, developing a munitions destruction process line for a 

pilot plant, and designing the large-scale chemical weapons 

destruction facility at Shchuch’ye.124 Parsons subcontracted 

with American companies and university technical institutes 

and with Russian firms and chemical institutes.

Because of the scientific, technical, environmental and 

political uncertainties involved with such a complex project, 

Congress restricted the authorization of CTR funding to 

planning and design activities only. Another American 

firm, Bechtel, was already working with Russian officials 

developing a comprehensive implementation plan for the 

entire CW destruction program. This included working with 

Russian lawyers and experts on land allocation documents, 

as required by Russian law, to secure a land deed and 

construction permits for the new deconstruction plant 

Shchuch’ye from the local government in the Kurgan Oblast. 

Anticipating that public hearings would be announced 

and held in the Kurgan region, Bechtel contracted with the 

American nonprofit, Global Green, and the Russian firm, 

Green Cross, for assistance. The tentative schedule anticipated 

that the American contractor would receive construction 

permits in 1999, with construction being initiated during the 

next year, and project completion projected for late 2004.125

To coordinate the American effort, Smith directed that 

a new CW Destruction Office be established in Moscow. 

There, CTR staff officers would coordinate the myriad issues, 

plans, designs, schedules and requests for visits from the U.S. 

Defense Department and its contractors with the Russian 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. 

In numerous ways, planning, and securing approvals for 

designing and constructing the CW destruction facility 

at Shchuch’ye became one of the most complex of all 

American-Russian CTR cooperative assistance projects.126 The 

coordination effort became even more complicated when 

U.S. Defense Department and Russian Ministry of Defense 

officials signed another CW implementing agreement in June 

1998, obligating funds and authorizing demilitarization 

of the OAO Khimpron chemical weapons production 

Vladimir Putin (l.) and Harold P. Smith, Jr. (r.)

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
290

With Courage and Persistence

plant in Volgograd and at Plant No. 4 OAO Khimpron in 

Novocheboksarsk, two of Russia’s former chemical weapons 

production facilities.

Following approval of the Russian Federation’s plans for 

the plant’s destruction by the United Nations Organization 

for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), CTR 

program managers initiated the two projects in 1998. In 

Volgograd and Novocheboksarsk, American CTR program 

managers and U.S. and Russian contractors developed 

plans to decontaminate, dismantle and destroy specialized 

equipment and facilities used in the production, transfer and 

storage of chemical agents and weapons.127 Decontamination 

of the lethal chemicals’ residue required using on-site 

newly designed, fabricated and installed thermal treatment 

units.128 Another CTR funded CW project in Russia provided 

equipment and systems for a new central chemical weapons 

destruction analytical laboratory in Moscow. This modern 

laboratory, along with three mobile analytical laboratories, 

also provided to the institute by the CTR program, would 

be used by Russian scientists to develop CW agent analytical 

methods and procedures for monitoring chemical weapons 

and agents at the destruction and storage sites. The labs would 

also serve as quality assurance and quality control centers for 

planned Russian CW stockpile destruction efforts.129

Even under the best of circumstances, managing 

and controlling large-scale construction and sensitive 

demilitarization projects, especially in a foreign nation, 

required constant engagement and extensive cooperation. 

American managerial methods, using contract instruments 

and personal interventions at multiple planning sessions and 

meetings, however, clashed repeatedly with Russian methods 

of controlling projects through command-leadership 

management and a bureaucratic reluctance by subordinates 

to surface issues in the bilateral meetings. As Vice Admiral 

Ashot A. Sarkisov, director the Nuclear Safety Institute of 

the Russian Academy of Science, observed “[T]he culture of 

the Russian bureaucracy is much more personal than in the 

U.S.”130 Americans, he remarked, seemed to work through 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Schematic of Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility, Shchuch’ye
291

contracts, plans, documents and innumerable meetings. 

Almost inevitably, the divergent managerial styles clashed 

repeatedly on these multi-year, multi-million dollar CW 

destruction projects. When American program managers and 

contractors submitted plans and design documents, Russian 

responses were often late, and when delivered, incomplete. 

When American project schedules were presented, they were 

repeatedly revised, forcing delays. Requests for technical 

data frequently went unanswered and U.S. officials grew 

increasingly frustrated. At one point, there were 11 Russian 

government ministries and committees reviewing and 

making decisions on the nation’s CW destruction program.

Smith, who had long experience managing and evaluating 

large-scale scientific and technical projects and great 

empathy and respect for Russia and its culture, published 

an article in 1998 that evaluated the American-Russian CW 

demilitarization programs. He concluded that it was a mystery 

why Russian officials had been so “obdurate.”131 On a fact 

finding mission to Russia, U.S. Congressional investigators 

found little evidence of progress, and worse, few specific 

financial commitments by the Russian government to the 

CW destruction program. Their report concluded that there 

was a distinct possibility of “potentially” large cost increases 

over the $900 million CTR cost estimate.132 Because of that 

potential, investigators recommended that Congress instruct 

the Secretary of Defense in its annual CTR authorization 

bill not to obligate any funds for construction until it could 

certify that an accurate cost, schedule and program had 

been developed. Congress heeded that recommendation 

and directed Secretary of Defense Cohen to limit funds and 

projects for the CW pilot destruction facility at Shchuch’ye to 

planning and design activities only.133

For two years, 1999 and 2000, the U.S. House 

of Representatives blocked all CTR funding for the 

Shchuch’ye CW destruction facility.134 The reason cited 

was recent Congressional reports that emphasized the 

Russian government’s lack of commitment to funding CW 

destruction since there were no funds in the national budget 

for financing infrastructure projects at Shchuch’ye. The 

Russian government, investigators reported, had not funded 

any other Russian CW destruction facilities, and had failed to 

provide critical information to U.S. program managers about 

chemical weapons slated for destruction.135 Combined with 

these specific objections were political arguments against 

using American taxpayer funds to eliminate old, obsolete 

Russian chemical weapons. In addition to the House of 

Representatives blocking all CW construction funding, in 

1999 the U.S. Senate placed requirements on the Russian 

government before it would approve any additional funds 

for the project. In May the following year, Russia added to 

suspicions in Congress, when it missed an important CWC 

Treaty deadline for destruction of one percent of its “Category 

1” chemical weapons within three years of treaty ratification. 

General Petrov blamed an “insufficiency of financing” 

by the government for the CW destruction program and 

explained, “On the whole we are about four years behind the 

plan.”136 At this point, many observers believed that Russia’s 

CW destruction effort, in spite of its treaty obligations and 

presidential declarations, was doomed to failure.

Restructuring and elevating Russia’s CW 

destruction programs

In 2001, the situation changed dramatically when 

newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin directed 

a restructuring and streamlining of the entire Russian CW 

destruction program. Instead of the Ministry of Defense 

controlling it, Putin assigned leadership and program 

management to the Federal Munitions Agency for all CW 

destruction matters. Led by Dr. Zinovy Pak, an engineer and 

senior civilian, and Colonel General Viktor I. Kholstov, as 

deputy director, the agency was designated as the Russian 

National Authority to the United Nations’ OPCW.137 In 

the Russian Security Council, President Putin stated that 

chemical weapons destruction was a “priority” for the 

government and to prove it, he established a new State 

Committee on Chemical Disarmament, which consisted of 

representatives from each region where there were chemical 

weapons destruction sites. The commission’s chairman was 

S.V. Kirienko, the presidential envoy to the Volga Federal 

District where four-fifths of the weapons were stored. Another 

organization, the Federal Directorate on Safety, Storage and 

Destruction of Chemical Weapons, led by Lieutenant General 

Valerii P. Kapashin, was responsible for safe operations at all 

destruction facilities. The Ministries of Foreign and Internal 

Affairs, the Federal Security Service, and the Office of the 

Prime Minister shared responsibility for other aspects of the 

CW destruction program. The Minister of Finance approved 

demilitarization funding at $106 million annually, with $25 

million designated for Russian projects at Shchuch’ye.138
292

With Courage and Persistence

Director Pak developed a new comprehensive plan to 

destroy the nation’s chemical weapons stockpiles by the 

CTW Treaty’s deadline of 2012. Instead of destroying the 

toxic chemicals at seven separate sites, each with a new 

destruction facility, the new plan stipulated there would 

be only three destruction sites in Gorny, Kambarka and 

Shchuch’ye. Chemical weapons stored at the other sites 

would be transported to one of the three sites. To destroy 

the blister agents stored at Gorny and Kambarka, Russian 

officials worked closely with German engineers constructing 

new destruction facilities at Gorny. At Shchuch’ye, Pak’s new 

plan dropped the previous concept of constructing houses, 

schools and infrastructure for the approximately 3,000 

Russian construction workers and technicians, replacing 

it with a provision for temporary housing, shift work, 

and buses for transportation. In addition, Pak proposed 

expanding the design for the facility at Shchuch’ye from a 

destruction capacity of 550 to 880 tons. The new proposal 

envisioned constructing a second, identical CW destruction 

facility at Shchuch’ye, financed by the Russian Federation 

and European nations. Combined, the two plants, when in 

full operation, would be capable of destroying more than 

1,760 tons of nerve agents per year. If American CTR officials 

agreed, the two CW destruction facilities could be constructed 

simultaneously and be supported by the American-built 

industrial systems. If all parts of the new comprehensive plan 

were completed and operational, the Russian government 

would meet the 2012 treaty deadline for destroying its 

chemical weapons, and costs for the destruction would be 

reduced by thirty to fifty percent. In early July 2001, Russian 

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov approved a resolution to 

accept Director Pak’s new plan.139

With Putin’s endorsement, Director Pak restructured the 

national CW destruction plan, and the Duma’s financial 

commitment stimulated new international support, mainly 

from Great Britain and Italy. Then a cascade of support for 

Russia developed during and after the G-8 leaders’ summit 

meeting in Kananaskis, Canada in June 2002.140 There the 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush at the G-8 leaders summit meeting, June 2002

RIA Novosti
293

leaders of the eight largest industrial nations – Canada, 

France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and 

the United States – created the Global Partnership Against the 

Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.141 The 

leaders pledged to raise $20 billion in the next 10 years to 

support specific projects, such as the destruction of chemical 

weapons in Russia. Still fresh were memories of Al Qaeda 

terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. 

on September 11, 2001, and the G-8 leaders were only too 

aware of Osama Bin Laden’s desire to steal or buy nuclear, 

chemical and biological weapons. President Putin’s appeal 

for assistance in preventing proliferation, theft, diversion and 

accidents of WMD and related munitions was very timely. In 

their joint statement concluding the Kananaskis summit, the 

leaders pledged to support a series of cooperative projects 

with the Russian Federation. “Among our priority concerns,” 

they declared, “are the destruction of chemical weapons, the 

dismantlement of decommissioned nuclear submarines, the 

disposition of fissile nuclear materials, and the employment 

of former weapons scientists. We will commit to raise up to 

$20 billion to support such projects over the next 10 years.”142

These G-8 commitments also stimulated other nations 

to join the global partnership, and pledge additional funds 

for the specific projects with the Russian Federation. Within 

two years, 14 additional nations – Australia, Belgium, Czech 

Republic, Denmark, European Union, Finland, Ireland, 

Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Korea, 

Sweden and Switzerland – pledged to fund and contribute 

to disarmament efforts in Russia.143 Among the industrial 

nations, Canada pledged $650 million, United Kingdom 

$750 million, Germany $1.5 billion, the European Union $1 

billion and Japan $200 million to the Global Partnership.144

At the Kananaskis summit, President Bush committed the 

United States to contributing $10 billion over 10 years.145

Securing and destroying obsolete weapons of mass destruction 

had emerged as a new anti-terrorist and nonproliferation 

security objective for many nations. Widely recognized at the 

time, the American CTR effort with the Russian Federation 

was singled out as a model program of successful cooperation 

and for meeting arms control treaty reductions.

When Director Pak opened the first chemical weapons 

destruction plant at Gorny in August 2002, he announced 

that by December they would start the elimination process 

for destroying 1,258 tons of mustard gas, sulphur and lewisite 

agents.146 When the plant began operations on schedule, 

Pak declared that the Russian government had budgeted 

$172 million for the destruction of chemical weapons.147

In the wake of these developments in Russia and with other 

foreign nations, the U.S. Government decided to proceed. 

President Bush signed the 2003 Defense Authorization 

Act, which authorized him to waive the congressionally 

mandated requirements on CTR programs with the 

Russian Federation.148 That decision reversed the House of 

Representatives’ refusal to obligate funds for construction of 

the chemical weapons destruction facility at Shchuch’ye, and 

it changed the President’s decision to certify that Russia was 

in compliance with the CWC.

Clearly, a corner had been turned. Congress released 

CTR funds for construction of the CW destruction facility at 

Shchuch’ye and appropriated $50 million in 2002, $132.9 

million in 2003 and $200 million in 2004 for the large-scale 

construction project.149 Construction began straightaway, 

with groundbreaking on the initial building’s foundation 

in April, 2003. At this point, the United States had agreed 

to build a modern chemical weapons destruction facility 

to destroy Russia’s 1.9 million nerve agent-filled, manportable, tube and rocket artillery shells and bulk-filled 

rocket and missile warheads stored at Shchuch’ye. The total 

amount of chemical weapons was approximately 6,006 tons 

of nerve agents. Paul McNelly, U.S. CTR program manager, 

explained that during the long five-year design phase, 

the project had included process development, process 

and facility design, construction, equipment acquisition, 

delivery, and installation, systems integration, training and 

facility start-up. The estimated cost was $1 billion, with 

initial operations projected to begin in spring of 2008.150

The actual construction of the complex at Shchuch’ye was 

fraught with major issues. Nevertheless, after 2002 there was 

new confidence among American, Russian and international 

officials that the chemical weapons destruction facility 

would, in fact be constructed and become operational.

Senator Lugar’s perspective and vision

Just as President Bush signed the Defense Authorization 

Act in December 2002, Senator Lugar published his vision 

for the future of U.S. nonproliferation policy.151 As coauthor 

of the original Nunn-Lugar legislation in 1991, Lugar led the 

effort in the U.S. Senate year after year in shaping, directing 

and authorizing all facets of the multi-national, multi-billion 
294

With Courage and Persistence

CTR program. He traveled to Russia frequently, visiting the 

projects, meeting with Russian military and civilian officials, 

and listening to Russian and American program managers’ 

issues and observations. Lugar explained that his vision was 

based on 11 years experience observing the development of 

a sustained American effort to “assist the states of the former 

Soviet Union in safeguarding and destroying their enormous 

stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.”152

By 2002, the program had assisted in deactivation of 

more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and elimination of 

hundreds of bombers, missiles and submarines. CTR funds 

and direct assistance had been influential in persuading 

Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to give up their nuclear 

weapons and accede to the UN Nonproliferation Treaty. 

The program broadened in the mid-1990s to encompass 

protecting and safeguarding nuclear warheads and fissile 

materials, securing and destroying chemical weapons 

stockpiles, and employing tens of thousands of Russian 

weapons scientists on collaborative projects. Lugar praised 

the G-8 Global Partnership for pledging $20 billion over the 

next ten years to assist nations in securing and destroying 

their WMD stockpiles, declaring that if it were fully 

implemented it would double the resources being expended 

in Russia on the broad range of CTR programs. 

Using the G-8 nations’ commitment to assist Russia as 

the focal point, Senator Lugar advocated that the United 

States and the international community should apply NunnLugar concepts outside the nuclear nations of the former 

Soviet Union, working with other nations where WMD 

existed. Lugar thought that assistance programs could move 

beyond weapons dismantlement projects to encompass 

counterterrorism, nuclear safety and environmental dangers. 

“Today, we lack even minimal international confidence 

about many proliferation risks,” he concluded. He called 

for a new coalition of nations to work with those nations 

seeking help destroying weapons or dangerous materials. 

Such an international coalition could develop international 

standards of accountability for protecting and handling 

nuclear materials and deadly biological pathogens. It could 

work on multinational agreements to assist victims of 

nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism. Lugar developed 

a “Top 10 List” of the most pressing WMD nonproliferation 

projects worldwide:153

1. Chemical Weapons: The United States and Russia 

ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997. Today, 

more than five years later, Russia has barely begun to eliminate 

its estimated 40,000-metric ton stockpile. ... Shchuch’ye and 

the Russian chemical weapon stockpile represent one of the 

greatest proliferation threats in the world.

2. Biological Weapons: The United States must continue 

to work closely with Russia to assist in the conversion of 

former biological weapons facilities. ... Opening these 

facilities, ensuring that their scientists do not transfer their 

weapons knowledge, and providing necessary security 

upgrades must be high on any list of priorities.

3. Tactical Nuclear Weapons: U.S.-Russian cooperation 

must move beyond strategic nuclear systems into the tactical 

weapons arena. Tactical warheads are more portable ... many 

are not secured at the same level as strategic systems. We must 

establish mutual confidence in the quantity, status, storage, 

and security of tactical nuclear weapons.

4. Employment of Former Weapons Scientists: Tens of 

thousands of Russian weapons scientists have been employed 

Senator Richard G. Lugar

Office of Senator Richard Lugar
295

under the auspices of the State Department’s ISTC program 

and the Department of Energy’s Initiatives for Proliferation 

Prevention. ... If Russian weapons experts are placed in 

a position of economic desperation or bankruptcy, the 

possibility that at least some will sell their services elsewhere 

is high.

5. Material Protection, Control, and Accounting: After 

eight years of close cooperation and considerable effort, 40 

percent of the facilities housing nuclear materials in Russia 

have received security improvements through U.S. assistance. 

... Russia should continue to consolidate materials in fewer 

locations, but if facilities housing nuclear weapons materials 

are vulnerable, they must receive upgrades as quickly as 

possible ....

6. Radioactive Sources: The Soviet Union produced 

hundreds of small nuclear generators, known as radioisotope 

thermal generators (RTGs). ... These generators are very 

dangerous because they hold nuclear material that might be 

used in a radiological weapon, or “dirty bomb.” The Russian 

government does not have an accurate accounting.... We 

must find these units, secure them, and remove the dangerous 

materials.

7. Shutdown of Plutonium-Producing Reactors: There 

are three nuclear reactors in Siberia producing a total of 

1.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium per year as 

a byproduct of their operation. Russia will not shut down 

these reactors... As we continue to safeguard and eliminate 

nuclear material in Russia, we must also take steps to ensure 

that no additional weapons-grade material is created.

8. Plutonium Disposition: The United States and 

Russia have agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of weaponsgrade plutonium. ...The fabrication processes will require 

significant investments by both sides in new facilities. An 

estimated $2 billion will be needed to build and implement 

the Russian effort. 

9. Nonstrategic Submarines: Each time I visit Russian 

shipyards, I am startled by the enormity of the task that lies 

before us in the area of submarine dismantlement. ...There 

are important nonproliferation, security, and environmental 

benefits to the timely dismantlement of conventional 

submarines. Many carry cruise missiles that could prove 

valuable to the missile programs of rogue nations.

10. Reactor Safety: The United States and its allies must 

work together with Russia and other states of the former 

Soviet Union and elsewhere to convert reactors that currently 

use weapons-grade material to burn less-enriched fuel.

Senator Lugar concluded: “If we are to block terrorist 

acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, then bipartisan 

vision, statesmanship and patience will be required 

over many years.”154 The senator’s vision was not shared 

throughout the Bush Administration. In fact, Department of 

Defense officials, as seen in the next chapter, took the CTR 

program in an entirely different direction.

Endnotes

1

 Interview with General Colonel (Retired) Yevgeny P. Maslin, 

Director, 12th Main Directorate, General Staff, Ministry of Defense, 

Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 18 

January 2005, Moscow, Russia.

2

 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Secretary of Defense for CTR, 1994-1997, U.S. Department 

of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 31 March 2004.

3

 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United 

States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian 

Federation Concerning Cooperation in Nuclear Weapons Storage 

Security Through Provisions of Materials, Services, and Related 

Training, Moscow, Russia, 3 April 1995. 

4

 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-32-33.

5

 Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004.

6

 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-32-33.

7

 Ibid., IV-33-34.

8

 Yevgeny Maslin, “The CTR Program and Russia’s National 

Security Interests,” in Ivan Safranchuk, editor, The Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program: How Efficient?, PIR Center, Moscow, 2000, p 8. 

9

 Interview, Major General Roland Lajoie, U.S. Army (retired), 

Deputy Secretary of Defense for CTR, 1994-1997, U.S. Department 

of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 31 March 2004; 
296

With Courage and Persistence

Interview, Harold P. Smith, Assistant secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 14 December 2001; Interview, 

Harold P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, 

Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 14 December 2001; and Interview, 

Laura S.H. Holgate, Vice President for Russia and NIS Programs, 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, D.C., 20 June 2002.

10 Briefing, “CTR Russian Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 

Security Program,” by William M. Moon, Program Manager, 

Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program, at NDIA Security 

Division Symposium & Exhibition, Reston, Virginia, 27 June 2002, 

p. 14.

11 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-30-31.

12 See Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear Warheads and 

Materials,” August 2002, in Nuclear Threat Initiative: Securing 

the Bomb, at http://www.nti.org/about/projects/Securing-bomb/ 

accessed on 14 December 2011.

13 Bill Moon, CTR Program Manager, CTR Division,“Talking 

Points on Nuclear Weapons Storage and Transportation 

Security Projects,” NWSA,16 October 1997. See also, Statement 

of Work, CT Directorate, Procurement of Safety and Security 

Support equipment, Technical Test Bed (SATC) and Site Security 

Enhancements for the Russian Federation, Ministry of Defense 

Nuclear Weapons Storage Sites, 1997.

14 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-30-31. 

Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons 

Division, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, DTRA, with J. 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004.

15 Interview, William Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004; and Bill Moon, CTR 

Program Manager, CTR Division, “Talking Points on Nuclear 

Weapons Storage and Transportation Security Projects,” NWSA, 16 

October 1997.

16 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp IV-30-31; DOD Report, CTR 

Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction, Multi-Year Program 

Plan, FY 2000, pp. IV-34-35.

17 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-29-30.

18 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-29-30.

19 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, pp. 19-20.

20 Ibid., p. 20.

21 Report, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to 

Congress FY 2003, pp. III 21-22.

22 Ibid.

23 For this concept, I am grateful to Igor Khripunov and James 

Holmes, editors, Nuclear Security Culture: The Case of Russia, Center 

of International Trade and Security, University of Georgia, 2004. 

24 Ibid. See, Interview with General Colonel (Retired) Yevgeny 

P. Maslin, Director, 12th Main Directorate, General Staff, Ministry 

of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, 18 January 2005, Moscow, Russia.

25 Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004; 

See also, Interview, Thomas E. Kuenning, Jr., Director Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, 6 August 2004.

26 Interview, General-Major (Retired) Vladimir Petrovich Frolov, 

Deputy Chief, 12th Main Directorate, General Staff, Ministry of 

Defense, Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Moscow, 24 January 2005.

27 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-30-31; DoD Report, CTR 

Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction, Multi-Year Program 

Plan, FY 2000, pp. IV-34-35. Interview, General-Major (Retired) 

Vladimir Petrovich Frolov, Deputy Chief, 12th Main Directorate, 

General Staff, Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Moscow, 24 January 2005, and 

Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons 

Division, Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, DTRA, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004. 

28 U.S. DoD News Release, “Secretary Cohen Tours Russian 

Defense Facility, Nuclear Weapons Security Projects at Sergeiv 

Posad, 13 February 1998. 

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress 1998, pp. IV-30-31; DoD 

Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction, MultiYear Program Plan, FY 2000, pp. IV-34-35. 

31 William Moon, CTR Program Manager, CTR Division, 

“Talking Points on Nuclear Weapons Storage and Transportation 

Security Projects,” DSWA 16 October 1997.

32 “Joint U.S.- Russia Nuclear Security Training Center 

Opens,” United States Information System, Washington File, 1 

November 1999, at http://www.partnershipforglobalsecurity.

org/PrinterFriendly.asp?Doc=11_03_99.html#2 accessed on 14 

December 2011.

33 “Nuclear weapons Security Assessment and Training 

Center opens in Russia,” DTRA Connection, December 1999. For 

the observation about General Valynkin see Interview, William 

M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons Division, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, 20 July 2004.

34 “Nuclear Weapons Security Assessment and Training Center 

opens in Russia,” DTRA Connection, December 1999.

35 Ibid. 
297

36 Interview, General-Major (Retired) Vladimir Petrovich Frolov, 

Deputy Chief, 12th Main Directorate, General Staff, Ministry of 

Defense, Russian Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Moscow, 24 January 2005, and Interview, William M. Moon, 

Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 

July 2004. 

37 William Moon, “CTR Russian Weapons of Mass Destruction 

(WMD) Security Program,” Briefing to the NDIA Security Division 

Program Symposium, Reston, Virginia, 27 June 2002.

38 See Agreement Between the Department of Defense of 

the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the 

Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in Nuclear Weapons 

Storage Security through Provision of Material, Services, and 

Related Training, dated 3 April 1995, amended 21 June 1995, 27 

May 1996, 8 April 1997, 14 January 1999, 1 November 1999, 

12 June 2000, and 19 September 2002 and extended 14 January 

1999 and 25 January 2000. (Nuclear Weapons Storage Security 

Implementing Agreement)

39 William Moon, “CTR Russian Weapons of Mass Destruction 

(WMD) Security Program,” Briefing to the NDIA Security Division 

Program Symposium, Reston, Virginia, 27 June 2002. See also, 

DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress, FY 2003, pp. III-23-24.

40 See Briefing, William Moon, Program Manager, CT 

Directorate, ”CTR Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program,” 

2 August 2000. 

41 Briefing, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Russia and the CTR 

Program,” June 2002. See also, DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, FY 2003, 

pp. III-22-23.

42 See Mathew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear Warheads and 

Materials: Nuclear Warhead Security Upgrades,“ Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, Securing the Bomb Database at http://www.nti.org/

about/projects/Securing-bomb/ accessed on 14 December 2011.

43 Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004, and Interview, Thomas 

E. Kuenning, Jr., Director Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate, 

DTRA, with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 6 August 

2004.

44 See “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: Nuclear 

Warhead Security Upgrades.“ 

45 Statement of Robert Bell, NSC Advisor to the President, 

Transcript, “AWOL Arsenal,” the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 19 

March 1998 at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/janjune98/nukes_3-19.html accessed on 14 December 2011.

46 For a good factual account of this cooperative effort, see 

Morten Bremer Maerli, “U.S. Russian Naval Security Upgrades: 

Lessons Learned and Future Steps,” in Yaderny Kontrol, V.7. no. 4, 

PIR Center, Moscow, Russia, pp. 38-53. 

47 Ibid. See also “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: 

Nuclear Warhead Security Upgrades. “

48 “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: Nuclear Warhead 

Security Upgrades.“

49 Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, pp. 20-22.

50 “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: Nuclear Warhead 

Security Upgrades.“ 

51 Alfred Goldberg and Sarandis Papadopoulos, and others, 

Pentagon 9/11 (Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office, 

Washington, 2007).

52 Testimony, J.D. Crouch III, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for International Security Policy, to the House Armed Services 

Committee, 4 March 2003. 

53 These developments are covered in Matthew Bunn’s article 

“Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: Nuclear Warhead 

Security Upgrades,“ Nuclear Threat Initiative, Securing the Bomb 

Database at http://www.nti.org/about/projects/Securing-bomb/

accessed on 14 December 2011.

54 Interview, William M. Moon, Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear 

Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004.

55 William Moon, CTR Program Manager, CTR Division, 

“Talking Points on Nuclear Weapons Storage and Transportation 

Security Projects,” DSWA,16 October 1997.

56 See Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, pp. 22-23.

57 Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2006, pp. 43-44.

58 Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, pp. 22-23.

59 Goldgeier and McFaul, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Towards 

Russia after the Cold War, pp. 241-244.

60 President William Jefferson Clinton State of the Union 

Address, 19 January 1999, White House Office of the Press at 

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=1999_

public_papers_vol1_text&docid=pap_text-44 accessed on 15 

December 2011.

61 “Russian Leadership Receptive to Continued CTR Programs”, 

January 20, 1999, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Databases at www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/forasst/ctr/programs.htm accessed on 15 

December 2011. 

62 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, p. 22.

63 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2003, pp. III-25-26.

64 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2001, p. 22.

65 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2003, pp. III-25-26.

66 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Multi-Year Program Plan, FY 2006, p. 43.

67 See Briefing, William Moon, Program Manager, CT 

Directorate, ”CTR Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program,” 

2 August 2000. Also see, Briefing, Commander Scott Crow, CT 
298

With Courage and Persistence

Directorate, DTRA, “Railcar Maintenance and Procurement,” March 

2005.

68 Statement of Reginald Bartholomew, Under Secretary of State 

for International Security, Department of State, to the U.S. Senate, 

Foreign Relations Committee, SH 102-510, 5 February 1992. For the 

diplomatic context see, James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, 

pp. 558-586, 588-613, 614-636; James Goldgeier and Michael 

McFaul, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold 

War, pp.18-40, 41-59.

69 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation 

and Storage of Nuclear Weapons through the Provision of Fissile 

Materials Containers,” Washington, D.C., 17 June 1992.

70 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United 

States of America and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for 

Atomic Energy Concerning the Provision of Material, Services, 

and Training Relating to the Construction of a Safe, Secure, and 

Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for Fissile Material Derived 

from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons, dated 2 September 

1993, amended 20 June 1995, 6 September 1996, 9 April 1997, 26 

May 1999, 15 September 1999 and 21 August 2000, and extended 

27 January 1999. (Fissile Material Storage Facility Construction 

Implementing Agreement)

71 Oleg Bukharin, “Minatom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling the Cold War, 

pp. 216-218.

72 “Agreement between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy 

Concerning Technical Assistance for the Design of a Safe, Secure, 

and Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for Fissile Material Derived 

from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” Washington, 5 October 

1992.

73 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation 

and Storage of Nuclear Weapons through the Provision of Fissile 

Materials Containers,” Washington, D.C., 17 June 1992. See also, 

Briefing, Dr. John Birely, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for 

Atomic Energy, 10 November 1993.

74 Oleg Bukharin, “Minatom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling the Cold War, 

pp. 216-228; and Briefing, Dr. John Birely, Assistant to the Secretary 

of Defense for Atomic Energy, 10 November 1993.

75 Bukharin, “Minatom and Nuclear Threat Reduction 

Activities,” in Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 216-217. 

76 Report, “Mayak Production Association (PO Mayak),” in 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Databases, Russia: Ozersk at www.nti.org/

db/nisprofs/russia/fissmat/pumayak/pomayak.htm accessed 15 

December 2011.

77 Pavel Podvig, editor, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 94-

97.

78 Report, “Russia: Mayak Fissile Material Facilities,” in Nuclear 

Threat Initiative, Russia Databases at www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/

russia/fissmat/pumayak/fismatst.htm accessed on 15 December 

2011.

79 “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Ministry of the Russian Federation 

for Atomic Energy Concerning the Provision of Material, Services, 

and Training Relating to the Construction of a Safe, Secure, and 

Ecologically Sound Storage Facility for Fissile Material Derived 

from the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons, dated September, April 

9, 1997.”

80 Briefing, “Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility,” by 

Thomas R. Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control Division, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Department 

of Defense, October 2003. According to the U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers business rules “a cost-plus-award-fee contract is a 

cost-reimbursement contract that provides for a fee consisting of 

(1) a base amount fixed at inception of the contract and (2) an 

award amount that the contractor may earn in whole or in part 

during performance and that is sufficient to provide motivation for 

excellence in such areas as quality, timeliness, technical ingenuity, 

and cost-effective management. The amount of the award fee to be 

paid is determined by the Government’s judgmental evaluation of 

the contractor’s performance in terms of the criteria stated in the 

contract. This determination and the methodology for determining 

the award fee are unilateral decisions made solely at the discretion 

of the Government.” Definition adopted from USACE briefing 

Section 13: Cost Plus Award Fee Contracts, at corpslakes.usace.

army.mil/employees/omcontracts/pdfs/section13.pdf accessed on 8 

December 2011.

81 See GAO Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, GAO/NSIAD-96-222, 

September 1996. 

82 Briefing, “Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility,” by Thomas 

R. Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control Division, CTR 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Department of 

Defense, October 2003.

83 The U.S. official was Laura Holgate, OSD, cited in Report, 

“Russia: Mayak Fissile Material Facilities.” 

84 “Russian Government in Debt to Mayak,” 9 June 1997, in 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Databases, “Russia: Ozersk” at www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/fissmat/pumayak/pomayak.htm accessed on 

15 December 2011. 

85 Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: 

Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility;” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 

Securing the Bomb Database at http://www.nti.org/about/projects/

Securing-bomb/ accessed on 14 December 2011. See also, Briefing, 

Thomas R. Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility,” 

October 2003.

86 “Striking Miners Block Railways and Energy Supplies to PO 

Mayak,” 25 July – 7 August 1998, in Nuclear Threat Initiative, 

Databases, “Russia: Ozersk”at www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

fissmat/pumayak/pomayak.htm accessed on 15 December 2011. 

87 This 6,000 figure was cited in the DoD CTR Implementation 

Plan for 1998, which was sent to Congress. At that time, the CTR 
299

program Office estimated that the double wing FMSF facility would 

be able to store up to 12,500 dismantled nuclear warheads. See, 

Report DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction Implementation Plan 

for 1998, p. IV-26-27.

88 Report, Elena Sokova,“Russia: Mayak Fissile Missile 

Facilities;” Nuclear Threat Initiative, Securing the Bomb Database 

at http://www.nti.org/about/projects/Securing-bomb/ accessed on 

14 December 2011. See also, Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear 

warheads and Materials: Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility,” 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Securing the Bomb Database at http://

www.nti.org/about/projects/Securing-bomb/ accessed on 14 

December 2011.

89 U.S. General Accounting Office, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Effort to Reduce Russian Arsenals May Cost More, 

Achieve Less Than Planned, GOA/NSIAD-99-76, April 1999.

90 U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Construction Projects, DOD-2004-

039, December 2003.

91 Interview, Tom Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control 

Division, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

Department of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Senior Historian, 

DTRA, Washington, D.C., October 6, 2003.

92 Ibid; See, Briefing, Thomas R. Rutherford, Chief, Fissile 

Material Control Division, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Mayak Fissile 

Material Storage Facility,” October 2003.

93 Interview, Tom Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control 

Division, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

Department of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, Senior Historian, 

DTRA, Washington, D.C., October 6, 2003.

94 Interview, Tom Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control 

Division, CTR Directorate, with Joseph P. Harahan, Senior 

Historian, DTRA, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., 

October 6, 2003.October 6, 2003.

95 Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: 

Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility.” 

96 U.S. General Accounting Office, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Effort to Reduce Russian Arsenals May Cost More, 

Achieve Less Than Planned, GAO/NSIAD-99-76, April 1999.

97 U.S. General Accounting Office, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Effort to Reduce Russian Arsenals May Cost More, 

Achieve Less Than Planned, GAO/NSIAD-99-76, April 1999.

98 See Elena Sokova, “Russia: Mayak Fissile Missile Facilities;” 

Nuclear Threat Initiative, Securing the Bomb Database at http://

www.nti.org/about/projects/Securing-bomb/ accessed on 14 

December 2011. See also U.S. Department of Defense, Office of 

the Inspector General, Cooperative Threat Reduction Construction 

Projects, DOD-2004-039, December 2003.

99 Ibid. 

100 See Senator Lugar Trip Book, CT Directorate, DTRA, May 

2002. 

101 Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials: 

Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility.” In a 1993 implementation 

agreement, Russia had promised to blend down up to 500 tons 

of highly-enriched (HEU) uranium derived from dismantled 

Russian nuclear weapons to low-enriched uranium (LEU) and the 

United States committed to purchasing it for use in commercial 

nuclear reactors. Over 20 years, the estimated value was over $10 

billion. In 1996 the two nations negotiated an amendment that 

set prices, quantities, and terms; a development which significantly 

accelerated the Russian shipments of the reprocessed low-enriched 

uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants. By March 2002, Russia 

had blended and delivered 141 tons of HEU, earning over $2 

billion. The following month, negotiators agreed on terms for a 

new contract, thus extending Russian-American cooperation on 

reprocessing and conversion. Ibid. p. 66.

102 Ibid.

103 For this account, see Matthew Bunn, “Securing Nuclear 

Warheads and Materials: Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility.” 

Information on its influence on the construction project comes 

from Interview, Tom Rutherford, Chief, Fissile Material Control 

Division, CTR Directorate, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., 6 October 2003.

104 Cable, Unclassified, USDAO-DTROM Moscow, to DTRA 

Dulles Washington, D.C., CT, CTN, “DOD-RF Discussions on 

Oversight, Inspection and Review of Construction Progress at the 

FMSF at Mayak ,” 18-24 November 2003.

105 Ibid, see section, “Meeting with Minatom on 24 November.” 

106 Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz’ letter cited in section “DoD 

Concerns with the Absence of a Transparency Agreement,” in DoD 

Report, CTR Policy Office, CTR Report to Congress, FY 2005, pp. 

64-65.

107 “Russia Commissions Unique Nuclear Storage Facility,” RIA 

Novosti , 17 December 2003.

108 See Chapter 3, “The Nuclear Weapons Production Complex,” 

in Pavel Podvig, editor, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 67-115. 

See also, Charles Diggs, et al, “The Russian Nuclear Industry: 

The Need for Reform,” Bellona Foundation Report, Vol. 4, Oslo, 

Norway, 2004. 

109 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Federal Agency for Industry 

Concerning the Safe, Secure and Ecologically Sound Destruction of 

Chemical Weapons, dated 30 July 1992.

110 Harold P. Smith, Jr., “Funding CW Demilitarization in 

Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control Today, Nov/Dec 

1998.

111 Igor Khriunov, “U.S. Assistance to Russia’s Chemical 

Demilitarization Efforts”, published Shields and Potter, Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 363-365.

112 For CWC summary and text see, Arms Control Today, CWC 

Special Issue, “The Chemical Weapons Convention: Banning the 

Poisons of War,” October 1992. 

113 Harold P. Smith, Jr., “Funding CW Demilitarization in 

Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control Today, Nov/Dec 

1998.

114 For the organizational structure of the various committees 

and ministries, with essays by the principal leaders, see, Bulletin 

of Chemical Disarmament, published by the Russian Munitions 

Agency and Institute of World Economy and International 
300

With Courage and Persistence

Relations, (Moscow) January – December 2004. For the 1996 

cost figure see, Khriunov, “U.S. Assistance to Russia’s Chemical 

Demilitarization Efforts,“ in Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling 

the Cold War, p. 366.

115 Khriunov, “U.S. Assistance to Russia’s Chemical 

Demilitarization Efforts,” in Shields and Potter, editors, Dismantling 

the Cold War, pp. 363-375.

116 Harold P. Smith, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs, “Funding CW 

Demilitarization in Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control 

Today, Nov/Dec 1998.

117 Briefing, Kevin J. Flamm, Director, CW Destruction, OSD 

CTR Office, “Joint Evaluation of Russian Two-Step CW Destruction 

Process,” 26 January 1995.

118 GAO Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of the 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, GAO/NSIAD-96-222, 

September 1996. 

119 Briefing, Kevin J. Flamm, Director, CW Destruction, OSD 

CTR Office, “Joint Evaluation of Russian Two-Step CW Destruction 

Process,” 26 January 1995.

120 Harold P. Smith, Jr., “Funding CW Demilitarization in 

Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control Today, November/

December 1998. See also, Interview, Dr. Harold P. Smith, Assistant 

secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological 

Programs, 1993-1998, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

Washington, D.C., 14 December 2001.

121 Harold P. Smith, Jr., “Funding CW Demilitarization in 

Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control Today, November/

December 1998.

122 Jonathan B. Tucker, “Russia’s New Plan for Chemical 

Weapons Destruction,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2001. 

123 Peter Eisler, “Plan to destroy Russian weapons nears 

collapse.” USA Today, October 1, 2002.

124 Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

reduction Implementation Plan, 1998, pp. IV-39.

125 Ibid., IV-38-39. See also, Report DoD, CTR Policy Office, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, Fiscal Year 

2000, pp. IV-46-48. 

126 Interview, Harold P. Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

December 2001.

127 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, Fiscal Year 2001, pp. 50-51.

128 Briefing, Patrick Dowd, Project Manager, CWPF 

Demilitarization, CT Directorate, DTRA, “Chemical Weapons 

Production Facility Demilitarization, Volgograd,” 6 May 2005. See 

also DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Multi-Year Program Plan, Fiscal Year 2000, pp. IV-49-50. 

129 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Multi-Year Program Plan, Fiscal Year 2001, pp. 50-51.

130 Vice Admiral Sarkisov’s remarks are in Report, U.S. 

National Academies Committee and Russian Academy of 

Sciences Committee, “Overcoming Impediments to U.S.-Russian 

Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation,” (National Academies 

Press, 2004), pp. 104-105.

131 Harold P. Smith, Jr., “Funding CW Demilitarization in 

Russia: Time to Share the Burden,” Arms Control Today, November/

December 1998.

132 GAO Report, “Weapons of Destruction: Status of the 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,” September 1996, pp. 

18-24. 

133 These Congressional restrictions are detailed in a report 

by the DoD Office of the Inspector General, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction, Construction Projects, 18 December 2003, p.14. See 

also, DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Multi-Year Program Plan, Fiscal Year 2000, pp. IV-46-50.

134 DoD was unable to obligate any CTR funds for the Chemical 

Weapons Destruction Facility at Schuch’ye from FY 1999 through 

FY 2002 until President Bush certified in December 2002 that 

Russia was in compliance with the Congressional conditions 

imposed in the National Defense Authorization Act of FY2000. See 

report, DoD Report, Office of the Inspector General, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction, Construction Projects, 18 December 2003.

135 GAO Report, “Weapons of Destruction: Efforts to Reduce 

Russian Arsenals may Cost More, Achieve Less than Planned,” April 

1999, pp. 11-16.

136 General Petrov’s quoted in article, see Seth Brugger, “Russia 

to Miss CWC Deadline,” Arms Control Today, May 2000.

137 V.I. Kholstov, Director-general of the Russian Munitions 

Agency, “Destruction of chemical weapons is a vital necessity and 

an issue of mutual concern,” Bulletin of Chemical Disarmament, No. 

1, January 1994.

138 Jonathan B. Tucker, “Russia’s New Plan for Chemical 

Weapons Destruction,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2001, pp. 

9-13.

139 See Tucker, “Russia’s New Plan for Chemical Weapons 

Destruction,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2001, p 12. See 

also, Seth Brugger, “Russia Approves new Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Plan”, Arms Control Today, September 2001, p. 32.

140 Tucker, “Russia’s New Plan for Chemical Weapons 

Destruction,”Arms Control Today, July/August 2001, p 13.

141 Statement by G-8 Leaders, “The Global Partnership Against 

the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” 

Kananaskis, Canada, 27 June 2002 at www.g8.utoronto.ca/

summit/2002kananaskis/arms.html accessed on 15 December 2011.

142 Ibid. David Sanger, “G-8 Adopts Aid package, With Strict 

Conditions”, New York Times, June 28, 2002. 

143 Paul Walker, “LOOKING BACK: Kananaskis at Five: Assessing 

the Global Partnership,” Arms Control Today, September 2007. 

144 Testimony John Bolton, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee, October 9, 2002, cited in article by Richard G. Lugar, 

“The Next Steps in U.S. Nonproliferation Policy,” Arms Control 

Today, December 2002.

145 Fact Sheet G-7/8 Kananaskis Summit, “G8 Summit in 

Kananaskis, Canada, 27 June 2002, at http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020627-8.html

accessed on 15 December 2011. 
301

146 News Brief, “Russia Opens CW Destruction Plant,” Arms 

Control Today, September 2002. See also, Christina Chuen and 

James Martin, Issue Brief: Global CW Assistance, Nuclear Threat 

Initiative, June 2005, at www.nti.org/e_research/e3_62a.html

accessed on 15 December 2011.

147 New Brief, “Chemical Weapons Destruction Begins at 

Gorny,” Arms Control Today, January/February 2003. 

148 Rose Gordon, “Bush Signs 2003 Defense Authorization Act,” 

Arms Control Today, January/February 2003.

149 DoD Report, CTR Policy Office, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress FY2006.

150 Ibid.

151 U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar, “The Next Steps in U.S. 

Nonproliferation,: Arms Control Today, December 2012. 

152 Ibid.

153 Ibid.

154 Ibid. 

303

CHAPTER 10

Redefinition, Realignment and new CTR 

commitments: The Bush – Putin Years

For CTR officials, developments in Russia during the first 

six months of 2002 forced a redefinition and realignment 

of the entire program. In February, the Russian government 

announced that its large supply of excess military rocket 

propellant – approximately 33,000 tons of liquid heptyl 

fuels, and amyl and mélange oxidizers – had been sold to 

an international firm that provided rocket fuels to power 

Russian and other nations’ space launch vehicles. This sale 

meant there were no liquid rocket fuels to process at the 

newly constructed CTR-funded Liquid Propellant Disposition 

Facility at Krasnoyarsk. Since the $95.5 million facility had 

no other function, it would sit empty. In response, Thomas 

Kuenning, CTR Program Director, stopped all contracts, 

immediately.1

 At the same time, Russian officials also advised 

their American counterparts that the Solid Propellant 

Disposition Facility at Votkinsk, another new CTR-funded 

$100 million destruction facility under design, could fail due 

to local political objections and the lack of environmental 

and legal construction permits.2

 So upsetting were these two 

CTR-project failures in the United States that Paul Wolfowitz, 

Deputy Secretary of Defense, directed the department’s 

Inspector General to begin a series of investigations into the 

CTR program’s management and the specific problems at 

Krasnoyarsk and Votkinsk.3

Major difficulties also were developing in two other 

large Russian CTR construction projects. At the CTR-funded 

$400 million Fissile Missile Storage Facility at Mayak there 

were differences between policy officials in the American 

defense and Russian atomic energy departments over the 

facility’s function and future use. American officials wanted 

to know when fissile materials would be loaded into the 

Mayak facility and what amounts of weapons-grade fissile 

materials would be stored there permanently. Russian 

officials refused to sign transparency protocols that required 

periodic reports on the storage facility and granted the U.S. 

the right to perform audit and examination inspections. In 

fact, the Russian ministry did not indicate they would use the 

new $400 million fissile material storage facility at all. Since 

the CTR program had financed the design, construction and 

equipping of the facility, the possibility that the new, modern 

storage site would not be used as intended by Russia was 

disturbing to the Americans.4

 In an attempt to resolve the log 

jam, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz wrote directly to Alexander 

Rumyantsev, Minister of Atomic Energy, requesting a new 

transparency protocol and auditing agreement.5

Another large project, the $1 billion CTR program to 

design, construct and equip a modern Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Facility at Shchuch’ye also encountered obstacles. 

The Russian ministry responsible for this project delayed 

reviewing the American designs and then recommended 

numerous changes. Finally, the ministry failed to pursue new 

Russian laws with the Duma that would protect the massive 

construction project from environmental and liability 

claims. Under current Russian law, the chemical weapons 

disposal facility project was at risk because the local Kurgan 

Oblast government could rescind the land use permits for 

environmental reasons.6

 Consequently, so many issues had 

developed with Russian chemical and nuclear weapons CTR 

programs and they became so intractable that President Bush 

refused to certify to Congress that Russia was in compliance 
304

With Courage and Persistence

with the treaties. As a result, all new CTR contracts were shut 

down across Russia in April 2002.7

These failures, delays and developments with the major 

Russian CTR construction projects had serious consequences 

for the entire program. It would not fail, but the scrutiny of 

the program and projects became intense in both nations. 

The Department of Defense’s Inspector General (IG) sent 

inspectors and auditors to Russia to research the issues, 

interview senior people and make recommendations. 

In the final report, the IG concluded: “DOD could have 

better managed the risk associated with those projects had 

it negotiated implementing agreements that better defined 

Russia’s requirements, thus making Russia more responsible 

for storage and elimination of Russian weapons of mass 

destruction.”8

 The IG recommended negotiating and signing 

new, detailed U.S.-Russian implementing agreements and 

instituting better program management controls to reduce 

risks by CTR program managers working in the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Within that agency, the director 

and program managers began systematically using a 

Defense Department program, the Joint Requirements and 

Implementation Program, for each CTR project. They also 

instituted new integrated process teams to improve planning, 

coordination and project management.9

 In the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, the CTR Policy Office began a major 

review of all programs. A baseline risk assessment of every 

project evaluated areas where the Russian government’s 

“good faith” promises needed to be renegotiated with legal 

commitments.10

In the U.S. Congress, Representative Duncan Hunter 

(R-California), chairman of the House Armed Services 

Committee, held hearings on the CTR program. In his 

opening remarks, Hunter declared, “The CTR program has 

strayed from its original purpose at the same time that deeply 

disturbing instances of mismanagement and negligence are 

emerging.”11 He pointed to the failed projects at Krasnoyarsk 

and Votkinsk. The Bush administration’s representative 

testifying at the hearing countered these charges by restating 

the terrorist threat to the nation. Russia continued to hold 

the single largest stock of WMD in the world, and just 

like the other nations of the region, it could not eliminate 

those weapons alone. Proliferation of these WMD stocks 

Liquid Propellant Disposition Facility, Krasnoyarsk

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
305

represented an opportunity for terrorist groups because the 

entire region had porous borders, which offered the potential 

for illicit transit of WMD materials. J.D. Crouch, Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, ended 

his testimony by stating simply, “The Administration believes 

that it (CTR) is worth the cost.”12

Congress agreed, but in the next CTR program 

authorization, it directed the Secretary of Defense to obtain 

assurances from the Russian government that land and 

environmental permits had been issued before initiating 

major new construction projects. Another new Congressional 

requirement stipulated that the Defense Department had to 

have a manager on-site, if the total CTR project exceeded $50 

million.13 However, the most dramatic change in the program 

had nothing to do with Congress. Instead it came when 

Department of Defense officials instituted new U.S.-Russian 

CTR Executive Review meetings in Moscow in July 2002.

Initial U.S.-Russian Executive Reviews 

In the first of these senior-level meetings, Jim Reid and 

Thomas Kuenning, senior American CTR officials, met with 

Russian program directors and staffs from the Russian Aviation 

and Space Agency, Ministry of Defense, Russian Munitions 

Agency and Ministry of Atomic Energy. The failed CTR project 

at Krasnoyarsk hung over each meeting. The diversion by the 

Russian ministries of 33,000 tons of liquid rocket propellant, 

and the failure to notify the U.S. CTR program directors 

about the diversion undermined the confidence of American 

senior leaders. There were questions about the Russian 

government and its capability to carry out any CTR projects 

in the future. In the Moscow meetings, Reid sought to clarify 

the responsibilities of each Russian ministry by insisting on 

new amendments to the bilateral implementing agreements. 

To institute more cooperative planning, the American policy 

and program managers introduced the Joint Requirements 

and Implementation Program, a method that outlined each 

projects’ assumptions, objectives, schedule and costs, and 

responsibilities of each party.

The Russian directors, Nikolai Shumkov, Directorate 

Chief, Russian Air and Space Administration, General 

Colonel I.N. Valynkin, General Staff, Ministry of Defense, 

Lev D. Ryabev, First Deputy Minister, Minister of Atomic 

Energy, and Zinovy Pak, Director, Russian Munitions 

Administration, agreed on the necessity to negotiate new 

amendments to the CTR implementing agreements. They 

were less certain, depending on the ministry, on the need 

to introduce American management methods into their 

ministries. They agreed to provide more information to the 

American program managers. They wanted to continue all 

CTR programs and agreed to hold semi-annual program 

reviews with U.S. officials in the future. Over the next six 

months, new amendments to the existing implementing 

agreements were negotiated and signed on Strategic Offensive 

Arms Eliminations, Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security, 

Nuclear Weapons Transportation Security, and on assistance 

for the Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility.

G-8 Summit and Nonproliferation

On the larger world stage, Presidents Bush, Putin and the 

other leaders met at the G-8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada 

in June 2002, just weeks before the CTR senior officials met 

in Moscow. In Kananaskis, the leaders of the G-8 nations 

– Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United 

Kingdom and the United States – committed to providing 

up to $20 billion in funds, with $10 billion from the U.S., 

and $10 billion from the other seven nations over the next 

10 years to assist Russia and the other new nations destroy 

their legacy weapons of mass destruction. In the initiative, 

“The G-8 Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and 

Materials of Mass Destruction,” leaders declared the funding 

amounts, years of duration and principle objectives.14 During 

formative discussions, Putin recommended the new fund’s 

first set of objectives be to support WMD reduction programs 

for destruction of Russian chemical weapons, dismantlement 

of decommissioned nuclear submarines, and employment 

of former weapons scientists. All of other leaders agreed. 

In discussions leading to the joint statement, everyone 

acknowledged the successful model of the long-standing 

Major Changes

	 H U.S. - Russian Executive Reviews

	 H G-8 Partnership Against Spread of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction
306

With Courage and Persistence

U.S. Nunn-Lugar CTR programs with Russia. The difference 

this time was that the G-8 leaders included a statement on 

the necessity of preventing terrorists and those who harbor 

them from gaining access to weapons or materials of mass 

destruction.15

The significance of this G-8 statement was manifold. 

Within the U.S. government, it recommitted the Bush 

administration to the ongoing CTR programs with Russia 

and the other nations.16 In the Russian government, it 

committed the Putin government and its ministries to 

working through the issues and problems to fund and 

complete the WMD destruction projects. By the end of 2004, 

the G-8 leaders had secured from their legislatures specific 

financial commitments: Russia ($2 billion), Germany 

($1.8 billion), Italy ($1.2 billion), France ($900 million), 

United Kingdom ($750 million), Canada ($740 million) 

and Japan ($200 million). The European Union and several 

European nations also committed funds to the joint WMD 

initiative: European Union ($1.2 billion), Norway ($120 

million), Finland ($12 million) and smaller commitments 

from Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Poland.17 U.S. 

Senator Richard G. Lugar praised the new commitments: 

“Under the new G-8 agreement, the United States pledged 

to spend at least $10 billion and the other members agreed 

to match this commitment over the next 10 years. In effect, 

‘10+10 Over 10’ will double the resources currently being 

expended in these areas.”18 The issue for the future would be 

turning these commitments into programs and projects and 

actually eliminating the weapons of mass destruction.”

CTR programs with Russia, 2002

By mid-2002, there was an array of CTR programs and 

projects underway with the Russian ministries. In the Strategic 

Offensive Arms Elimination area there were multiple projects 

to eliminate land-based ICBM missiles, silos, road mobile 

Elimination of SLBM launch tubes

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
307

launchers, train launchers, rocket fuels, ancillary equipment, 

strategic bases and submarines, missiles, launchers, and spent 

naval fuels. Another major CTR effort, the Nuclear Weapons 

Safety and Security Program, was working with the Russian 

Ministry of Defense’s 12th Main Directorate to develop 

projects that enhanced security at the national nuclear storage 

sites. In a related area, the Nuclear Weapons Transportation 

Security Program, CTR was funding the movement of nuclear 

warheads by special trains from military operational units 

to the national nuclear storage sites and then on to Russia’s 

permanent storage sites. This program also provided routine 

maintenance and safety enhancements on the specialized 

railcars, which were transporting nuclear warheads across 

Russia.

Two large-scale CTR construction projects, the Fissile 

Materials Storage Facility at Mayak and the Chemical 

Weapons Disposal Facility at Shchuch’ye, were in different 

stages of completion. The CTR program had reallocated 

priorities within its Biological Weapons Proliferation and 

Prevention Programs, developing new biosecurity and 

biosafety projects with five Russian biological institutes: 

Vector in Novosibirsk, SRCAM in Oblensk, Institute for 

Animal Protection in Vladmir, Phytopathology Institute in 

Golitsino, and the Biologics Plant in Pokrov.19

Across Russia the ongoing CTR projects with the 

Russian Aviation and Space Administration had eliminated 

44 submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers, 98 

submarine ballistic missiles, and three nuclear-powered 

ballistic missile submarines. American officials estimated 

that by 2012, the CTR program would fund projects that 

would eliminate 628 submarine ballistic missile launchers, 

712 SLBMs and 40 strategic submarines.20 In the land-based 

missile fields in 2002, CTR-funded projects with Russian 

subcontractors to remove six SS-18 ICBMs from the silos, 

defuel them and then transport them to storage facilities 

for destruction. At the CTR-funded destruction sites, Russia 

destroyed 19 SS-18 and 23 SS-17 ballistic missiles. At a 

Strategic Rocket Forces missile base, 12 SS-18 ICBM silos 

were destroyed. CTR program directors projected that by 

2012, this program would eliminate up to 150 SS-18 missiles, 

130 SS-18 launch silos and 20 launch control centers, and 

97 SS-17 and 178 SS-19 missiles. In addition, the program 

projected that by 2012 it would eliminate 356 SS-25 missiles 

and launchers, 56 SS-24 ICBMs, 77 SS-N-20 SLBM missiles, 

and 39 SS-24 rail mobile launchers.21

During the same year, 2002, the CTR program funded 

the movement of approximately 1,500 nuclear warheads in 

special military railcars on 70 trains from operational bases 

to the Ministry of Defense’s national nuclear storage sites. The 

project manager for the Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security 

Program awarded a contract to Bechtel to initiate hiring 

Russian subcontractors to install comprehensive security 

upgrades, including Quick Fix fencing at nuclear weapons 

storage sites. All of these programs and projects signaled that 

in the first decade of the century, the Department of Defense’s 

CTR program was involved with virtually every aspect of 

the Russian Ministry of Defense’s program for reducing its 

obsolete strategic weapons and securing its warheads and 

nuclear materials. By the end of 2002, the Fissile Material 

Storage Facility at Mayak was 92 percent completed. When 

President Bush certified to Congress in August that Russian 

chemical weapons program had provided the required 

documents and certifications, Russia’s Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Facility at Shchuch’ye underwent final design 

approvals and site preparations. The Biological Weapons 

program set up assessments and new projects with five 

Russian biological institutes.22

For all of these projects, the CTR program obligated $342.2 

million for fiscal year 2002. After the failures at Krasnoyarsk 

and Votkinsk, Jim Reid led a new U.S.-Russian semi-annual 

CTR Executive Review meeting in Moscow Executive Review, 

which instituted stronger oversight for every project in 

Russia.23 At the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), 

the CTR directorate initiated new contracting procedures. To 

allow contracts to be implemented more quickly, the agency 

held an open competition in 2001 and awarded a large 

“indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity” CTR integrating 

Eliminated SLBMs

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
308

With Courage and Persistence

contract to: Bechtel National Services Inc., Kellogg, Brown 

& Root, Parsons Delaware, Inc., Raytheon Technical Services 

Company and Washington Group International, Inc. This 

large-scale $1 billion award allowed DTRA to issue task 

orders to one or more of the contractors whose rates for 

services and goods had been accepted and validated. During 

the first year under this new contract, DTRA reported a 50 

percent reduction in time needed to process a normal CTR 

procurement order.24

In another managerial change, the agency adopted a twophased approach to implementing new CTR construction 

projects. In the first phase, the American integrating 

contractors researched and resolved all of the land 

allocation issues, secured land and environmental permits, 

incorporated all project design changes and resolved all other 

pre-construction issues. Only after completion of these tasks 

would the second phase, actual construction, begin.25 Another 

managerial change improved communications for the CTR 

project managers. Before these changes, DTRA managers 

working in Russia, Ukraine and the other nations had to rely 

on antiquated national communications systems. During 

2002 and 2003, DTRA invested in new communications 

systems, both telephone and internet, that improved project 

managers’ ability to report data electronically and to provide 

situational awareness of the CTR programs and projects 

across Russia and the other regional nations.

During the year, DTRA’s program management teams 

conducted 140 trips to Russia and other nations’ project sites. 

Team size depended on the project and issues – but day-in, 

ICBM missile stage during elimination

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Eliminated SS-N-20 SLBMs

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
309

day-out – there were 40 or more CTR team members in Russia 

in 2002.26 Finally, CTR Director Kuenning instituted a new 

system of implementation metrics to gauge performance 

of key CTR program indicators. Each quarter, these metrics 

became the measuring rods for the directorate’s senior 

managers as they reviewed every program and project. In 

addition to these internal performance metrics, DOD sent CTR 

program audit and evaluation teams to Russia and Ukraine. 

They conducted 14 inspections of “any material, training or 

other services” provided under the CTR agreements. In 2002, 

the CTR program did not meet its implementation metrics 

for the year, principally due to the delay by the president 

in certifying approval to Congress on the Russian chemical 

weapons destruction effort. Also, five U.S. requests for audit 

and evaluation inspections of Russian projects had to be 

cancelled, due to the absence of legal auditing arrangements 

with the Ministries of Atomic Energy and Defense.27

In December 2002, President Bush signed and published 

a new National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass 

Destruction.28 In this document, the president declared that 

weapons of mass destruction located in nations hostile to 

the United States or in terrorist groups represented one of the 

greatest security challenges to the nation. The new national 

strategy had three pillars: counterproliferation to combat 

the use of weapons of mass destruction; strengthened 

nonproliferation programs to combat WMD proliferation; 

and consequence management to respond to any WMD use. 

A number of traditional measures fell under the second pillar: 

arms control treaties, diplomacy, multilateral agreements, 

threat reduction programs and export controls. Within a 

matter of months, Department of Defense officials had 

realigned the CTR program’s main objectives to incorporate 

the Bush administration’s new national WMD strategy.29 For 

the next six years the CTR program’s objectives followed one 

of four objectives. 

Objective 1: Dismantle the former Soviet Union nation’s 

WMD and associated infrastructure.

Objective 2: Consolidate and secure the former Soviet 

Union nations’ WMD and related technology and 

materials.

Objective 3: Increase transparency and encourage higher 

standards of conduct.

Objective 4: Support defense and military cooperation 

with the objective of preventing proliferation.

Re-scoping the CTR Program

In March 2003 the CTR policy office in the Pentagon 

initiated a six-month, detailed, project-by-project review 

of every program and project to make certain it addressed 

the new threats associated with the administration’s war 

on terrorism. Known as “re-scoping,” this review used 

evaluation criteria established by Lisa Bronson, Deputy 

Undersecretary of Defense for Defense Technology 

Security Policy and Counterproliferation, and Jim Reid, 

Director of the CTR Policy Office. As they reevaluated all 

CTR projects with Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and 

the other nations, they asked several questions: Did the 

CTR projects contribute to WMD threat reductions? Did the 

projects support the global war on terrorism? Were they the 

best value for taxpayer’s money? What were the Russian and 

other government’s current stake and future responsibility 

for these projects? When the review was completed in 

CTR provided crane eliminating ICBMs

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Two-phased CTR contracts

1. Land issues, land permits, design and plans, 

preconstruction issues

2. Actual construction contracts
310

With Courage and Persistence

August, they briefed the revised program to department 

leaders and then to the Bush administration’s National 

Security Council’s committees. They then presented it to 

the Russian government’s ministries in November. All CTR 

projects were revalidated, with some important program 

adjustments. When Bronson testified to Congress in the 

fall, she explained the changes.30

In the area of eliminating Russian liquid-fuel missiles, 

Bronson explained that the CTR program would not regrade 

the SS-18 silo sites on the Strategic Rocket Forces missile bases. 

This action was no longer a part of CTR’s core threat reduction 

mission, and instead it should be assumed by Russia. With 

the Russian Navy, the rescoping review determined that CTR 

would not eliminate any more decommissioned SS-N-20 

missiles unless the Russian Navy nominated more strategic 

nuclear submarines to be dismantled. In explaining this 

decision, Bronson said that one of the CTR program’s policy 

objectives was to eliminate both the submarine’s missiles 

and launchers. In carrying out dismantlement of strategic 

submarines, she stated that the CTR projects would continue 

to fund defueling nuclear submarines, sealing the reactors, 

and eliminating the missile launcher’s compartments. It 

would not, however, pay for cutting up the submarine’s bows 

and sterns, and she recommended that this dismantlement 

work be done by Russian shipyards. Another CTR project, 

funding construction of large storage casks that stored 

radioactive spent naval fuels, would continue but the project 

would not transport the storage casks to the new fissile 

materials storage facility at Mayak. Bronson explained there 

was sufficient storage capacity at the Russian shipyards, 

making the transportation unnecessary. 

In the large Nuclear Weapons Security and Transportation 

program all but two projects were revalidated. The personnel 

reliability and emergency response support programs were 

to be turned over the Russia. In Ukraine, Bronson explained 

that as a result of the review, they had decided to cancel the 

CTR project that would have converted the solid fuel in 163 

SS-24 rocket motors into a mining explosive material. The 

pilot project in Ukraine was over budget and faced risks of 

cost escalation. The CTR policy office pledged to continue 

funding the storage of SS-24 rocket motors in warehouses 

in Pavlograd, and it offered the Ukrainian government a less 

expensive, more direct way of elimination.

Bronson announced that in Ukraine there were three 

other CTR projects that would be cancelled since they 

were infrastructure dismantlement projects that no longer 

supported the program’s central threat reduction mission. 

In addition, Bronson stated that the CTR policy office 

would transfer responsibility in Russia for selected nuclear 

weapons storage site projects from Department of Defense 

to the Department of Energy. Finally, she explained that 

the department’s re-scoping review of CTR programs and 

projects in Russia and Ukraine had reduced Congressional 

obligations by $185 million over the next five years. That 

money would be reallocated to other CTR projects, or sent to 

the Energy Department for its work on the nuclear weapons 

storage projects.31

During the re-scoping review two new programs emerged, 

Bronson told the Congressional committee. The first, the 

Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention program, was 

an important new initiative by the United States to work 

with the new nations in Eurasia: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, 

Georgia and Ukraine. It sought to develop bilateral biosafety 

and biosecurity programs that would secure the former 

Soviet biological weapons institutes and their dangerous 

pathogens. A few years before, mysterious letters lined with 

anthrax had been sent to U.S. elected officials in Washington, 

Lisa Bronson

National Defense University
311

D.C. Five Americans died, 17 were injured, and there was 

widespread speculation the anthrax attacks were linked to 

the terrorist group, al Qaeda. Simultaneously in Afghanistan, 

U.S. military forces found plans for bioterrorism attacks in al 

Qaeda terrorist camps. Two years later in 2003, ricin labs were 

located in Chechnya, Russia.32 The presence of biological 

weapons in Russia was not a surprise to experts. Bronson told 

the committee, “We estimate that there are approximately 40 

institutes that were part of the Soviet BW program.”33

During the Soviet Union’s existence, it had created the 

largest, and deadliest, biological weapons program in the 

world, involving 30–40,000 specialists. Although Russia 

inherited many of these facilities, biological weapons labs 

and former production facilities existed in other nations as 

well. For more than a decade, American Nunn-Lugar CTR 

policy officials and their Russian partners had discussed 

cooperative programs, but they had developed only a few 

programs for assisting the biological laboratories. That 

changed with the rise of international terrorism.

Following the anthrax attacks on Washington, D.C., 

Congress enacted new funding for CTR’s biosecurity and 

biosafety programs in 2002 and in subsequent years. Andrew 

Weber, CTR policy office, planned and oversaw new biological 

infrastructure projects in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan 

and Georgia. Weber worked closely with Michael A. Balady, 

CTR biological program manager at DTRA and his staff in 

developing new programs and projects. In Russia, the CTR 

program developed biosecurity and biosafety projects with 

research institutes and laboratories. Some projects dismantled 

and decontaminated selected buildings at former Russian 

BW complexes. Weber explained the U.S. policy objects in 

these years: “Initially we were concerned with proliferation 

to states like Iran that were suspected of pursuing biological 

weapons programs. Then, certainly, after 9/11 we were much 

Vozrozhdeniye Island, Uzbekistan

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
312

With Courage and Persistence

more concerned with the leakage of materials, pathogens and 

expertise to potential terrorist groups.”34 Other cooperative 

projects were already underway, dismantling a large former 

anthrax production facility at Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan 

and planning to decontaminate and dismantle a dual-use 

laboratory capable of producing viral animal pathogens at 

Biokombinat, Georgia. Finally, a CTR project team collected 

and destroyed 165 tons of abandoned anthrax materials on 

Uzbekistan’s Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea. There 

were also several projects to develop cooperative biological 

research programs with the scientists working in the research 

institutes and laboratories.35

The second new program, the Weapons of Mass 

Destruction Proliferation Prevention Initiative was 

designed to assist Eurasian and Central Asian nations 

in preventing, detecting, deterring and seizing illicit 

trafficking of weapons of mass destruction by placing 

new radiation detection technologies at border crossing 

points, instituting training programs and developing 

joint procedures. These new programs complemented the 

American wars being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. A 

senior official from the Defense Department, Lisa Bronson, 

told Congress that through this program, “[DOD] intends 

to build capacities of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan 

and Ukraine to stem the potential proliferation of WMD.”36

The program began with negotiating and signing of bilateral 

legal documents, designated as framework agreements. 

In October 2003, the United States and Uzbekistan 

officials signed the first WMD framework agreement and 

then in January 2004, the two nation’s defense officials 

signed a similar bilateral framework agreement. U.S. CTR 

program officials began negotiating with Kazakhstani and 

Ukrainian officials requirements for new legal bilateral 

WMD agreements. In every case, the CTR objective was to 

provide funding, managerial support, equipment, training 

and other necessary items to help develop a self-sustaining 

capability within these nations to monitor and prevent the 

trafficking of WMD materials across the borders.37

One element in this new initiative was to establish 

a Caspian Sea WMD maritime interdiction cooperative 

project. This CTR program provided surveillance radars, 

boarding and maritime interdiction equipment, including 

small vessels, to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to build up their 

capability to police maritime borders against attempts at 

illicit WMD smuggling. Program managers worked on a fiveyear time period for creating these new national capabilities. 

Although the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation 

Prevention Initiative was not a security assistance program, 

DOD coordinated its planning and projects with other U.S. 

agencies to develop a strategic plan for export controls and 

border security assistance to these nations. In FY2003 and 

FY2004, the CTR program director requested $40 million 

from Congress for this initiative.38

To these new programs, the Bush administration added 

its “appreciation” to Congress for its grant of new authority 

to the president to use up to $50 million annually, to be 

taken from existing appropriations, for projects in nations 

that were outside of the states in the former Soviet Union. By 

2004 this provision had funded a new CTR project in Albania 

to collect and eliminate obsolete chemical weapons. In 

February 2004, President Bush called for an expansion of the 

G-8 “Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of 

Mass Destruction” program to counter proliferation threats 

worldwide.39 Bush spoke about retraining WMD scientists 

and technicians based in Iraq and Libya, and the need to 

secure and eliminate WMD and radiological materials across 

the world. To support President Bush’s new G-8 proposal, 

Department of Defense officials urged Congress “to maintain 

the new [transfer] authority.”40

When one considers the re-scoping evaluations done in 

the Pentagon on traditional weapons reduction and security 

projects, together with new biological security programs 

and the new WMD-proliferation prevention initiative, and 

expansion of the effort outside the former Soviet Union, 

Ship provided to Azerbaijan under the Caspian Sea WMD maritime interdiction cooperative project

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
313

it meant that the Department of Defense’s CTR program 

had been redefined by 2005. Its policy objectives had been 

realigned with President Bush’s national strategy to combat 

weapons of mass destruction. Its policy and programs 

constituted an important part of U.S. commitment to the 

G-8 “Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of 

Mass Destruction.” Its new programs, especially biological 

and WMD initiatives, had become a part of President Bush’s 

global war on terrorism. Russian ministries were briefed 

on these changes and new executive reviews had been 

established between the Defense Department and specific 

Russian ministries.

Cooperative team meetings were set up for each project 

and new managerial formats agreed on for bilateral 

program reviews. With exception of the nuclear weapons 

safety and security program, which Presidents Bush and 

Putin accelerated at a summit in Bratislava, Slovakia in 

February 2005, Congress, with the leadership of Senator 

Lugar, funded the CTR programs at continuing levels. 

All other CTR projects remained in effect and continued 

to eliminate Russia’s obsolete strategic weapons, secure 

its weapons storage sites, transport its nuclear weapons 

and materials, construct its chemical weapons disposal 

sites, and then in other regional nations plan and develop 

biological collection, safety and security projects, and 

develop the capability to prevent the movement of WMD 

across borders and seas.

New rationalization for the CTR program

Rationalization of the CTR program’s managerial 

structure and philosophy within the Defense Department 

constituted another major change. Following the failures 

at Krasnoyarsk and Votkinsk, Paul Wolfowitz directed the 

DOD Inspector General to investigate the CTR program.41

At the same time, Congressional committees directed 

GAO investigators to conduct a series of investigations 

of the program. Within a year, there were more than 

20 investigations of the contracting and managerial 

performance of the CTR program.42 Most of the DOD 

investigations concluded that the department should have 

established better managerial systems to monitor and 

control the projects in Russia and the other nations. Stephen 

Younger, director of DTRA, and Thomas Kuenning, senior 

CTR program officer, launched an initiative to change the 

department’s oversight of the program’s implementation. 

Younger believed that the Department of Defense’s CTR 

policy office had micromanaged implementation of all 

the programs, and he persuaded Michael Wynne, Under 

Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Training, and Logistics 

(AT&L) and Dale Kline, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense to change the 

department’s managerial structure, placing DTRA’s CTR 

implementation program under Patrick J. Wakefield, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical Demilitarization 

and Threat Reduction. This change was significant since 

Wakefield was a senior acquisitions manager, and would 

demand that DTRA’s CTR program directors and managers 

establish and follow a far more rigorous formal acquisition 

process in planning, reviewing, approving and managing 

new and existing projects.43

As a result of these changes, the Defense Department 

restructured its responsibilities for the policy and 

implementation of the CTR program. Henceforth, the CTR 

policy office would provide strategic policy guidance that 

defined the program’s objectives, scope and direction. It 

would develop long-range planning documents, provide 

policy oversight, and engage in CTR policy discussions and 

meetings with the recipient states, including negotiating and 

signing implementing agreements. The CTR policy office, in 

coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 

was responsible for interaction with Congress, contacts and 

briefings to the National Security Council staff, and contacts 

with other Executive departments and agencies, and for 

public affairs.44

By contrast, Wakefield provided strategic implementation 

guidance and acquisition oversight for the CTR program to 

DTRA. He was also responsible for managing acquisition 

contracts and management of funds through all phases of 

implementing programs and projects.45 DTRA provided 

five people to work with Deputy Assistant Wakefield on 

oversight and management of the CTR program. At the 

same time at DTRA, CTR Director Kuenning reorganized 

the CTR directorate, establishing two new divisions: one for 

Chemical Weapons Elimination and the other for Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Prevention. Within the directorate, 

people were assigned to the biological division, a new WMDproliferation prevention division, and a program integration 

division. In September 2003, when Kuenning departed, 

Younger appointed John T. Byrd, a senior executive manager, 
314

With Courage and Persistence

as the new director. Working together, Wakefield and Byrd 

developed a new CTR project development and management 

process.46

The new process began with introduction of the 

Department of Defense’s acquisition discipline methods 

for developing and managing large-scale construction or 

weapons systems elimination programs. The model relied 

on a senior manager who would be the milestone decision 

authority. That person would use a formal review system 

to approve all aspects of the program managers’ estimates 

on the planning, integration, contracting and performance 

for every project. Cost, schedule and performance were the 

three important criteria in every CTR project and program. 

To these criteria, the milestone decision review method 

added the task of defining risks in every program. The 

designated milestone decision authority official provided 

oversight to every CTR project, approved every program, 

and monitored every aspect of the acquisition and 

implementation strategy. He had the power to withhold 

approval if the project was at risk of failure. Normally, at 

DTRA the CTR Director would be the milestone decision 

authority for most of the programs. However, because the 

project to construct the CW destruction facility in Russia 

was on the White House critical list, as well as a few other 

CTR projects, Wakefield became the decision authority. “I 

am the milestone decision authority,” Wakefield explained, 

“for the chemical weapons destruction program, the 

biological weapons destruction program and the weapons 

of mass destruction proliferation prevention.”47

Instituting New Managerial Systems

Another process designed to improve program 

management was introduction of the department’s Integrated 

Product and Process Development system at the beginning 

of all new cooperative projects. Normally, the CTR project 

manager identified all of the project’s direct interest groups, 

such as local government entities, military commands, 

general and sub-contractors, and the major bureaucratic 

institutions. Then, he would set up meetings with these 

groups and invite them to review the project periodically. 

At the initial 2004 meetings in Russia, the American project 

managers explained the new ground rules. They identified 

all parties and their relationship to the project, and then 

explained the project’s cost, schedule and performance 

objectives. In follow-up meetings, the project was reviewed 

and new issues surfaced. The project manager’s objective was 

to introduce and sustain transparency and reduce risk.48

Congress directed the Defense Department to institute 

a third path to institute new managerial oversight. In the 

CTR authorization bill for FY2004, Congress established a 

requirement to place on-site managers at Russian and other 

nations’ CTR projects involving dismantlement, destruction, 

storage or construction sites where investment was 

projected to exceed $50 million. Wakefield appointed onsite managers for the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination (SOAE) projects and for the Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Facility construction project in Shchuch’ye. Byrd 

recommended setting up on-site managers for the Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Programs in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and 

Tbilisi, Georgia. By 2006, these new managers were identified, 

trained and sent to work in Russia, Uzbekistan and Georgia.49

Defense Department officials also worked with the five 

large American corporations that were CTR Integrating 

Contract contractors to develop and institute an independent 

validation process to measure the efficiency of their costs 

and projected schedules. These companies worked with 

Russian subcontractors to carry out the actual work in 

dismantling missiles and launchers, destroying bombers, 

securing nuclear storage sites, moving nuclear materials by 

trains and constructing the chemical weapons destruction 

facility. Wakefield thought that integrating contractors were 

helpful for “a couple of reasons.” Russian contractors did 

the actual work as subcontractors to these large American 

corporations. That relationship, he explained, was “formal 

John T. Byrd, Senator Richard G. Lugar, Irene Nehonov and 

Andrew Weber

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
315

and legal” but by having an American corporation serving 

as on-site manager, it provided “surveillance” over the work 

being done in the field. Working with the Defense Contract 

Management Agency, the integrating contractors established 

an earned value management system that allowed agency 

auditors to put into place a routine system for monitoring 

data on the projects’ cost and schedule efficiency. Developing 

and instituting these systems took several years. By 2007 

three of the five corporations had contractor systems which 

had been validated. In that year, the Defense Department 

developed a two-week management training course that 

taught acquisition planning, program management and 

contract management. It emphasized the earned value 

management systems that monitored and evaluated 

contractor performance.50

In the WMD-Proliferation Prevention Initiative department 

managers adopted a spiral development implementation 

strategy. To mitigate risk, the strategy directed that CTR 

program managers implement new projects in incremental 

phases. In 2004, the Department of Defense wanted the CTR 

policy office to build anti-WMD smuggling capacities in four 

nations: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. 

The projected five-year funding estimate for work in all 

of these nations was $150 million. Working with border 

officials in each nation, CTR program managers followed 

the spiral implementation strategy so that each phase would 

focus on developing a particular national capability that 

the recipient nation had to develop to execute a particular 

task. Accordingly, the “Quick Equipment Support Package” 

for Azerbaijan included establishing a joint command 

and control center, repairing and upgrading patrol vessels, 

installing WMD detection equipment, and installing new 

radars and a data network. When this work was completed 

in 2006, meetings with both nations’ program officers 

developed requirements and objectives for the program’s 

next phase. 51

2004 and 2005 U.S-Russian Executive 

Reviews

Before holding formal executive reviews with the four 

Russian ministries, U.S. CTR policy and program leaders 

conducted in Washington, D.C. a full-scale integrated 

program management review of every project being 

implemented across Russia. Led by Pat Wakefield and 

John Byrd, these program review sessions examined in 

detail all issues associated with the cooperative programs 

in nuclear weapons storage and security, nuclear weapons 

transportation, missile and submarine dismantlement and 

destruction, fissile materials storage facility, and the massive 

chemical weapons destruction facility. Wakefield required 

that program managers go through each program in its 

entirety: explaining its cost, schedule, performance, risks 

and issues. “I insisted,” he explained, “that we reveal it to the 

Russians, so that they know how we are measuring it, and 

they know precisely how they are being measured, and we 

were very frank.”52 Byrd was a demanding program manager 

who wanted better results in the projects with his Russian 

counterparts. Both men insisted the U.S. government get its 

money’s worth for its CTR program in Russia.

As the meeting with the Russian Ministry of Defense 

opened in Moscow, Byrd explained to Colonel General I.N. 

Valynkin, Chief, 12th Main Directorate, Russian General 

Staff, that the American program managers would discuss 

implementation assumptions, issues and risks in a “frank and 

open” way. Since there were more projects in Russia than the 

CTR program could pay for, Byrd said the managerial reviews 

were a way to influence decisions to cut work or cut back 

on some projects, jointly. General Valynkin responded that 

there were lots of points of contact and common ground. 

“With a better relationship,” Valynkin declared, “we are able 

to resolve issues, because with personal relationships, one 

can always find resolution.”53

When American program managers, Hunter Lutinski, 

Mark West and Lt. Colonel Zane Mitchell, briefed specific 

programs they discussed the American managerial concepts 

of baseline, milestone decision authority, objectives 

regarding cost, schedule and technical performance, 

thresholds, acquisition discipline and accountability. They 

explained all of the nearly 40 projects underway across 

Russia, using color codes to measure the level of risk in each 

program. For instance, when Lutinski reviewed his largest 

CTR project, the projected five-year $225 million nuclear 

weapons storage sites enhancement program, he explained 

to General Valynkin and his senior staff officers the major 

risk factors were requirements growth, infrastructure scope, 

inflation and the changing criteria for exiting the program.54

They responded, citing recent meetings between Major 

General M.V. Starodubtsev and Colonel A.V. Adveev with 

the American project manager and his staff that determined 
316

With Courage and Persistence

the performance parameters for each project at the nuclear 

weapons storage site. They established the probability of 

detection after installation of the security equipment and 

devices.55

Lt. Colonel Mitchell briefed the senior officers at 

integrated program management review on the American 

project to design, construct and equip the Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Facility at Shchuch’ye to General Victor Kholstov, 

Deputy Director, Rosprom, and his staff.56 When the long 

review began, Reid, Wakefield and Byrd stressed that the 

U.S. government would not fund the Russian CW assistance 

program beyond $1.039 billion. They insisted the U.S. 

wanted a joint schedule, and that it planned to turn over the 

completed CW destruction facility to the Russian government 

in December 2008.57 Then Mitchell explained the large 

construction project’s “rebaselining” estimates as of February 

2004, the need for an agreed upon joint schedule, the projected 

level of funding, the requirements for a new laboratory and 

the specialist’s camp, the configuration’s management plans, 

and a date for transfer of custody. Next, Paul Wojciechowski, 

project manager at Parsons Delaware, Inc., spoke about a 

series of problems: site access, visa approvals, and the need 

for daily communication with Russian managers at the site. 

General Kholstov and Colonel Victor I. Serbin challenged 

the American managers on most of these issues, demanding 

specifics and maintaining their authority to manage the 

large-scale Russian project. The exchange was lively, with the 

Russian ministers defending their Moscow-based managerial 

systems and the Americans insisting on greater on-site 

coordination.58

What these new U.S.-Russian Executive Review meetings 

did was explain the data from American program managers 

to senior-level Russian ministers. By including the U.S. CTR 

program directors Wakefield and Byrd, the bilateral briefings 

and discussions covered all aspects of the projects: current 

managerial systems, metrics for measuring progress, schedule, 

costs, problems, issues and even some recommended 

solutions. The lengthy, complex briefings were conducted 

in Russian and English, with translations of the discussions. 

Usually, they lasted one-half to three-fourths of a day. The 

briefings and discussions did not seek to change the Russian 

ministries’ structure or command lines. These ministries 

had their set of laws, administrative procedures, and 

missions and programs to carry out. Instead, they focused 

on the CTR projects and issues that needed to be resolved 

to ensure completion on schedule. Colonel Richard Green 

served during these years as the chief of DTRA’s office in the 

U.S. Embassy-Moscow. Attending these meeting, Greene 

observed, “Those are serious roll-up-your-sleeve [meetings]. 

I mean there are points in there that are discussed that are 

very, very focused, very pointed: This has got to happen.”59

On some CTR projects, Defense Department and Russian 

ministry leaders had been meeting and working on the same 

issues for more than 10 years. Most of those meetings, led in 

recent years by Jim Reid, focused on policy and agreement 

issues. At the sites, U.S. and Russian program managers 

worked within the bilateral implementing agreements, often 

with difficulty. The addition of these program briefings to 

the bilateral Executive Review meetings in Moscow was an 

attempt by American senior managers to explain to Russian 

ministry leaders the American processes for managing the 

project’s commitments and assumptions. They wanted to 

discuss the most serious issues and problems. In the days 

before and after these Executive Review meetings, there was 

a series of side meetings between senior leaders of both 

nations. During the Executive Review meetings themselves, 

there were executive sessions to discuss sensitive items. 

Colonel Green explained that the discussions followed the 

line: “If we are going to work together, if we’re going to get 

this done, this has got to happen. What do we do to help 

the Russian Federation make this happen?”60 Wakefield 

recognized the Russian ministerial leaders worked in “a 

different system,” but he thought the program management 

reviews had gone well. “They knew,” he said, “what the 

agenda was, ... they were fully prepared and engaged to 

discuss the issues at hand, and recognized how we look at 

a program, [which] was absolutely consistent with the DOD 

model for acquisition management.”61

Did it work? Certainly, the reviews outlined the American 

CTR projects and identified the issues. Russian ministerial 

leaders listened, questioned, discussed, agreed and disagreed 

on specific issues, and ended every executive review with 

a commitment to meet again within six months. In fact 

bilateral meetings resumed in November 2005 and the 

two nation’s ministerial leaders met twice in 2006, 2007 

and 2008. On each occasion, the meetings began with the 

American CTR program managers’ review of each project’s 

integrated program management plan, which included 

references to the joint requirements implementation plan 

and the working integrated process teams. Issues surfaced, 
317

objectives were discussed and a schedule was announced. 

While not every project ran smoothly or even met the 

projected schedule, these meetings helped focus attention on 

the actual projects, their implementation and completion. 

American CTR program managers like Donald Holcomb 

recognized their value. “Every time that you are dealing with 

the Russian government,” Holcomb recalled, “the issue is to 

primarily figure out how to implement more effectively or 

more efficiently the program or product you are working on. 

So it’s imperative that you have these communications with 

the other government .... We don’t do anything without their 

understanding and support in their country. They don’t get 

anything from us without our government’s support.”62

At one meeting in Moscow, John Byrd explained, “This 

is part of a larger effort across the CTR program to improve 

our management.”63 Here, Byrd meant incorporation of 

DOD acquisition management methodology into the 

management of every CTR project in Russia, Ukraine, 

Kazakhstan and other nations. By December 2006, Byrd’s 

portfolio included 10 major CTR programs and 35 projects. 

More than 200 federal and contract employees worked at 

managing the annual $350 million CTR program.64 At the 

agency, Byrd developed a range of formal training courses to 

help project managers and staffs acquire knowledge of the 

multiple managerial acquisition systems needed to direct the 

CTR projects. All program and project managers and support 

staff had to take these courses:

n Project Management 

n Risk Management

n International Negotiations

n Systems Engineering

n Budget and Fund Management

n Technical Evaluations

n Cost Estimating

n CTR Regulatory Environment/Sustainment

n Safety and Awareness

While training had always been a part of DTRA’s CTR 

program, Byrd elevated it to a much higher and more 

intensive level. From 2005 through 2009, he required 

every CTR person to train in one of these courses for two 

weeks a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. Byrd 

also instituted international training courses with project 

managers and contracting officials in the Russian ministries.

As the principal CTR program implementer, Byrd 

responded to Wakefield’s demand and submitted detailed 

monthly reports about each project’s status in every nation. 

Although Wakefield resigned in the fall 2005, Douglas 

England, his replacement, kept the same managerial 

philosophy for oversight of CTR program implementation 

within the U.S. government, and for transparency in 

program implementation with the Russian ministries. 

Gradually, the perception and reality of managing CTR 

program implementation changed. Within the Department 

of Defense and the Russian ministries, there was a sense that 

the American program was being managed in a stronger, 

more disciplined way. 

Bush-Putin Bratislava Summit and 

accelerating CTR projects for Russian 

Nuclear Security 

When Presidents Bush and Putin met in Bratislava, 

Slovakia in February 2005, they signed a joint statement 

declaring, “The United States and Russia will enhance 

cooperation to counter one of the gravest threats our 

two countries face, nuclear terrorism.”65 They stated that 

their two nations would continue their “cooperation on 

security upgrades of nuclear facilities” and develop a plan 

for work through and beyond 2008 on “joint projects.” 

The impetus for the American willingness to support the 

projects stemmed in large part from a National Intelligence 

Council report published in November 2004. The Council 

concluded that “risks remains” that terrorists could seize 

weapons or materials from Russia, and they expressed doubt 

that the Russian government could install and sustain the 

U.S. provided security upgrades currently being provided 

under the CTR program.66 The key element embedded in 

the Bush-Putin statement was for the two governments to 

plan, install and sustain security upgrades across Russia by 

December 2008. It established a new bilateral group, the 

Special Interagency Group, chaired by the U.S. Secretary of 

American CTR effort (2006)

	 H 10 major programs

	 H 35 different projects
318

With Courage and Persistence

Energy and the Russian Rosatom director that would oversee 

implementation of this cooperative effort and make periodic 

reports to each president and government.67

In the next few months, the Russian Ministry of Defense 

identified to U.S. officials those nuclear weapons storage 

sites that needed security upgrades. The U.S. government 

agreed to work with the Russian ministry and upgrade 15 

storage sites – eight to be accomplished through DOD’s CTR 

program, and seven by the Department of Energy’s program. 

Energy Department officials already had some experience 

working on similar security projects with the Russian Navy. 

Together they had succeeded in completing rapid security 

upgrades at 42 naval warhead storage sites by 2003, and had 

instituted programs to complete comprehensive security 

improvements at every site by the end of 2005. In addition, 

Russian Navy and the U.S. Energy Department officials had 

developed procedures for cooperation, including access to 

sensitive sites, and procedures for final observations of the 

contracted work. In 2005, the Russian Ministry of Defense 

requested that Department of Energy provide security 

upgrades at some of the Strategic Rocket Forces storage sites. 

As a result, the Department of Energy became part of the U.S. 

government’s plans for enhancing security at the Russian 

Ministry of Defense’s nuclear weapons storage sites agreed to 

in the Bratislava Agreement.68

Before Lutinski, the American CTR program manager, 

arrived in Moscow in June 2005, he had developed cost 

estimates for the accelerated project. In Washington, Reid and 

Lutinski had briefed the project and its costs to the National 

Security Council’s interagency committee, the Vice President’s 

staff and Senator Lugar’s key staffers.69 The NSC staff divided 

the large scale project into two parts, one for the Defense 

Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program, and 

the other for Department of Energy’s International Material 

Protection and Cooperation program. Lutinski estimated 

that DOD’s cost for accelerating the project would be $44 

million. The Bush administration inserted that figure into a 

supplemental budget request and in 2006 Congress approved 

it. Lutinski, Reid and Byrd met in Moscow with the Russian 

General Staff officers and developed the requirements and 

standards for the security upgrades outlined in the Bratislava 

Initiative.70

At the program management level, work began with a 

series of negotiations in Moscow between Reid, Lutinski, 

and Major General Mikhail Vasilyevich Starodubstev, Deputy 

Chief, 12th Main Directorate and their staffs. Working together, 

U.S. President George W. Bush and and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the signing of the Bratislava Agreement in Slovakia, 2005

RIA Novosti
319

they developed a basic “zero” design package for each of three 

different types of Russian security sites and the types of security 

equipment, facilities and training standards that would be 

included. They went over the rules needed to employ Russian 

firms as subcontractors, and estimated a rough working 

schedule for starting and completing the security upgrades. 

General Starodubstev was interested in the U.S. CTR program 

maintaining its funding for rail transportation of nuclear 

warheads and components from the missile field regiments 

and divisions to the national nuclear warhead storage sites. 

Connected with that effort was a commitment by the CTR 

program to fund construction of up to 100 new cargo railcars 

and 64 new armored security vehicles to transport warheads 

from the field sites to the rail transfer points.71

Starodubstev and Lutinski began negotiations by 

working out a mutual understanding of the scope of work. 

The Russian-American negotiating teams established three 

“site zero” security model enhancements for three different 

types of nuclear security storage configurations: a rail transfer 

point, a small nuclear weapons storage area and a large 

national stockpile storage site. Each type had different security 

requirements. Starodubstev and Lutinski recommended that 

the U.S. CTR program contract with Russian subcontracting 

firms to conduct vulnerability assessments of each site and 

to carry out initial site designs for the security upgrades. The 

new equipment at every site would be developed jointly by 

the two teams’ technical experts. Lutinski recalled that the 

negotiations were “very technical and complicated,” and that 

the Russian security experts were “excellent.”72

Discussions over each site’s equipment involved defining 

the costs, training and maintenance requirements for the 

command and control systems, the closed circuit television 

systems, interior and exterior detection systems, access 

control systems, vehicle and personnel barrier and access 

delay systems, hazardous and prohibited material detection 

systems, fire and safety systems, and guard force equipment. 

Site security and safety would be augmented with new 

firefighting equipment, armored weapons transport vehicles, 

snow removal units, and site preparation and maintenance 

equipment. Each site would have one access control point 

building and one guard force central control point building 

and an additional mobile guard force building at the larger 

national storage sites. All sites would have the three layers 

of the new security fencing with sensors. Altogether, there 

would be more than 3,000 items of equipment required 

to secure the largest and most complex national nuclear 

weapons storage sites. At times, Lutinski invited Department 

of Energy managers and representatives to the Moscow 

meetings to ensure that the two American bureaucracies, 

defense and energy, were agreeing to acquire and deliver 

the same types of equipment to the sites. Lutinski sought 

to keep the Russian Ministry of Defense’s costs constant 

from a logistical and maintenance perspective. In mid-June 

and mid-November 2005, the American-Russian Executive 

Reviews/Integrated Program Management Reviews were held 

in Moscow. On both occasions, Jim Reid, Pat Wakefield, John 

Byrd, Hunter Lutinski, Colonel General Valynkin, Major 

General Starodubstev and Lieutenant General Anatoly Y. 

Kolomiychenko participated in discussions on the plan and 

status of the large program to accelerate security upgrades for 

the nuclear weapons storage sites.73

In October 2005, a special session of the Joint 

Coordinating Committee met to discuss the final points 

in the U.S.-Russian proposal. U.S. representatives met 

in Moscow with Russian Generals Kolomiychenko and 

Starodubstev and representatives from the Strategic Rocket 

Forces, Russian Navy, and Russian Air Force. In a letter to 

the General Valynkin, Chief, 12th Main Directorate, Jim Reid 

and David Huizenga, his Department of Energy colleague, 

reiterated that the U.S. government would fund accelerated 

security upgrades at 15 storage sites: seven sites would be 

completed by the Department of Energy, and eight by the 

Department of Defense. After they identified the sites, they 

explained the U.S. government’s position on a number of 

issues. Most involved the Russian 12th Main Directorate’s 

requests for rapid security upgrades at other nuclear weapons 

Armored weapons transport vehicle

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
320

With Courage and Persistence

storage sites, new training programs and the necessity 

for constructing a new nuclear security training center in 

the Russian far eastern region. U.S. officials agreed with 

most of these requests, and they pledged to continue the 

CTR program’s financial support for railroad and ground 

transportation of nuclear weapons and materials from the 

operational regiments to the storage depots.74

Following coordination and further discussions, senior 

officials signed new CTR U.S.-Russian implementing 

agreements on June 16, 2006 in Moscow, and the project 

work began.75 Enhancements at the Russian nuclear weapons 

storage sites began with the Raytheon Technical Services 

Corporation serving as the U.S. government’s integrating 

contractor. Since many of the security enhancements 

would be at storage sites in the Russian far eastern region, 

General Valynkin insisted that the CTR program employ a 

Russian firm to serve as its integrating contractor. Aspect 

Conversion, a Russian firm, was hired and began working 

with Raytheon. Then, General Valynkin retired, and Colonel 

General Vladimir Nikolaevich Verkhovtsev, the new Chief, 

12th Main Directorate, insisted on a different managerial 

arrangement that used Russian contractors to work directly 

at the sites and employed no Russian integrating contractor 

at all. The new Russian contractors, Tenzor, Escort Center 

and Eleron, were large industrial corporations with many 

years of experience working with the Ministry of Defense 

and Ministry of Atomic Energy. General Verkhovtsev 

demanded that these firms be funded by the CTR project to 

conduct vulnerability assessments, site designs, equipment 

requirements, site construction and equipment installation. 

U.S. CTR program managers Lutinski and Allison Johnston 

objected, and following several meetings and telephone 

exchanges, General Verkhovtsev agreed to retain the Aspect 

Conversion firm as a part of Raytheon’s managerial team.76

During 2006 two other Russian storage site security 

projects were completed. Assisting the 12th Main Directorate 

in developing, acquiring and installing a new automated 

accounting and inventory system for tracking strategic and 

tactical nuclear weapons destined for dismantlement was 

the Automated Inventory and Control Management System, 

another CTR project. It consisted of acquiring and installing 

new computers, network systems, a proof-of-concept 

facility and two central control points at 16 Russian nuclear 

weapons storage sites. The project manager acquired and 

delivered equipment to Moscow from 1995 to 1998 and 

the Russian directorate had installed it at the nuclear storage 

sites in subsequent years.77 These new systems replaced 

a manual system the 12th Main Directorate used to track 

nuclear weapons slated for destruction. However, when the 

computers began to fail in 2006, the Ministry of Defense 

requested new computers that had more data storage and 

local and wide area network devices. Following installation of 

the new computer equipment, all 16 storage sites and central 

control points were linked into a Ministry of Defense wide 

area network. Then 12th Main Directorate officials requested 

a technological refreshment project be installed at 20 of the 

original sites and new computer systems put in at 13 new 

storage sites. This new request in 2006, identified as AICMS 

II, was approved and negotiations began to determine the 

equipment, interface devices, memory capacity, software and 

training needed to acquire and deliver the new systems.78

The second completed CTR project provided equipment 

and training to the guard forces stationed at nuclear weapons 

storage sites. This project began, at the insistence of the 

Russian 12th Main Directorate leaders, with the American 

equipment and training being tested first at the Russian 

Security Assessment and Training Center at Sergei Posad. 

At that facility, the CTR project manager constructed, using 

local firms, a new maintenance and logistics facility and then 

purchased and delivered 60 small arms training systems and 

three authorizing stations to the Russian center. Following 

testing, the 12th Main Directorate staff became responsible 

for transporting and placing the new systems at the nuclear 

weapons storage sites in the field. This project followed 

the same procedure in locating and equipping 12 CTRprocured live-fire shooting ranges. The program also funded 

operational and maintenance training at the range sites. The 

same project acquired and provided 1,200 radios for guard 

force personnel.79

By mid-year the cooperative U.S.-Russian project to 

accelerate the installation of security enhancements at 

U.S. Department of Energy

	 H Seven sites in Russia

U.S. Department of Defense

	 H Eight sites in Russia
321

eight Russian nuclear weapons storage sites was well 

underway.80 Raytheon had hired the recommended Russian 

subcontractors to initiate work in the field. Vulnerability 

assessments and site designs were underway. The American 

program managers had initiated acquisition of all fencing 

and equipment for the nuclear storage sites. They funded 

transporting the equipment to the various nuclear storage 

sites and developed a program plan, with costs, performance 

measures and a schedule. Then in the following months, 

Lutinski recalled, the schedule began to “slip.”81 Russian 

General Staff directorate officers requested design changes at 

some storage sites. They asked for the construction of new 

buildings or the enlargement of certain existing buildings. 

They also wanted new boilers for specific sites and insisted 

that certain sites needed new water lines and new electrical 

power lines. Senior CTR managers, like John Byrd reviewed 

all of these requests with the Russian 12th Main Directorate 

general officers and certified they were necessary for the longterm sustainment of the storage sites. These approvals and 

the bureaucratic negotiations took time to propose, consider, 

estimate and approve.

By mid-2007, work at all eight of the Russian weapons 

storage sites were up to 60 days behind schedule. By the 

time of the next CTR Executive Review/Integrated Program 

Management Review meetings in November 2007, 

Lutinski was very concerned about growth in the project’s 

requirements, increased costs, the general contractor’s 

performance and the lack of coordination between the 

contractors. He was also concerned about the attitude of the 

Russian military commanders and the lack of cooperation by 

state agencies and military directorates. Because construction 

permits for the sites were received one or two months late, 

actual construction on foundations and buildings did not 

start until September or October. Because of the Russian 

winters, the project’s final schedules and site completions 

were at risk.82

John T. Byrd and Colonel General Vladimir N. Verkhovtsev sign CTR agreement

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
322

With Courage and Persistence

At the meeting, Lutinski told General Verkhovtsev 

that based on past experience Russian general contractors 

performed best “when senior MOD and DTRA leadership 

visited the sites.”83 As a result, Russian contracting firms had 

improved their work and the leadership had identified areas 

that required intervention. Lutinski recommended that two 

teams be formed, one consisting of General Verkhovtsev 

and Director Byrd, the other of General Kolomiychenko and 

himself. Beginning in February 2008, they would travel out 

to the regions, make site visits and review all aspects of every 

project. General Verkhovtsev agreed. These senior-level site 

visits and general contractor reviews produced reports to the 

Russian commanding general on issues requiring immediate 

resolution. 

General Verkhovtsev’s directorate had an enormous 

workload on this project. Not only was the directorate’s 

leadership involved, but there were hundreds of 12th Main 

Directorate nuclear security officers working at sites with the 

general contractors. The directorate had given clearances for 

the general contractors to have up to 150 personnel working 

at the national storage sites, 75 at the smaller sites and 40 

at the rail transfer points. As construction work at the sites 

developed, however, Lutinski concluded that the general 

contractors did not manage closely the subcontractors’ 

productivity at the storage sites. Schedules slipped, costs 

increased.84 In December 2007, a new coordinated schedule 

for the final eight sites was signed by representatives from the 

12th Main Directorate and the general contractors, Raytheon 

and Aspect Conversion. Yet despite this new schedule, work 

schedules at the storage site continued to slip due to the 

general contractor’s poor labor mobilization and the slow 

transfer of acquired equipment.85

Into this situation stepped a Russian subcontractor, Aspect 

Conversion. In the final six months before the project’s 

deadline of December 2008, this firm sent its engineers, 

technicians and managers to every weapons storage site 

where they pressured the Russian general contractors and 

subcontractors to step up and complete the work. The 12th

Main Directorate supported the Russian firm’s actions. 

Lutinski also went to Russia frequently, pressing Raytheon and 

Aspect Conversion to complete all the sub and main projects 

by the end of December. Late in that month, Byrd and Lutinski 

returned to Russia to make a final inspection. Lutinski, a small 

team of inspectors and Russian escorts flew out to the final 

nuclear weapons storage site in Russia’s far eastern region. 

Lutinski recalled “there was nothing out there; it was difficult 

terrain; it was extremely cold, perhaps 40 below zero, and we 

did an inspection of the perimeter fencing ... outside. On the 

American team, the inspectors’ tears froze on their faces.”86

Following the inspection, local Russians living and working at 

the site treated the American and Russian teams to a banquet, 

prepared by the wives of post’s officers. It was December 31, 

2008; the project was completed.

While these final inspections were going on, at the White 

House, President Bush praised completion of the U.S.-

Russian effort to improve security and accountability of 

nuclear weapons and materials.87 That same month, Secretary 

of Energy Samuel S. Bodman flew to Moscow for a series of 

meetings with all of the Russian and American ministries 

and agencies to develop the Bratislava Nuclear Security 

Report.88 Bodman stated the work had made “an enormous 

contribution to global security.”89 Some cooperative work, 

specifically the conversion of Russian research reactors to 

use fuel with low-enriched uranium would take longer, 

but Bodman said it would be completed by 2010. Secretary 

Hunter Lutinski

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
323

Bodman and Director Sergei Kiriyenko, Russian Atomic 

Energy Ministry, presented the report to Russian President 

Dmitry Medvedev on December 25.90 At DTRA, Director 

James A. Tegnelia stated in a press release that, “accelerating 

this work (nuclear weapons storage sites) two years ahead 

of what had been scheduled, required a massive effort, and 

a great deal of coordination and cooperation among the 

parties involved.”91 Tegnelia praised the Russian Ministry of 

Defense for its “cooperation” and its “efforts.”

For all of the security upgrades at the Russian nuclear 

security storage sites, the CTR program spent $388 million. 

This figure, Tegnelia explained, included the 16 security site 

upgrades already underway in early 2005, when Presidents 

Bush and Putin signed the Bratislava Initiative. This initiative 

accelerated security upgrades at the final national nuclear 

storage sites. In addition, the Department of Defense spent 

$34 million in CTR funds expanding and improving the 

automated inventory control and management system, 

and $24 million to design, construct and equip a new 

security system and training center in the Russian Far East. 

Another $8 million in CTR funding was spent procuring and 

delivering 40 armored transport vehicles to assist Russian 

military forces to move nuclear warheads from the missile 

fields to railroad transfer points. The size and complexity of 

this security project, Tegnelia concluded, made it “one of the 

largest U.S.-Russian cooperative threat reduction efforts.”92

U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Arms 

Elimination programs, 2005-2008

Simultaneous with this cooperative effort was a multi-sided 

program to eliminate Russia’s obsolete, decommissioned 

ballistic submarines, strategic missiles, launchers and 

launch sites. N.I. Shumkov led the Main Administration 

for Disposition of Weapons and Materials at the Russian 

Aviation and Space Agency, and he worked with American 

CTR program managers from 1994 to 2005. In Shumkov’s 

judgment, the Russian General Staff, Ministry of Defense 

and U.S. Department of Defense had developed important 

cooperative programs, using CTR funds, to eliminate 

decommissioned Russian ballistic submarines, strategic 

missile divisions, stationary missile launchers and missile 

deployment areas. He estimated that the U.S. CTR program 

had funded approximately 80 percent of the dismantlement 

of submarines, missiles and bombers in the 1990s, and 

provided almost 50 percent of the funding in the Bush-Putin 

years.93 All CTR programs and projects were done under the 

SOAE implementing agreement and applicable START Treaty 

provisions. Associated with these programs were multiple 

projects, including a large cooperative project to destroy 

Russia’s decommissioned solid-fueled rockets. The solidfueled rocket engines provided power for the Strategic Rocket 

Force’s intercontinental, naval and rail and road-mobile 

missiles, the SS-24s, SS-25s, and SS-N-20s. These missiles 

had been developed and manufactured in Ukraine, which 

explained why the Russian Federation had no dismantlement 

facilities or technologies for destroying the rocket motors.

The Russian General Staff initiated all critical decisions 

concerning decommissioning the strategic weapon systems. 

The Russian Air and Space Agency was responsible for 

destroying the weapon systems after decommissioning 

and turnover. Shumkov worked closely with General Staff 

officers and American CTR policy and program managers to 

develop cooperative programs for destroying the Strategic 

Rocket Forces’ decommissioned strategic weapons systems. 

By 2003, the U.S.-Russian CTR program was robust, with 

U.S. integrating contractors and Russian subcontractors 

working at more than 30 ICBM/SLBM bases and destruction 

facilities and storage sites. Storage warehouses for SS-24 and 

SS-25 rocket motors had been designed and were under 

construction. SS-24 rail-mobile launchers, resting on special 

military trains, were being cut up and eliminated, and launch 

cars were being dismantled. SS-18 missiles were being 

removed from the silos, defueled, and sent into storage. The 

SS-18 and SS-19 fixed launch silos were being eliminated.94

Then, at the U.S.-Russian Executive Review meeting 

in January 2003, Shumkov announced to Jim Reid that 

the project to design and build a Solid Rocket Motor 

Destruction Facility at Votkinsk, to which the CTR program 

had committed $106 million, had to be cancelled due to 

local opposition. Shumkov said he was working with the 

Russian General Staff to identify open burning facilities at 

Russian military bases at Kemerovo, Biysk and Perm. He 

focused on a site in Perm, one of the Strategic Rocket Forces’ 

largest military bases and its strategic rocket motor burn 

facility there. Using Russian government funding, he said the 

space agency would take over and renovate the burn facility 

at Perm, if MOD and DOD officials would negotiate a new 

implementing agreement to certify the new open burning 

methods and determine funding costs.95
324

With Courage and Persistence

Over the next 18 months, Reid and Shumkov negotiated 

the new terms. In the new agreement, American and Russian 

ministries agreed on a “cash-on-delivery” method for 

burning the SS-24 and SS-25 rocket motors. The Russian 

government would be responsible for burning the rocket 

fuels in the motor cases, and then would show the empty 

motor cases to the CTR program manager, who would certify 

their condition and arrange for payment. This agreement, 

negotiated and signed in 2004, worked well in subsequent 

years.96 CTR policy officials also agreed to fund transportation 

of the SS-24/SS-25 missiles and rocket motors from the 

decommissioned missile regiments and divisions in the field 

into a holding facility at the Perm facility.

In 2005, the Russian General Staff planned to eliminate 

56 SS-24 missiles and 347 SS-25 missiles at Perm and one 

other burn facility at Krasnoarmeysk by the end of 2011. 

U.S. CTR policy officials also agreed to assist in destroying 

39 SS-24 rail mobile launchers and 302 SS-25 road mobile 

launchers by the end of 2011. In addition, the CTR program 

agreed to fund construction by Russian firms of a new SS25 disassembly and elimination facility at Votkinsk, a new 

SS-25 launcher and support vehicle elimination facility at 

Piban’shur, and conversion of the SS-25 missile burning 

facility at Geodeziya. Russian contractors did the work, 

supervised by U.S. integrating contractors who provided 

management oversight and verified the reports. During 

the years 2005 and 2006, U.S. CTR contractors worked 

at the following Russian military bases: Biysk, Barnaul, 

Bershet’, Bryansk, Irkutsk, Kansk, Khrizolitovyy, Kostroma, 

Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoarmeysk, Nenoksa, Nizhniy Tagil, 

Novosibirsk, Perm, Piban’shur, Plesetsk, Surovatikha, 

Votkinsk, Teykovo, Yoshkar-Ola, Yur’ya and Zlatoust.97

In August 2005, Senators Richard Lugar and Barack 

Obama traveled across the region, going first to Ukraine 

where Jim Reid, Director of CTR Policy, who was 

accompanying them, signed a new CTR biological weapons 

agreement and discussed eliminations of thousands of 

tons of ammunition, small arms and light weapons. Next, 

they toured Russian dismantlement facilities at Perm, 

and saw nuclear storage depots at Sartov. The trip resulted 

in the introduction of new legislation in the U.S. Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee, essay articles in the New 

York Times, and new initiatives to incorporate elimination 

of conventional weapons around the world into the 

cooperative threat reduction program.98

Senator Obama commented on the how neither the 

American government nor the public saw the threat from 

the Russian government not safeguarding its excess nuclear 

U.S. CTR project sites in Russia, 2005-2006

RUSSIA

Nenoksa

Plestsk Kostroma

Teykovo

Moscow

Krasnoarmeysk

Bryansk Yur’ya

Yoshkar-Ola

Surovatikha Pibanshur

Votkinsk

Zlatoust

Nizhniy Tagil

Khrizolitovyy

Perm

Bershet

Barnaul

Biysk

Kansk

Krasnoyarsk

Irkutsk

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
325

warheads or destroying its obsolete strategic missiles. “The 

consequences of inaction can be enormous,” Obama said, 

“but I think that it’s one of the issues where until it’s too 

late, you don’t see a problem.”99 Senator Lugar, co-author 

of the Nunn-Lugar Act of 1991, observed, “The question 

that is raised by members of the House and Senate ... and 

probably by a number of American taxpayers, who would 

hope that perhaps Russia would assume more and more 

of the responsibility and expense.”100 At different times 

on the trip, Lugar referred to the cooperative program and 

its progress over the past 14 years. According to Lugar’s 

CTR scorecard, by 2005 the program had deactivated or 

destroyed across the region 6,750 nuclear warheads, 587 

ICBMs, 483 ICBM silos, 32 ICBM mobile missile launchers, 

150 strategic bombers, 789 nuclear air-to-surface missiles, 

436 submarine missile launchers, 549 submarine launched 

ballistic missiles, 28 nuclear submarines and 194 nuclear 

test tunnels.101

U.S. CTR policy officials had agreed in the late 1990s to 

work with the Russian General Staff and Russian Air and 

Space Agency officials on funding programs to dismantle 

and destroy liquid-fueled intercontinental SS-18 and SS-19 

missile systems. The Russians had 257 SS-18s and 171 SS-19 

missiles. The Strategic Rocket Forces would decommission 

regiments of these fixed-site missiles in the field, and then 

turn the missiles, silos and auxiliary equipment over to 

the Russian Air and Space Agency for dismantlement 

and deconstruction. Shumkov, Reid and Byrd developed 

implementing agreements and projects for American and 

Russian contractors to do the actual work. Since SS-18s and 

SS-19s were liquid-fueled missiles, they were lifted from the 

silo launchers and defueled immediately. The missile’s toxic 

liquid propellant and oxidizer were removed and shipped 

via tanker trucks to Russian storage facilities. The missiles 

were shipped by rail to a CTR-renovated destruction 

facility at Surovatikha. Throughout this period American 

contractors worked with Russian firms and enterprises on 

these projects at Russian military bases at Dombarovskiy, 

Dzerzhinsk, Kartaly, Krasnoyarsk, Bershet’, Piban’shur, 

Surovatikha, Uzhur, Moshkovo, Ilyino, Mulyanka, Tambov, 

Turinskaya and Vanino.102

Another large CTR program worked with Russian 

shipyards to dismantle and destroy the Russian 

Navy’s strategic nuclear submarines and missiles. All 

eliminations were subject to START Treaty observations 

and inspections. U.S officials agreed to assist in the 

elimination of 572 strategic submarine launchers and 

dismantlement of 32 associated strategic submarines 

at four Russian shipyards: Zvedzdochka and Sevmash, 

Nerpa, Zvedzda and Northeast Regional Center. CTR 

Table 10.1 - Schedule of Russian submarine and 

missile launcher eliminations (2005-2008)

Year SSBN Submarines SLBM Launchers

2005 2 Typhoons dismantled

1 Delta III dismantled

1 Delta I dismantled

The SLBM launchers on the Delta 

III were eliminated (quantity not 

listed)

2006 1 Typhoon dismantled

1 Delta III dismantled

No SLBM 

launchers were 

eliminated

2007 1 Typhoon dismantled 20 SLBM launchers 

eliminated

2008 1 Typhoon dismantled No SLBM 

launchers were 

eliminated

Source: Reports, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Reports to Congress: FY 2007 (p. 16), FY 

2008 (pp. 3, 12-13), FY 2009 (pp. 10-11) and FY 2010 (pp. 2, 

9).

Senators Richard Lugar and Barack Obama in Ukraine

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
326

With Courage and Persistence

funds provided support for towing the submarines from 

adjacent Russian naval ports to shipyards; eliminating 

ballistic missile launchers; defueling and transporting the 

submarines’ spent nuclear fuel into interim storage casks, 

for sectioning and preparing nuclear submarine reactorcore compartments for long-term storage afloat; and for 

processing the submarines’ low-level radioactive materials. 

All CTR funds were expended on fixed-priced contracts 

with the shipyards. This arrangement meant there were 

no U.S. integrating contractors involved. Instead, the 

U.S. CTR program funded contracts with the Russian 

shipyards and each project was monitored by program 

managers who traveled to the shipyards, reviewed the 

program and projects and inspected the dismantlement 

work. Twice a year the status of these submarine projects 

was reviewed in the U.S.-Russian Federation Executive 

Reviews/Integrated Program Management Reviews. The 

record of submarine and missile launcher eliminations for 

2005 to 2008 was as follows.103

One provision in the American contracts with the 

Russian shipyards allowed them to collect scrap metal from 

the dismantled submarines and sell it on the international 

market. In 2006, the Zvezdochka and Sevmash shipyards 

sold 4,600 tons of metal scrap for approximately $800,000. 

The same year, Zvezda shipyard reported it generated 5,652 

tons of scrap metal, which sold on the international market 

for $2,436,311.104 Two years later in 2008, the Zvezdochka 

shipyard sold 14,390 tons of metal scrap and received 

approximately $3,800,000 in return.105 The State Atomic 

Energy Council reported to the Russian government that, 

“in accordance with Russian legislation, funds received from 

the sale of materials recovered from dismantled nuclear 

submarines are deposited into an account specifically for these 

proceeds” and, “(they) can be used only for tasks related to 

dismantling nuclear submarines.”106 The council stated these 

funds would be used by the Russian shipyards to pay those 

workers who had prepared the metal scrap tonnage for sale, 

and to fund the workers who were forming up the reactor 

blocks from the nuclear submarines. Part of the funds would 

also finance towing of the reactor blocks and handling of the 

spent nuclear fuels unrelated to the CTR-funded submarine 

work. As the decade unfolded, the amount of CTR-funded 

nuclear submarine dismantlement work decreased due to 

internal Russian government decisions.

Russian SLBM Launcher and SSBN dismantlement sites

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

RUSSIA

Murmansk

Moscow

Severodvinsk

PetropavlovskyKamchatskiy

Bol’shoi Kamen’

SLBM Launcher &

SSBN Dismantlement:

“Zvyozdochka”

“Sevmash”

SSBN Typhoon Bases

Nerpich’ya

Yagel’naya SLBM Launcher &

SSBN Dismantlement:

“Nerpa”

SLBM Launcher &

SSBN Dismantlement:

Northeast Regional Center

[Vilyuchinsk “SRF #49”]

SSBN Delta

Base

Rybachiy

SLBM Launcher &

SSBN Dismantlement:

Northeast Regional Center

[Vilyuchinsk “SRF #49”]

SSBN Delta

Base

Pavlovskoye
327

Eliminating Ukraine’s SS-24 rocket 

motors: new initiative 

In working with Ukraine, CTR policy officials recognized 

that the program had a commitment to assist the Ukrainian 

government with elimination of 163 SS-24 solid rocket 

motors. These rocket motors had been stored in large 

warehouses in Pavlograd, Ukraine, a former Soviet missile 

manufacturing and industrial city. In 2003, when the 

Department of Defense re-scoped every CTR project, it 

decided to stop funding the SS-24 pilot plant at Pavlograd that 

had been designed to wash out the SS-24 solid rocket motors 

and mix the solid fuel with kerosene, producing an explosive 

compound for the mining industry. In Washington, analysts 

in the CTR policy office recommended ending funding the 

pilot project because it was over budget and faced a series 

of cost escalations. Instead, U.S. officials recommended that 

the Ukrainian government consider burning the SS-24 rocket 

motors in their casings, as the Russian government had 

proposed to do with its SS-24 and SS-25 rocket motors.107

In Russia, the CTR program had agreed to assist the Ministry 

of Defense in dismantling the missiles and transporting the 

rocket motors to a military base at Perm, where the Russian 

ministry would eliminate them through open burning. 

When burned, the program manager agreed to reimburse the 

Russian Ministry of Defense for a fixed payment per rocket 

motor. When this solution was proposed to the Ukrainian 

government, they rejected it. For four years, bilateral meetings 

and discussion produced no solution. 

Then in 2007 senior CTR policy officials reached an 

agreement with the Ukrainian government, in which the 

CTR program would provide assistance for elimination of 

the solid rocket motors. Jim Reid stated that the program 

would support the elimination work in Pavlograd by 

providing “firm fixed price” payments for the empty rocket 

motor casing.108 Ukraine, he declared, would be responsible 

for removing the propellant using “a method of its choice.” 

The CTR payment would be no higher than the ones 

made for the same type of rocket motors in Russia. Reid 

recommended that CTR program managers develop plans 

with the Ukrainian ministry to include transparency in their 

elimination process, and he requested they remove propellant 

from the least safe solid rocket motors first.109 In carrying out 

this project, Lt. Commander Robert Bridges, the CTR project 

Elimination of SS-24 ICBMs, Pavlograd

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
328

With Courage and Persistence

manager, requested that Washington Group International, 

the American integrating contractor in Pavlograd, monitor, 

record and certify payments for eliminating the solid 

rocket motors. This firm had constructed the large storage 

warehouses holding the 163 SS-24 rocket motors and had 

maintained the facility’s temperature, humidity and fire 

suppression systems since 2000. The program manager 

awarded a contract to Washington Group International for 

$22 million for continuation of its warehouse maintenance 

work, plus overseeing and paying the Ukrainian ministry 

for the empty rocket motor casings from 2008 to 2013.110

Once these contracts had been set, the Ukrainians began 

eliminating the rocket motors. They eliminated three in 2008, 

and following a delay, three more in 2009. The bulk of all 

rocket motor eliminations would be done from 2010 to 2012.

U.S. support for the Russia’s Chemical 

Weapons Disposal Facility at Shchuch’ye

Construction on the large CW disposal complex at 

Shchuch’ye began in April 2003. Congress appropriated 

and the Bush administration released $50 million in CTR 

funds in 2002, $137.3 million in 2003, $190.3 million in 

2004 and $155 million in 2005.111 The United States agreed 

to build a modern chemical weapons disposal facility at 

Shchuch’ye to destroy Russia’s 1.9 million nerve agentfilled, man-portable, tube, and rocket artillery shells and 

bulk-filled rocket warheads. During the five-year design 

phase, CTR policy and program managers agreed with 

their Russian counterparts that the complex project would 

include, with Russian approval, U.S. firms designing the 

facility’s destruction processes and buildings, managing 

the construction, acquiring the equipment, and then 

delivering, installing, conducting systems integration, 

training and facility startup. Once the new facility was 

in operation, nerve agents would be removed from the 

munitions and neutralized, and the drained munitions 

thermally decontaminated. CTR policy officials agreed 

to build additional facilities at the Shchuch’ye complex 

to treat the neutralized materials, manufacture the 

chemicals used to neutralize the nerve agents and safely 

store the process wastes. In 2004, Jim Reid set a cap on U.S. 

assistance for the project at $1.039 billion, making this 

chemical weapons disposal project the largest CTR-funded 

industrial construction project in Russia, ever.112

When it signed the United Nations’ Chemical Weapons 

Convention in 1997, the Russian government declared that 

it possessed the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpile, 

registering at slightly more than 44,000 tons. Russia’s 

chemical weapons were located at seven CW storage sites, 

and the government planned to establish elimination sites at 

each facility and destroy the weapons in accordance with the 

treaty’s protocols and schedule. However, the government 

did not provide sufficient funds for this work. Hence by the 

end of 2004, Russia had destroyed less than three percent of 

its chemical weapons stockpiles. To speed up elimination, 

President Putin signed the federal budget in late December 

2004, providing $400 million for chemical weapons 

destruction.113

In the wake of the G-8’s 2002 Global Partnership Against 

WMD, other nations began to obligate funds for assisting 

Russia in eliminating its chemical weapons. In 2002, Germany 

began working with Russia to design and construct a new 

CW elimination plant at Kambarka. That site had 6,989 tons 

of lewisite in bulk condition. Germany had been working on 

another disposal plant with Russia for more than a decade; it 

provided money and technical expertise to design, construct 

and operate in 2003 the first modern CW disposal facility at 

Gorny. It destroyed mustard gas, lewisite, and blister agents 

and weapons. Then, Zinovy Pak, Director, Russian Munitions 

Administration, announced that Russia, Great Britain, Italy, 

Norway, European Union, Canada and other contributing 

nations planned to fund construction of a second disposal 

facility at Shchuch’ye. It would process the warheads and 

destroy the toxic agents and neutralized munitions. Pak 

planned to transport the CW munitions stored at the Kizner 

CW storage site to the new storage and disposal facilities at 

Shchuch’ye. The two new CW disposal facilities would be 

able to destroy 1,873 tons of nerve agents per year, starting 

in 2008 and finishing in 2012, the date established by the 

international council governing the UN’s Chemical Weapons 

Convention for completing all CW eliminations.114

During construction and equipping of the Shchuch’ye 

Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility, Parsons Delaware, the 

U.S. integrating contractor, provided contract oversight and 

engineering management with major Russian construction 

firms. Parsons’ managers worked with major American 

subcontractors: SAIC, Washington Group International, 

EG&G and Illinois Institute of Technology Research 

Institute.115 During the planning and construction phases, 
329

all projects were coordinated with Colonel Victor I. Serbin 

of the Russian Munitions Agency. By March 2004, a 1:50 

scale model plant, constructed to follow the actual chemical 

destruction process, started operations and was validated 

over a one-year period. At the same time, testing began on 

the equipment prototypes slated to remove nerve agents 

from the munitions.

Both of these developments followed the two-stage 

destruction process for disposing of chemical weapons, which 

was favored by the Russian Munitions Agency. Stage one was 

chemical neutralization, and stage two was bituminization 

of the neutralized reaction mass into large solidified asphalt 

blocks. These blocks were to be deposited into bunkers at 

the waste storage site. During that year, Russian construction 

firms began work on foundations and superstructures 

for the main destruction plant, and foundations for the 

administration building and fire station. Construction also 

started on the underground utilities - sewers, hazardous 

response station, fire water area, waste water area and fire 

water pumping station. Contractors finished the Shchuch’ye 

facility’s specialist camp in 2004. By the end of the year, 

the complex’s design work was 91 percent complete, and 

construction was 18 percent finished.116

Over the next three years, 2005-2008, construction 

continued at the CW disposal complex at Shchuch’ye. At 

the semiannual Executive Review/ Integrated Program 

Management Reviews in Moscow, General Victor I. Kholstov, 

Deputy Director, and Colonel Serbin, project manager, met 

with Reid, Wakefield, Byrd, and Paul McNelly, the U.S. project 

manager. They went over the schedule, multi-entry visas, 

site access, value added tax, competition for construction 

contracts, coordination with other donor nations, joint 

plans and the status of the work. At one of the meetings 

in June 2005, Colonel Serbin briefed the current funding 

divisions for the Shchuch’ye complex: 45 percent came from 

the Russian Federation, 43 percent from the United States, 

and 12 percent from the other nations.117 At Shchuch’ye, 

the Netherlands, Great Britain, Canada, Czech Republic, 

Italy and Switzerland funded the purchase and installation 

of specific equipment. However, the equipment arrived late 

and many projects were delayed. In 2006 the American 

integrating contractor, Parsons Delaware, was unable to 

obtain reasonable bids from Russian subcontracting firms 

for constructing two critical buildings in the CW destruction 

process. In August, the CTR policy office directed Parsons to 

terminate further contract negotiations and ordered a new 

baseline review for the project. Out of that review and intense 

discussions with Russian officials, a new strategy emerged for 

completing the work at Shchuch’ye.118

A new trilateral acquisition policy was approved in 

May 2007, with the signing of an amendment to the 

U.S.-Russian Federation Chemical Weapons Destruction 

CTR implementing agreement. It began with a joint 

commitment to reorganize the managerial system for the 

entire project.119 The new system outlined new roles and 

responsibilities for the United States and Russia. It shifted 

responsibility to the Russian Federal Agency for Industry, 

successor to the Russian Munitions Agency, for awarding 

all contracts, managing daily construction activities and 

Chemical weapon nerve agents in shells

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Flags of the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, 

Czech Republic, Russia and Canada
330

With Courage and Persistence

overseeing the Russian firms working at Shchuch’ye. The 

Department of Defense’s CTR responsibility would be 

to verify that construction and installation work had 

been completed and to pay the invoices. The agreement 

established a joint managerial plan, required monthly 

coordination meetings and specified involvement of a third 

party. Vneshtrojimport, a Russian firm reviewed invoices 

from the Federal Agency for Industry and forwarded them to 

Parsons Delaware for validation and payment. Within seven 

months of this amendment, the Defense Department’s CTR 

program office transferred responsibility for all remaining 

construction projects at Shchuch’ye to the Federal Agency 

for Industry. By December 2007 the Russian agency had 

awarded contracts to Russian firms for the remaining 

construction work. Significantly, this new strategy assigned 

ownership of the mission to build and equip the Chemical 

Weapons Destruction Facility to the Russian agency. The 

Russian government accepted responsibility for funding 

any budgetary requirements beyond the $1.0392 billion 

the Americans had committed for the project.120

Over 14 years, 1993-2007, the U.S. CTR program spent 

$662.4 million to carry out the planning and process 

facility designs, preconstruction preparation, equipment 

development and procurement and construction of the CW 

destruction complex at Shchuch’ye. By 2007, it was more 

than 50 percent completed. Now, with the new trilateral 

management strategy, the CTR program committed to 

provide an additional $247.8 million to pay for the Russian 

agency’s construction and equipment contracts with Russian 

contractors: Stroytransgaz, Spetsstroy, ENPO Neorganika 

and Giprosintez. Parsons Delaware received $73 million to 

pay Vneshtrojimport, its Russian contractor. This firm would 

verify that work had been completed and would process 

invoices, deliver equipment and provide reports to the CTR 

program manager. Defense Department officials favored the 

new strategy because it led to closer cooperation between 

U.S. and Russian officials, and it provided direction to the 

Russian Federal Agency for Industry to complete the complex 

project on schedule and within budget. If it did not do so, 

the Russian government would incur additional costs and 

would not meet its international commitments under the 

Chemical Weapons Convention.121

As this new strategy was being implemented, Senator 

Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn arrived at 

Shchuch’ye to tour the CW destruction facility. It was August 

2007 and the CTR program had passed its 15th anniversary. 

Following a tour of the construction site, Senator Lugar 

spoke to reporters:

“I have visited Shchuch’ye on two previous 

occasions and I am convinced that the weapons 

stored here must be dismantled quickly and safely. 

I look forward to the day when the last of these 

horrific weapons are eliminated and the dire threat 

they pose to all nations is removed. Progress on this 

project has been a particular focus of mine for the 

past seven years, seeking amendments to permit 

construction to continue and making sure that my 

colleagues in Congress understand the necessity for 

this work. ... This project is essential to the national 

security of the United States. I have personally 

expressed my firm desire to see success to President 

Bush, Secretary Rice and others, and with dedicated 

efforts, we are succeeding.”122

Work continued throughout the next two years. Then in 

May 2009, Russia and the United States formally opened the 

Shchuch’ye chemical weapons disposal facility, the largest 

CW elimination complex in the world.123 The new facility 

had 25 buildings located across 250 acres.124 The small 

town of Shchuch’ye was located approximately seven miles 

from the CW stockpile, and the two sites were connected 

by a special railroad line. Construction of the Shchuch’ye 

complex had been financed with U.S. CTR funds ($1.039 

billion), Russian government ($250 million), and other 

nations’ contributions ($200 million). Once opened and 

operational, the CW disposal facility would neutralize and 

destroy 6,569 tons of chemical materials, including VX and 

sarin nerve agents stored in more than 1.9 million artillery 

and other munitions. The Shchuch’ye CW disposal facility 

was one of five Russian government destruction plants 

Shchuch’ye CW Destruction Facility

	 H U.S. involved for 14 years

	 H U.S. spent $1.039 billion

	 H Facility opened May 2009
331

for eliminating chemical weapons stockpiles. The others, 

Gorny, Kambarka, Nizhny Novgorod and Maradykovsky, 

were all in operation destroying chemical weapons. By the 

end of 2009, the Russian government expected to destroy 

45 percent of its chemical weapons stockpiles.125

At the dedication ceremony in May 2009, officials, 

scientists and workers from Russia, United States, Great 

Britain, France and Canada gathered as Russian Industry 

Minister Victor Khristenko spoke: “Today, a fantastic team 

of experts from different countries is gathered at this 

site.” He continued, “This is very logical because chemical 

disarmament is an issue of the utmost global importance 

and the facility being launched is truly unique. In 2003, 

we started the destruction of one percent of chemical 

weapons stockpiles. By 2007 we destroyed 20 percent, 

and to date we have destroyed 36.6 percent”126 The United 

States representative, Senator Richard Lugar noted, “The 

road to this day has not been smooth. There have been 

delays caused by the apprehensions of the U.S. Congress; 

bureaucratic obstruction; problems with Russian funding; 

and contractor disputes. Through it all, the Americans 

and Russians worked together to resolve the difficult 

challenges. ... The experience of the Nunn-Lugar program 

in Russia has demonstrated that the threat of weapons of 

mass destruction can lead to extraordinary outcomes based 

on mutual interests.”127

New CTR directions: WMD Proliferation 

Prevention Initiative

The CTR program began developing in new directions just 

as relations between Russia and the United States changed. 

Putin’s government, benefitting from the global rise in gas 

and oil prices, developed an assertive anti-American foreign 

policy. Bush’s administration, struggling with two wars 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, turned away from engagement 

with Russia. Except for the areas of nonproliferation and 

antiterrorism, the two nations had few cooperative policies, 

programs or issues.128 In 2003, the U.S. Defense Department 

received from Congress $40 million to start the WMD 

Proliferation Prevention Initiative with selective nations of 

the former Soviet Union – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine 

and Azerbaijan. “Increased efforts by terrorists to secure 

WMD and WMD components, materials and expertise,” 

CTR policy officials reported to Congress in 2004, “have 

demonstrated a need to improve the security of the nonRussian FSU states’ borders.”129

During 2003 and 2004, U.S. officials met with 

ministerial representatives from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, 

Ukraine and Azerbaijan, and began negotiating specific 

agreements, programs and projects. Working under the CTR 

WMD Proliferation Prevention Initiative, these officials 

developed new implementing agreements, new cooperative 

Dedication ceremony of the Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility at Shchuch’ye, May 2009

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
332

With Courage and Persistence

maritime and land border programs, and specific projects 

to acquire, deliver, and use new detection technologies 

and equipment. As these programs were being developed, 

Pat Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, insisted 

they be implemented in spiral acquisition and development 

phases.130 When Lisa Bronson, Deputy Undersecretary 

of Defense for Defense Technology Security Policy and 

Counterproliferation, announced this new initiative to 

Congress she admitted there would be “risks” of engagement 

with other nations, but stated that the new programs would 

be implemented in “close” coordination with other U.S. 

agencies and departments.131

The Caspian Sea Maritime Proliferation Prevention 

program involved improving Azerbaijani and Kazakhstan’s 

customs services and navies to detect and interdict vessels 

suspected of carrying WMD or materials as they transited the 

waters of the Caspian Sea. The first phase, to be completed in 

one year, included defining the standards for initial operating 

capability, repairing or upgrading patrol boats and support 

vessels, installing radar and data networks, and enhancing 

maintenance, logistics, and training systems. In 2004, Bill 

Youngstrom, CTR program manager, acquired and delivered 

to Lieutenant General Elchin Guliyev, Commander, State 

Border Guards of Azerbaijan, a “Quick Equipment” support 

package of the materials.132 Washington Group International 

became the integrating contractor with the role of planning 

and managing construction, repair and upgrading of the 

Azerbaijani border guard’s command and control systems, 

maintenance and logistics facilities, and construction of new 

costal operating facilities on the nation’s southern coast. In 

Kazakhstan there were negotiations, but no agreements or 

programs.

By 2006, the CTR program had established, at the 

Azerbaijan State Border Guards’ direction, a new operational 

command and control center and had installed linkages 

to short and long-range radar systems. The program also 

acquired and delivered WMD detection and boarding 

equipment, constructed the Astara Boat Basin and established 

a comprehensive training program with the State Border 

Service and Coast Guard. In June 2006, the Department 

of Defense’s International Counterproliferation Program 

conducted a bilateral WMD proliferation prevention exercise 

with participation of the Azerbaijan border service and coast 

guards. In two days at sea, a series of events tested the basic 

capability of the Azerbaijani forces to detect and prevent the 

transit of vessels with WMD materials.133

When the U.S.-Azerbaijan Executive Review was held in 

Baku in June 2007, U.S. Ambassador Anne E. Derse, Jim Reid, 

John Byrd, and CTR program and project managers were 

joined by Azerbaijan officials, General Guliyev, Commander 

Upgraded Azerbaijan patrol boat and support vessel under the 

Caspian Sea Maritime Proliferation Prevention program

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
333

of the State Border Service, Major General Ilham Mehdiyev, 

deputy commander, Vice Admiral Shahin Soltanov, and Ramiz 

Tagiyev, Minister of National Security.134 Since there were no 

significant policy issues, discussions turned to a review of the 

program and the issue of a concept of operations. This CTR 

program supported the repair and operational testing of two 

patrol vessels, and it developed ship repair and maintenance 

capabilities within the Azerbaijani State Border Services. 

In addition to small-boat and boarding-team training, 

the program developed initial designs and site surveys for 

constructing a new maritime surveillance radar site on Chilov 

Island. To be completed the following year, the new radar site 

would be operated by Azerbaijan’s Navy; it would enhance 

the surveillance of maritime traffic in a sector of the Caspian 

Sea. During 2007 and 2008, U.S. Embassy officials organized a 

series of meetings with the Azerbaijani Navy and State Border 

Services, along with other nations’ naval officials, to discuss 

development of a concept of operations.135 In Kazahkstan, a 

similar joint CTR program was developed, a contractor hired, 

and equipment acquired and delivered. However, difficulties 

and challenges arose with the government agency responsible 

and the program ended in late 2008.136

In Uzbekistan, when the United States signed the Border 

Security Assistance implementing agreement in 2003, it 

pledged that the Department of Defense’s CTR program 

would provide portal monitoring detection equipment, 

training and other support to the Minister of Defense and 

the State Customs Service. Since the September 11, 2001 

attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. and the wars 

in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States had maintained 

a close relationship with the Uzbekistan government. For 

several years, the U.S. Air Force used the Karshi-Khanabad 

air base in southeastern Uzbekistan to fly support missions 

against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.137 The 

Departments of State and Defense developed programs that 

provided technical assistance, equipment and training to 

enhance Uzbekistan’s State Customs Service’s control over 

its borders and to develop its capabilities to interdict the 

illegal movement of narcotics, people and goods, including 

the smuggling of potential WMD materials.

The new $31 million CTR program had three phases. 

The initial phase consisted of site surveys of the border ports 

of entry by the specialists from the Uzbek State Customs 

Service and U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.138

Completed in 2004, this survey determined which Uzbek 

ports of entry should receive the new portal monitoring 

detection equipment. In the second phase, Washington Group 

International began to hire local firms to install the portal 

monitors, deliver the detectors, upgrade communications and 

develop new training programs. For three years, 2004-2007, 

the CTR program managers funded the installation of new 

portal monitors, including communications upgrades, at 19 

points of entry across Uzbekistan. Operations transitioned to 

the nation’s State Customs Committee and on two occasions 

shipments of low-level radioactive materials were detected. 

In 2008, when the Uzbek government halted cooperation 

with the United States; the Defense Department’s CTR policy 

officials ended the program.139

Another CTR WMD Proliferation Prevention Initiative 

program developed with Ukraine. Following negotiations 

between Jim Reid, CTR policy office, and General M.M. 

Lytvyn, Commander, Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, 

the two sides agreed to use the Export Control implementing 

agreement to provide technical assistance, equipment and 

training to Ukraine. General Lytvyn insisted the new program 

begin with a survey and then follow with installation of the 

new WMD detection equipment on the Ukrainian-Moldovan 

border. Then, once a test bed had been established, United 

States and Ukrainian officials would expand the program 

into proliferation prevention projects on the adjacent 

waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The objective 

was to develop the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service’s 

capability to monitor, detect and interdict illicit trafficking in 

WMD and related materials transiting across specific borders 

and through key seaports. During 2005, Raytheon, the 

American integrating contractor used local firms to construct 

improvements in Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service’s 

command and control systems, voice communications, 

surveillance, mobility, detection and interdiction functions. 

Raytheon’s managers worked closely with the State Customs 

Service and the State Guard Service officers and men to 

develop a geographical test bed at the Ukrainian-Moldovan 

border at Kuchurgan. Successful, the new WMD detection 

equipment and communications enhancements were placed 

at other border crossing points. 140

The maritime part of this U.S.-Ukrainian project began 

in 2006 when the American contractor and Ukrainian firms 

worked in the ports at Odessa and Illichevsk to procure and 

install new WMD detection and interdiction equipment, 

and upgrade the guard services patrol boats’ surveillance, 
334

With Courage and Persistence

communications and navigation equipment. New rigid-hull 

inflatable boats and boarding-party equipment were also 

provided to State Border Guards at Izmail, Illichevsk and 

Odessa. Both phases of this CTR program were coordinated 

with the U.S. Department of Energy and its Second Line of 

Defense program and the European Union’s program to 

enhance border security and WMD detection and interdiction 

operations. As 2008 ended, CTR program managers continued 

carrying out land border and maritime sea projects with the 

Ukrainian government. The program also agreed to provide 

limited assistance to the State Border Guard Service in 

monitoring the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.141

Biological Threat Reduction Program 

Expands 

When the Defense Department’s CTR policy officials 

refocused the program to deal with the administration’s 

global war on terrorism, they concentrated on developing 

programs and projects with those nations that had inherited 

biological laboratories, research institutes and sentinel 

stations associated with the Soviet Union’s biological 

weapons programs. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union 

had developed the largest biological weapons program in 

the world. A decade after the collapse and the formation of 

15 new states, along with the rise of international terrorism, 

questions arose about the security, safety and number of 

dangerous pathogens at these research institutes and field 

stations. Unlike the inherited nuclear and chemical weapons, 

there was no central government ministry or bureaucracy in 

Moscow to negotiate with on requirements for new programs.

Instead Jim Reid and Andrew Weber, senior CTR policy 

officials, traveled to the Russian biological research institute 

and negotiated biosecurity assistance and bioresearch 

projects. “We found,” Weber explained, “that peer-to-peer 

contact between scientists was the best way to find out 

what was really going on the ground and in the labs.”142

After terrorists attacked the United States in 2001, Weber 

and Michael Balady, from DTRA’s CTR program directorate, 

traveled to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Georgia, 

and met with the biological laboratory directors and health 

ministers explaining the CTR assistance programs, and 

seeking partner nations for developing new projects to 

secure biological pathogens, establish collaborative research 

projects and set up new joint bioterrorism prevention efforts. 

“Certainly,” Weber said, “after 9/11 we were much more 

concerned with the leakage of materials, pathogens and 

expertise to potential terrorist groups.”143

The Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention 

program began when Reid and Weber reviewed the status 

of current CTR projects with the former biological research 

facilities and institutes in all of the nations, including 

Russia. Already underway were a few projects to dismantle 

and destroy the BW production facility at Stepnogorsk, 

Kazakhstan and to decommission and decontaminate 

another facility with excess dual-capacity biological stocks 

in Biokombinat, Georgia. Another CTR-funded biological 

weapons destruction project collected and detoxified 

approximately 165 tons of abandoned anthrax materials 

located on an island in the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. These 

three projects, known as the BW Infrastructure Elimination 

program ran from 1998 to 2007, when they were all 

completed. A second, larger CTR assistance program, 

Biosecurity and Biosafety, focused on instituting cooperative 

security and safety projects at existing biological repositories 

and research laboratories in Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, 

Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Georgia. The program’s objective 

was to support the research institutes in consolidating all 

dangerous pathogens and in installing procedures and 

facilities for the safe, secure storage and handling of the 

pathogens and other materials used for legitimate public 

health research purposes.

In Russia, Weber and Reid worked with lab directors and 

scientists and they developed cooperative projects with seven 

biological research centers and scientific institutes; many 

were part of the Russian BW manufacturing Biopreparat 

complex located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, 

Obolensk, Vladmir, Golitsino and Pokrov. The new CTR 

projects assisted these institutes in redirecting their scientists 

and projects to other research areas. In Washington, D.C., a 

National Research Council report established the rationale 

and framework for these initial U.S.-Russian biological 

projects.144 To carry out the cooperative projects, Bechtel began 

working with Russian biological weapons institute directors 

at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology 

(Vector) in Novosibirsk, State Research Center for Applied 

Microbiology in Obolensk, the All Russia Research Institute 

for Animal Protection in Vladmir, the Russian Scientific 

Institute of Pathology in Golitsino and the Biologics Plant in 

Pokrov.145 Weber, Balady and staff officials traveled to Russia 
335

frequently, attending scientific conferences and holding 

discussions with directors of the research institutes. They 

also traveled to meet with the national research institute 

directors in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Weber and 

Reid committed the CTR program to funding and managing 

“quick fix” security improvements at the national research 

laboratories. Because of its scope, this initiative grew quickly 

and CTR policy officials increased their five-year budget 

estimates for 2002 -2007 for the biosecurity and biosafety 

program to Congress from $95.4 to $182 million.146

In 2003, CTR policy office officials assigned DTRA’s 

CTR program directorate responsibility for developing, 

managing and implementing a new Threat Agent Detection 

and Response program with Central Asian and Caucasus 

nations, excluding Russia.147 This new program was based 

on a series of concepts developed over the winter months 

by a small team of policy and program experts consisting of 

Andrew Weber, Roger Breeze, Mike Weaver, Shawn Cali and 

Mike Favreau. Rather quickly, the Threat Agent Detection 

and Response program became one of the most important 

biological threat reduction efforts the United States was 

offering to the new nations. In the beginning, Weber and 

American CTR program specialists explained the new concept 

to directors and scientists working at the national biological 

research institutes in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and 

Uzbekistan. Together, they planned to develop a series of 

cooperative projects that would identify, consolidate and 

secure especially dangerous pathogens that posed special risks 

if stolen, diverted, accidentally released or used by terrorists.

These pathogens could be human or animal viruses 

and strains. “The focus,” Weber explained, “was on early 

warning against disease outbreaks or for infectious disease 

surveillance.”148 The program would redirect scientists and 

doctors with dual-use skills toward public health work. It 

would also consolidate the dangerous pathogen collections 

into a new or existing central research laboratory where 

scientists working with modern diagnostic equipment could 

identify and rapidly classify strains and place data into 

response networks for national, regional and world scientific 

communities.149 Scientists working in the new central 

reference laboratories would work with technicians in field 

sentinel stations to detect suspicious outbreaks of diseases 

among human and animal populations. Weber explained, 

“If either a natural disease outbreak or a bio-terrorist attack 

occurred, the best defense we had against it was early warning 

and early identification ... to contain it before it became an 

epidemic or a pandemic.”150

As these multifaceted biological programs developed 

they influenced the recipient nations’ public health 

and agricultural livestock policies and programs. The 

new Biological Threat Detection and Response Program 

contained new communications and data storage systems 

to manage and rapidly disseminate the data from national 

surveillance systems. It contained a concept for establishing 

and equipping mobile epidemiological response teams to 

investigate possible outbreaks, fix their origins and conduct 

assessments for instituting ways of prevention. To minimize 

the need for retaining pathogens located and stored at 

remote field stations, the program developed safe, secure 

and efficient pathogen transportation equipment that met 

international standards for biosafety and biosecurity. Finally, 

the program contained opportunities to train personnel in 

biosecurity, biosafety diagnostics and epidemiology.

Under this program, some CTR projects worked with 

the national research institutes to develop new networks 

linking disease surveillance stations and the diagnostic 

laboratories at provincial, national and regional levels 

that could be tied into an existing international electronic 

disease surveillance system. The objective was to establish 

across the region a rapid, accurate reporting system for 

outbreaks of diseases, biological attacks and emerging 

pandemics using scientists at the national labs, the threat 

agent detection and response network, and the existing 

international disease surveillance system. “The big 

leap in our thinking,” Weber recalled, “was that disease 

surveillance against these threat agents, or the diseases 

caused by the threat agents, many of which were endemic 

in Central Asia and the Caucasus, in itself reduced the 

	 H Threat Agent Detection and Response

	 H Cooperative Biological Threat 

Reduction

	 H Human and animal viruses and strains

	 H New Focus: Public Health, Disease 

Survellience
336

With Courage and Persistence

threat.”151 Within a few years, several bilateral Threat 

Agent Detection and Response projects were underway in 

Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 

with funding exceeding $210 million. Significantly, these 

new cooperative projects moved the entire CTR program 

away from dismantling and eliminating excessive nuclear 

and chemical weapons of the Cold War era and directed 

it toward new collaborative biological programs with new 

nations, creating new systems and networks to confront 

more immediate contemporary threats.152

Over time, CTR policy and program managers merged 

the biosecurity and biosafety programs with the threat 

agent detection and response programs. In Russia, the 

biosecurity and biosafety programs continued, while in 

the other nations, the biological detection and response 

programs expanded, adding more nations and projects. 

By 2004 and 2005, CTR program managers developed a 

multifaceted program, now called the Biological Threat 

Reduction Program, to work on new projects with their 

national counterparts in the five Eurasian nations. It had 

the following parts: 

n New secure central reference laboratories to 

rapidly diagnose viral and bacterial diseases 

(human and animal), equipped with modern 

diagnostic capabilities and operated at U.S. 

biosecurity and biosafety standards.

n A new system of oblast-level human and 

veterinary Epidemiological Monitoring Modules 

without dangerous pathogen collections. These 

modules included networked sentinel stations 

with trained personnel to detect and respond to 

suspicious outbreaks among human and animal 

populations.

n New standardized, quality-assured diagnostic 

and surveillance procedures that could ensure 

consistent and reliable results that can be accessed 

in real time via links to DOD and U.S. Centers 

for Disease Control and Prevention’s Laboratory 

Resource Network.

n New state of the art diagnostic tests that 

provide definitive results at the oblast level, 

thus minimizing the transport of dangerous 

pathogens and eliminating the need to store 

dangerous pathogens for diagnostic purposes at 

multiple field stations.

n New communications and data storage systems 

to analyze, interpret, manage, and disseminate 

rapidly data generated by the surveillance system.

n Secure, safe, and efficient pathogen transportation 

capabilities that follow U.S standards for 

biosecurity and biosafety.

n Initial and recurring training of personnel in 

biosecurity, biosafety, bioethics, proliferation 

prevention, diagnostics, epidemiology, information 

technology, facilities and equipment operations, 

maintenance, and quality control and assurance.153

The engagement grew rapidly with CTR program 

managers adding cooperative projects for the new biological 

laboratories, institutes and sentinel stations each year. 

Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia requested new central 

reference laboratories and modern diagnostic equipment. As 

the program grew the revised Congressional five-year budget 

projection increased to $486 million from 2004 to 2009. The 

cooperative institutions by country were:154

Kazakhstan:

Almaty – Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and 

Zoonotic Diseases 

Almaty – Central Sanitary and Epidemiologic Service 

Laboratory

Almaty – Ministry of Defense Medical Department

Astana – Central Veterinary Laboratory

Otar – Scientific Research Agricultural Institute of the 

National Biotechnology 

Center Various – Sentinel Stations associated with 

Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic 

Diseases and the Central Sanitary and Epidemiologic 

Service System

Uzbekistan:

Samarkand – Scientific Research Institute of the 

Veterinary Sciences

Tashkent – Research Institute of Virology

Tashkent – Center for Prophylaxis and Quarantine of 

Most Hazardous Infections

Tashkent – Research Institute of Epidemiology, 

Microbiology, and Infectious Diseases 
337

Tashkent – Central Veterinary Laboratory

Tashkent – Ministry of Defense Medical Department

Various – Sentinel Stations associated with Center 

for Prophylaxis and Quarantine of Most Hazardous 

Infections and the Research Institute of Epidemiology, 

Microbiology, and Infectious Diseases

Georgia:

Tbilisi – National Center for Disease Control of 

Georgia

Tbilisi – Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, 

Microbiology and Virology

Tbilisi – Georgia Center for Veterinary Diagnostics 

and Expertise

Tbilisi – Central Veterinary Laboratory

Various – Sentinel Stations associated with the 

National Center for Disease Control

Source: Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, pp. 48-49.

As in other scientific fields, scientists working in human 

biology and animal husbandry were linked through national 

and international networks. Improving this linkage was one 

of the major objectives of the Biological Threat Reduction 

program. By developing a network of disease surveillance 

and diagnostic laboratories in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, 

Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan that could be linked into 

an electronic integrated disease surveillance system, there 

would be the capacity to rapidly report outbreaks of diseases 

to a broader group of scientists. All of these nations were 

member states of the UN’s World Health Organization and 

the World Organization for Animal Health, which required 

reporting of disease outbreaks within 24 hours. The CTR 

programs and projects facilitated these nations in meeting 

their international responsibilities. Another electronic 

database, the Pathogen Asset Control System, inventoried 

and controlled access to the pathogens stored in the new 

central reference laboratories and institutes. In the nations 

that had them, CTR policy and program managers and 

the national research institute directors worked with 

the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 

selected Department of Defense laboratories to organize 

and conduct training course and seminars with the 

national scientific and technical staffs on diagnostic and 

epidemiological topics. The classes and courses discussed 

bioethics, biosafety and biosecurity, and emphasized 

sustainment, program investment and strategic relevance 

to the region and world. In Georgia in 2005, the classes 

trained 450 scientists and lab technician on techniques 

in biosafety and biosecurity. Following these courses were 

new classes in diagnostic methods and epidemiology.155

Connections and communications with the world’s 

scientific communities were not just topics in training 

courses. As part of the Biological Threat Reduction program, 

CTR managers established working groups of national 

scientists, and they developed new lines of communications 

between their research institutes and other national and 

international organizations working on similar biological 

issues. These organizations included scientific and other 

representatives from the Departments of State, Agriculture, 

and Health and Human Services, U.S. Agency for 

International Development, World Health Organization, 

World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, 

Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, Food and 

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Ministry 

of Defense of the United Kingdom, Canadian Global 

Partnership Program, and Ukraine’s International Science 

and Technology Center.156

Flags of Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
338

With Courage and Persistence

In the cooperating nations, national health ministers 

and Defense Department CTR officials signed biological 

threat reduction implementing agreements. These basic 

documents provided the legal basis for acquiring, delivering, 

contracting, managing and conducting oversight for various 

programs and projects associated with biological weapons 

threat reduction. By 2007, there were CTR implementing 

agreements with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine 

and Kazakhstan, and one pending with Armenia. These new 

agreements authorized CTR program managers to develop 

national programs with each nation. With these programs 

came American managerial systems, project funding and 

periodic reviews. At an executive review with U.S.-Ukrainian 

officials, Shawn Cali, CTR program manager, went over the 

cooperative biological projects and programs and established 

a schedule of key events.157 Similar U.S.-Georgia executive 

reviews were held in Tbilisi, Georgia in July 2007 and in 

Baku, Azerbaijan in June 2008.158

In Russia all CTR biological weapons programs were 

managed through a memorandum of agreement between 

the U.S. government and the International Science and 

Technology Center, based in Moscow. This memo gave 

protection to U.S. government employees and contractors, 

exempted projects from VAT taxation, and provided audit and 

examination rights, but it was not well suited to managing 

and reviewing engineering and construction projects. For 

five years Jim Reid had requested a more formal bilateral 

implementing agreement with the Russian Ministry of 

Health, but none had been developed or signed. As a result, 

in 2008 Reid limited CTR engagements with the Russian 

institutes to the continuation of collaborative smallpox 

research and selected biosecurity and biosafety projects.159

The Biological Threat Reduction Program is the only CTR 

program that sponsored collaborative research programs 

with research scientists in Russia and the other nation’s 

research institutes and laboratories. The objective was to use 

CTR funding to employ scientists and institutes in peaceful 

research that focused on investigating the properties of 

dangerous pathogens to develop prophylactic or preventive 

methodologies. The collaborative projects sought to prevent 

Biological weapons training in Georgia

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
339

proliferation of BW scientific expertise and to preempt its 

departure for other nations. It tried to increase transparency 

at the biological institutes and encouraged standards of 

openness, ethics and professional conduct by scientists. It 

involved U.S. scientists and institutes to prepare them to 

recognize new biological threats.

By 2005, the U.S. CTR program had funded 12 research 

projects with biological research scientists working at 

five Russian institutes. There were also two projects in 

Kazakhstan, four in Uzbekistan and one in Georgia. In Russia, 

these research projects involved more than 400 scientists at 

different research institutes. In Kazakhstan scientists mapped 

the occurrence of anthrax throughout that vast nation. In 

another CTR funded project, scientists produced a modern 

molecular epidemiological study of brucellosis, a major 

health and economic problem with livestock in Kazakhstan 

and Uzbekistan. These important studies engaged 224 

scientists and technicians working at 11 different research 

institutes.160 The director of Kazakhstan’s research institute 

declared that the program “provides us with important 

assistance in gaining access to international scientific 

information, participating in international conferences, 

publishing internationally and learning modern research 

methods.”161

To increase oversight on these cooperative biological 

research projects in Russia, CTR program managers required 

that an American collaborating scientist work in the Russian 

research laboratories at times when research was being 

conducted. At DTRA, CTR officials renewed a contract with 

the University Strategic Partnership, led by the University 

of New Mexico and Pennsylvania State University, to recruit 

American biologists to work in Russia with national scientists. 

However, these experts, known as “visiting scientists,” were 

not able to work in the Russian biological research institutes 

due to directors’ unwillingness to cooperate and enter into 

bilateral implementing agreements on biological threat 

reduction. Instead, the visiting scientists developed CTRfunded research projects with scientists from other nations. By 

2007, there were 10 collaborative research projects underway 

in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. American 

scientists working on these projects came from Louisiana 

State University, New Mexico State University, Arizona 

State University, University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State 

University, University of Florida, Texas A&M University, 

Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Naval 

Medical Research Center, Army Medical Research Institute 

of Infectious Diseases, Armed Forces Research Institute 

of Medical Sciences, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology 

and the Naval Medical Research Unit-3. Each of these CTRfunded projects worked to develop international standards 

of openness, ethics and conduct among national biological 

scientists and technicians.162

So vigorous were these new biological threat reduction 

programs that by 2008 it had become, according to 

independent experts, “the largest biological nonproliferation 

program in the world.”163 Like the other CTR nuclear and 

chemical weapons reduction programs, the biological 

effort attracted other nations and the European Union 

into starting new projects in Russia and the other nations. 

As the CTR biological programs developed full-scale in 

Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, 

new cooperative efforts grew into robust public health 

programs, ones that could be sustained over many years. 

New collaborative research projects, involving American, 

international and national scientists began in Russia, 

Georgia, Ukraine and the other nations.

Within the Bush administration, these new Biological 

Threat Reduction Programs were endorsed, supported and 

managed by senior policy officials. Lisa Bronson, Deputy 

Undersecretary of Defense for Technological Security 

Policy and Counterproliferation, testified to Congress that 

dangerous pathogens and the scientists who developed them 

were a serious security threat. She asked Congress to support 

and fund the CTR program’s Threat Analysis Detection and 

Response efforts in Central Asian nations and fund other 

projects that would consolidate and enhance the biosafety 

and biosecurity of the pathogens.164 Congress, led by Senator 

Lugar, authorized the new programs and appropriated funds 

to pay for them. 

Summary: Bush-Putin Years

When terrorists attacked New York City and Washington, 

D.C. on September 11, 2001, it devastated the United States. 

President Bush and his administration altered the nation’s 

national security strategy and foreign policy. Antiterrorism, 

counter terrorism and military invasions in Central Asia and 

the Middle East dominated the decade. Russia, under Putin, 

had a different set of objectives. In June 2002 Putin appealed 
340

With Courage and Persistence

at the G-8 Summit leaders meeting in Canada, asking them to 

assist Russia in destroying its chemical arsenals and obsolete 

nuclear missiles and submarines. National leaders pledged 

$10 billion over 10 years. The United States pledged another 

$10 billion. Then in December, the Bush administration, 

following an extensive review, issued its national strategy 

to combat weapons of mass destruction. It directed the 

administration’s departments and officials to dismantle the 

former Soviet Union nations’ WMD and infrastructure and 

to consolidate and to secure their remaining weapons and 

related technologies. The new strategy sought to increase 

transparency and encourage new standards of conduct in all 

policies and programs. For the next six years, the Nunn-Lugar 

CTR and other international programs were governed by this 

strategy.

As the decade began, the Nunn-Lugar CTR program had 

major problems in Russia. A major project, the Krasnoyarsk 

liquid propellant disposal plant, had been planned, 

constructed and equipped by an American-funded CTR 

contractor, when it had to be cancelled. Russia failed to 

produce the rocket fuels. Another large project, the Votkinsk 

solid rocket motor dismantlement facility, was cancelled 

suddenly by the Russian government. At the same time, the 

American CTR program at Mayak, where it was constructing 

and equipping a large, modern Russian fissile materials 

storage facility, had run into a series of difficulties. Then, 

problems arose in Russia with construction of the chemical 

weapons destruction facility at Shchuch’ye. At the same 

time, the Russian Ministry of Defense had decommissioned 

hundreds of missiles and expected the American CTR 

program to assist in their eliminations. The Secretary of 

Defense directed investigations by the Inspector General; 

Congress held hearings, criticized the entire CTR effort, and 

directed the Government Accounting Agency to investigate. 

There were several consequences. Within the Department 

of Defense, officials developed new CTR policies and 

implementation strategies. J.D. Crouch, Lisa Bronson, Jim 

Reid directed an extensive policy review that revalidated 

every program and every project. Reid, Pat Wakefield, and 

John Byrd developed new managerial and acquisition 

strategies for all programs in Russia. New semi-annual 

CTR Executive Review meetings in Moscow were instituted 

with senior Russian officials. In these reviews, American 

and Russian senior managers went over every program and 

project, examining all of the issues, problems, and schedules. 

Briefings and minutes were recorded and exchanged. Senior 

Russian officials, General Valynkin, 12th Main Directorate, 

Zinovy Pak, Russian Munitions Administration, Lev D. 

Ryabev, Minister of Atomic Energy, and Nikolai Shumkov, 

Russian Air and Space Administration and their senior staffs 

attended these meetings. 

The results were striking. Across Russia, the Ministry of 

Defense had directed decommissioning of dozens of missile 

regiments, the U.S. CTR program had contractors at the sites, 

lifting the missiles from the silos, defueling and transporting 

them to storage facilities. When ballistic missiles on military 

trains were decommissioned, they were removed, defueled, 

and transported to elimination facilities. Strategic ballistic 

missiles on nuclear submarines went through the same 

processes. U.S. and Russian officials developed plans, 

including an agreement to limit of CTR assistance, for 

completion of the Russian Chemical Weapons Disposal 

Facility at Shchuch’ye. In 2005, Bush and Putin agreed on 

the Bratislava Initiative to develop and implement security 

enhancements at Russian national nuclear storage facilities 

within three years. In addition, the U.S. CTR program 

developed new proliferation prevention initiative projects to 

counter terrorist organizations with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, 

Ukraine, and Azerbaijan.

Along with these assistance projects, the CTR program 

developed new programs in biological threat reduction. The 

objectives for this new effort differed considerably from the 

post-Cold War, Andrew Weber declared, now the issue was 

for the United States was to work cooperatively with other 

nations to stop the leakage of dangerous biological materials, 

pathogens, and expertise. Introducing modern security and 

surveillance systems with these nations would establish early 

warning systems against disease outbreaks and provide for 

the surveillance of infectious diseases.

It was a tumultuous decade for both the United States 

and the Russian Federation. The United States experiences 

were dominated by foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 

and the establishment of domestic antiterrorism laws 

and institutions. By contrast, Russia under Putin grew 

prosperous, benefiting from a global rise in gas and oil prices. 

Russia’s foreign policy developed an assertive anti-American 

tone. Both developments would influence the direction of 

America’s largest nonproliferation assistance program. 
341

Endnotes

1

 See Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, p 6.

2

 Ibid., p. 6.

3

 Letter, Deputy Secretary of Defense to Office of the Inspector 

General, “Review of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) 

Projects that Rely on Russian Federation (Russia) Assurances,” 18 

March 2002.

4

 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, pp. 7, 30.

5

 Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz’ letter cited in section 

“DOD Concerns with the Absence of a Transparency Agreement,” 

in Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, CTR Report to Congress, FY 

2005, pp. 64-65.

6

 Report, DoD Office of the Inspector General, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction: CTR Construction Projects,” 18 December 2003, 

pp. 7-10.

7

 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2003, p II-4. 

On 4 March 2003, Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State 

for Verification and Compliance, testified to Congress that Russia 

was in noncompliance with the Biological Weapons Convention 

and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Based on DeSutter’s 

recommendations, President Bush did not certify to Congress 

Russia’s commitment to compliance. See Statement, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction,” by Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State 

for Verification and Compliance, to the House Armed Services 

Committee, 4 March 2009.

8

 See Report, DoD Office of the Inspector General, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction: CTR Construction Projects,” 18 December 2003, 

p.17.

9

 Interview, Colonel Mark Foster, U.S. Air Force, Deputy Director, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 16 May 2005. 

10 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Secretary of Defense for 

Technology Security Policy and Counterproliferation, to the U.S. 

Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 19 March 2004.

11 U.S. House of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, 

Opening Remarks of Chairman Duncan Hunter, Hearing on U.S. 

Cooperative Threat Reduction and Non-Proliferation Programs, 

4 March 2003. That same day, Rep. Hunter published an opinion 

essay in the Washington Post, “Wasteful ‘Threat Reduction’ in 

Russia,” 4 March 2003.

12 U.S. House of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, 

Statement of Dr. J.D. Couch II, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

International Security Policy, Hearing on U.S. Cooperative Threat 

Reduction and Non-Proliferation Programs, 4 March 2003. 

13 See Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2003, pp. II 3-4; 

and Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004.

14 For the Statement see, “The G-8 Partnership Against the 

Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” at http://

www.g8.fr/evian/english/navigation/g8_documents/archives_from_

previous_summits/kananaskis_summit_-_2002/the_g8_global_

partnership_against_the_spread_of_weapons_and_materials_of_

mass_destruction.html accessed on 22 December 2011.

15 Ibid. See also Press Release, U.S. State Department, “G-8 

Committing up to $20 billion to destroy Weapons of Mass 

Destruction,” 27 June 2007. See also, Alexander Pikayev, “Breaking 

the U.S.-Russian Global Partnership Deadlock? The Monitor, 

(Summer 2004) Center for International Trade and Security, 

University of Georgia, pp. 8-11.

16 There was debate as to the Bush Administration’s 

commitment to the CTR program. Within the Department of 

Defense no senior political appointee traveled to Russia to 

review CTR programs or to participate in senior level meetings 

with Russian ministerial directors as had been the case in the 

Clinton Administration. When asked about the CTR program in a 

Congressional hearing, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld denied any 

knowledge of it. On the other hand, Deputy Secretary of Defense 

Wolfowitz signed letters to the Russian ministries regarding the 

CTR program. After the 11 September 2001 attacks, the Bush 

administration was consumed with organizing and leading its 

global war against terrorism. Senator Lugar was critical of the Bush 

Administration and its international relations with Russia.

17 These figures were as of 2004. See Pikayev, “Breaking the 

U.S.-Russian Global Partnership Deadlock?” The Monitor, (Summer 

2004) Center for International Trade and Security, University of 

Georgia, p 8. For the G-8 nations, similar figures were recorded 

by the British in the Ministry of Defense Report, The G-8 Global 

Partnership – 2003 Annual Report (London, 2003).

18 U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senate Foreign Relation 

Committee, “Statement on the 10+10 over 10 G-8 Program,” 

October 10, 2002. Senator Lugar commented on the recent 

CTR problems in implementing programs with the Russian 

bureaucracies, “But as we have learned in other fora, President 

Putin’s biggest obstacle could well be his own government 

bureaucracy.”

19 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004 

(Information date: January 2003), pp. 10-17, 25-32, 34-39. 

20 For the long-range CTR program projections see the same 

report and CTR Policy Office Briefing, House Armed Services 

Committee, 1 April 2003. 

21 Ibid. 

22 Ibid., pp.10-14, 25-30,34-39. For CTR program projections 

see the CTR Policy Office’s Briefing, to the House Armed Services 

Committee, 1 April 2003. 

23 Ibid., pp. 9, 46.

24 Ibid., pp. 45-46.

25 Ibid., p 45.

26 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, pp. 47-48.
342

With Courage and Persistence

27 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, pp. 45-46, 

43-44.

28 National Security Presidential Directive-17, “National 

Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” December 

2002.

29 See Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, pp. 1-3.

30 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004. 

31 Ibid. 

32 Bianka J. Adams and Joseph P. Harahan, Responding to War, 

Terrorism, and WMD Proliferation: History of DTRA 1998-2008,

(DTRA History Series, Washington, D.C., 2008), pp. 96-98.

33 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004. See also, Report, National 

Research Council, National Academies, “The Biological Threat 

Reduction Program of the Department of Defense: From Foreign 

Assistance to Sustainable Partnerships,” National Academies Press, 

2008.

34 Interview, Andrew Weber, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

October 2009. 

35 Briefing, Dr. Michael A. Balady, Program Manager, Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program, “Overview of the CTR 

Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program,” no date, 

(2005).

36 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid. See also, DTRA, CTR Program Review, 7 November 

2003, with the specific briefing by Mark West, “WMD Proliferation 

Prevention Initiative (WMD-PPI)”. 

39 President Bush, “Remarks on Weapons of Mass 

Destruction Proliferation,” The White House, 11 February 

2004, at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/

releases/2004/02/20040211-4.html accessed on 22 December 2011.

40 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004.

41 Report, DoD Office of the Inspector General, “Cooperative 

Threat Reduction: CTR Construction Projects,” 18 December 2003.

42 Interview, Colonel Mark Foster, U.S. Air Force, Deputy 

Director, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 16 May 

2005. See also, Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006 and Report, 

CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual 

Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2008.

43 Interview, Colonel Mark Foster, U.S. Air Force, Deputy 

Director, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 16 May 2005; and Interview, Patrick 

Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical 

Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, 21 June 2005; Interview, Thomas Kuenning, Director, CTR 

Directorate, DTRA, 6 August 2003. All interviews were with the 

author.

44 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, pp. 6-7.

45 Ibid., p. 7.

46 Interview, Colonel Mark Foster, USAF, Deputy Director, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, May 16, 

2005; Biography, John T. Byrd, director, CTR Directorate, DTRA, 9 

December 2004. Byrd was a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral. 

47 Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, 21 June 2005, and Interview, Colonel Mark Foster, 

U.S. Air Force, Deputy Director, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 16 May 2005.

48 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, 

(Information cutoff, December 2004) pp. 10-11, and Interview, 

Colonel Colonel Mark Foster, U.S. Air Force, Deputy Director, 

CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, 

Virginia, 16 May 2005.

49 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, pp. 10-11.

50 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, p 11; and 

Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, OSD, with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 21 June 2005; Report, CTR 

Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to 

Congress Fiscal Year 2008, p.7.

51 Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, 

OSD, 21 June 2005; see also, Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2006, p 10.

52 Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 21 June 2005.

53 Valynkin’s quotation is from the CTR Policy Office, “Minutes, 

Integrated Program Management Review/Executive Review, with 

Ministry of Defense”, 14 June 2005. Approximately 20 people 

participated in these meetings. 
343

54 Briefing, Hunter Lutinski, Program Manager, DTRA, 

“Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security, Implementation Program 

Management Review,” 14 June 2005.

55 See, CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, Integrated Program 

Management Review/Executive Review, with Ministry of Defense,” 

14 June 2005.

56 Briefing, Lt. Colonel Zane Mitchell, Deputy Program 

Manager, DTRA, “Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility, Executive 

Review and Implementation Program Management Review”, 16 

June 2005.

57 Ibid., see Byrd’s talking points in the CTR Policy Office, 

Minutes, Integrated Program Management Review/Executive 

Review, with the Federal Agency of Industry, Russian Federation, 16 

June 2005.

58 CTR Policy Office, Minutes, Integrated Program Management 

Review/Executive Review, with the Federal Agency of Industry, 

Russian Federation, 16 June 2005.

59 Interview, Colonel Richard Green, Chief DTRA-Moscow 

Office, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, 21 July 2005. Brackets added by author.

60 Ibid.

61 Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, 21 June 2005. Brackets added by author.

62 Interview, Commander Donald Holcomb, U.S. Navy, 

Program Manager SSBN Elimination, Russia, CTR Directorate, 

DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 7 December 

2004.

63 For Byrd’s statement see, CTR Policy Office, “Minutes, 

Integrated Program Management Review/Executive Review, with 

Ministry of Defense,” 14 June 2005.

64 Biography, John T. Byrd, DTRA, 19 December 2006.

65 Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and President 

Vladimir V. Putin on Nuclear Cooperation, Bratislava, 24 February 

2005. at http://moscow.usembassy.gov/transcripts_photo_bio/jointstatement-by-president-george-w.-bush-and-president-vladimir-v.-

putin-on-nuclear-security-cooperation-bratislava-february-24-2005 

accessed on 22 December 2011.

66 Peter Baker and Walter Pincus, “U.S.-Russia Pact Aimed at 

Nuclear Terrorism,” Washington Post, 24 February 2005.

67 Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and President 

Vladimir V. Putin on Nuclear Cooperation, Bratislava, 24 February 

2005. 

68 See Matthew Bunn, “Securing Warheads and Materials: 

Nuclear Warhead Security Upgrades;” see also, Morten Bremer 

Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Nava Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and 

Future Steps,” Yaderny Kontrol Digest 7, no. 4, Fall 2002. 

69 Interview, Hunter Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 2009.

70 Ibid. Letter, James H. Reid, Director CTR Policy Office, OSD, 

and David Huizenga, Assistant Deputy Administrator, International 

Material Protection and Cooperation, DOE, to General Colonel 

I.N. Valynkin. Chief, 12th Main Directorate, Ministry of Defense, 

Russian Federation, 13 October 2005.

71 Interview, Hunter Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 2009.

72 Ibid. See also, CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-

Russian Integrated Program Management Review/Executive Review, 

DoD-MOD,” 14 June 2005 and 16 November 2005.

73 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” 14 

June 2005 and 16 November 2005.

74 Letter, James H. Reid, Director CTR Policy Office, OSD, and 

David Huizenga, Assistant Deputy Administrator, International 

Material Protection and Cooperation, DOE, to General Colonel 

I.N. Valynkin. Chief, 12th Main Directorate, Ministry of Defense, 

Russian Federation, 13 October 2005.

75 Agreement Between the United States of America and the 

Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, 

Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of 

Weapons Proliferation, dated 17 June 1992, as amended 3 February 

2005, and as amended and extended 15/16 June 1999 and 16 

June 2006 (U.S.-Russia CTR Umbrella Agreements). See also, 

Press Release, The White House, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Agreement with Russia Extended,” 19 June 2006.

76 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, D0D-MoD,” 16 

November 2005. The U.S. team prepared issue reports, in English 

and Russian, for presentation at the meetings. See, Lutinski, Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security Paper: Site Security Enhancements, 

9 November 2005. See also, Interview, Hunter Lutinski, Program 

Manager, Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program, DTRA, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 2009.

77 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” 

Moscow, Russia, 7 June 2007. See U.S. issue paper, “Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security: Automated Inventory Control and 

Management System (AICMS).”

78 Ibid. See the issue paper “Nuclear Weapons Safety and 

Security: Automated Inventory Control and Management System 

(AICMS).”

79 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” 

Moscow, Russia, 7 June 2007. See issue paper, “Completed Projects 

and Accomplishments.”

80 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” 

Moscow, Russia, 7 June 2007. See issue paper, “Site Security 

Enhancements.”

81 Interview, Hunter Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 2009.

82 Ibid. See also, CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-

Russian Integrated Program Management Review/Executive Review, 
344

With Courage and Persistence

DoD-MOD,” Moscow, Russia, 7 June 2007. See issue paper, “Site 

Security Enhancements.”

83 Interview, Hunter Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear 

Weapons Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 2009. See also, CTR 

Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated Program 

Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” Moscow, 

Russia, 10 November 2007. See issue paper, “Site Security 

Enhancements.”

84 Interview, Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear Weapons 

Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, 20 May 2009.

85 CTR Policy Office, DoD, “Minutes, U.S.-Russian Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, DoD-MOD,” 

Moscow, Russia, 4 June 2008 and see issue paper, “Site Security 

Enhancements.”

86 Interview, Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear Weapons 

Safety and Security Program, DTRA, with Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, 20 May 2009.

87 White House, Fact Sheet: “Defending Against Weapons of 

Mass Destruction Terrorism,” 3 December 2008. See also, Press 

Release, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 23 December 

2008. 

88 U.S. Department of Energy, Press Release, “U.S. and 

Russia Complete Nuclear Security Upgrades from Bratislava,” 23 

December 2008.

89 Ibid.

90 “Russia, U.S. to continue cooperating on nuclear security,” 

Russia & CIS Military Newswire, Moscow, 26 December 2008.

91 DTRA News Release, “Bratislava Nuclear Security Initiative 

Completed by the End of 2008,” 23 December 2008.

92 Ibid. 

93 Interview, Nikolai Ivanovich Shumkov, Director (Retired) 

Department of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, Russian 

Federation, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 July 2005, 

Moscow, Russia.

94 Briefing, Mark West, SOAE Program Manager, DTRA, 

“Strategic offensive Arms Elimination,” February 2005; For specific 

activities in Russia, see Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2005 

(January 2004) pp. 23-30.

95 Report, CTR Policy Office, “Second Semi-annual Executive 

Review of Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Programs, 15-17 

January 2003”.

96 See, “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of 

the United States of America and the Federal Space Agency of the 

Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Elimination of 

Strategic Offensive Arms, dated August 26, 1993, as amended April 

3, 1995, June 19, 1995, May 27, 1996, April 11, 1997, February 11, 

1998, June 9, 1998, August 16, 1999, August 8, 2000, June 9, 2003, 

September 25, 2003, and January 14, 2005, and as amended and 

extended August 30, 2002.” (SOAE Implementing Agreement) 

97 See, Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007 (December 

2005), pp. 12-17.

98 Nunn-Lugar Report, August 2005, Office of Richard G. Lugar, 

U.S. Senate.

99 Jeff Zeleny, U.S. Focuses on Russian WMD,” Chicago Tribune, 

27 August 2005.

100 Ibid. For an account of this same trip see, “Lugar and Obama 

Urge Weapons Destruction of Conventional Weapons,” Global News 

Wire, 30 August 2005; Richard G. Lugar, “Aging Soviet Subs are 

Still a Threat; A Cold War Legacy,” International Herald Tribune, 13 

August 2005. 

101 See, Nunn-Lugar Report, August 2005 Office of Richard G. 

Lugar, U.S. Senate. 

102 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007 (December 

2005), pp. 16-17.

103 Ibid., p16; See Reports, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2008 

(December 2006), pp. 3, 12-13; Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (December 2007), pp. 

10-11; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress 

Fiscal Year 2010 (December 2008), pp. 2 and 9. These projects 

were discussed at the U.S.-Russian Executive Reviews of the CTR 

Program.

104 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (December 

2007), p. 10.

105 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2010 (December 

2008), p. 9.

106 Ibid., p. 9.

107 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004.

108 James H. Reid, Director, CTR Policy Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, “Memorandum for Director, Treaties and 

Threat Reduction, OSD/Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,” 22 

March 2007.

109 Ibid.

110 Briefing, Lt. Commander Robert Bridges, CTR Project 

Officer, DTRA, “SS-24 Solid Rocket Motor Storage and Propellant 

Disposition Support in Ukraine,” 27 October 2009. 

111 Reports, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007 (December 

2005), pp. 17-18; .Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report 

to Congress Fiscal Year 2008 (December 2006), pp. 14-15; 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2009 (December 2007), p. 11; See also, Briefing, Lt. Colonel 

Zane Mitchell, DTRA, “Joint Requirements Implementation Plan 

(JRIP),” June 2006, Moscow, Russia. 
345

112 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2005 (January 

2004), pp. 33-34.

113 “Russian Chemical Weapons Dismantlement: Progress with 

Problems,” WMD Insights, DTRA, June 2007.

114 V.I. Kholstov, Director -General Russian Munitions Agency, 

“Destruction of chemical weapons is a vital necessity and an issue 

of mutual concern,” Bulletin of Chemical Disarmament, No. 

1, January 2004. See also, Issue Brief, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 

“Global CW Assistance,” June 2005. Also, “Russian Chemical 

Weapons Dismantlement: Progress with Problems,” WMD Insights, 

DTRA, June 2007.

115 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2005 (January 

2004), pp. 33-34.

116 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006 (December 

2004), pp. 25-26.

117 See CTR Policy Office, “Minutes, U.S. – Russia, Integrated 

Program Management Review/Executive Review, with Rosprom,” 16 

June 2005.

118 Briefing, Paul L. McNelly, CW Program Manager, DTRA, 

“Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility,” 17 November 2007, 

Moscow, Russia. In this briefing, McNelly presented a detailed 

timeline of the major decisions leading up to and after the decision 

to halt contractor negotiations. 

119 Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the 

United States of America and the Federal Agency for Industry 

Concerning the Safe, Secure and Ecologically Sound Destruction 

of Chemical Weapons, dated July 30, 1992, as amended 18 March 

1994, 28 May 1996, 10 April 1997, 29 December 1997, 14 January 

1999, 14 November 2000, 29 August 2002, 23 October 2002, 17 

March 2003, 18 March 2003, 23 September 2003, 28 July 2004, 

6 October 2005, 8 September 2006, and 21 May 2007 (Chemical 

Weapons Destruction Implementing Agreement).

120 Briefing, Paul L. McNelly, CW Program Manager, DTRA, 

“Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility,” 17 November 

2007, Moscow, Russia. See also, “Russian Chemical Weapons 

Dismantlement: Progress with Problems,” WMD Insights, DTRA 

June 2007 and Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (December 

2007), p. 11.

121 Briefing, Paul L. McNelly, CW Program Manager, DTRA, 

“Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility,” to the IMPR/Executive 

Review Meeting, Moscow, Russia, 17 November 2007. See also, 

Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2010 (December 2008), p.10. 

122 Press Release, “Senators Lugar and Nunn Tour Shchuch’ye 

Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility,” 30 August 2007, 

Chelyabinsk, Russia.

123 Philip P. Pan, “Plant to Destroy Chemical Weapons Opens 

in Russia,” Washington Post, 30 May 2009. “Russia opens chemical 

weapons destruction facility in Siberia,” RIA Novosti, Moscow, 29 

May 2009.

124 “Shchuch’ye, Russia chemical weapons destruction plant 

opens,” Secret Scotland, at http://webcache.googleusercontent.

com/search?q=cache:MiZwaixSL3gJ:secretscotland.wordpress.

com/2009/05/31/shchuchye-russia-chemical-weapons-destructionplant-opens/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us accessed on 22 

De3cember 2011.

125 “Russia opens chemical weapons destruction facility in 

Siberia,” RIA Novosti, Moscow, 29 May 2009; Philip P. Pan, “Plant 

to Destroy Chemical Weapons Opens in Russia,” Washington Post, 

May 30, 2009. See also “Russian Chemical Weapons Destruction 

Site Completed Despite Obstacles,” 27 May 2009, Nuclear 

Threat Initiative at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/

search?q=cache:TisbW2R4jz4J:www.nti.org/gsn/article/russianchemical-weapons-destruction-site-completed-despite-obstacles/+

&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us accessed on 22 December 2011; and 

“CW Destruction Site begins Operation,” Arms Control Today, April 

2009.

126 “Russia opens chemical weapons destruction facility in 

Siberia,” RIA Novosti, 29 May 2009.

127 Press Release, “Lugar Comments at Shchuch’ye Chemical 

Weapons Destruction Facility Opening,” 28 May 2009, Shchuch’ye, 

Russia. 

128 Hans-Joachim Spanger, Between Ground Zero and Square One, 

(Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, 2008).

129 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2004, p. 33. 

130 Interview, Patrick Wakefield, Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, 21 June 2005.

131 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004.

132 Briefing, Bill Younger, Program Manager, WMD Proliferation 

Prevention Initiatives, “Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation 

Prevention Initiatives,“ CT Directorate, DTRA, February 2004.

133 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2008 (December 

2006), p. 33.

134 CTR Policy Office, DoD, Minutes, “Executive Review WMD 

PPI Azerbaijan,” 16 July 2007. 

135 See, Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (December 

2007), p. 21-23. Briefing, Lt. Commander Fred Sheehy, CTR Project 

Officer, “Weapons of Mass Destruction- Proliferation Prevention 

Initiative, Caspian Sea Maritime – Azerbaijan: Project Status,” 25 

June 2008, Baku, Azerbaijan. 

136 See, Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2010 (December 

2008), p. 17-18.

137 Country Profile: Uzbekistan, BBC News, 2008. 

138 Reports, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006 (December 
346

With Courage and Persistence

2004), pp. 25-26; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to 

Congress Fiscal Year 2005 (January 2004), pp. 33-34.

139 Reports, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2008 (December 

2006), pp. 80-81; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report 

to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (December 2007), pp. 21-23; 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2010 (December 2008), pp. 17-18.

140 An account of this program runs throughout the Defense 

Department’s CTR Annual Reports to Congress for 2005, 2006, 

2007, and 2008. 

141 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2010 (December 

2008), pp. 18-19.

142 Interview, Andrew Weber, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

October 2009. 

143 Ibid.

144 “The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the 

Department of Defense: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable 

Partnerships,” Report, Committee on Prevention of Proliferation of 

Biological Weapons, National Research Council, November 2008.

145 Briefing, Dr. Michael Balady, Program Manager, BW 

Proliferation Prevention Program, CT Directorate, DTRA, 

”Overview of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Biological Weapons 

Proliferation Program,” no date (2005).

146 “The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the 

Department of Defense: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable 

Partnerships,” pp. 15-24. 

147 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2005 (Data, 

January 2004), pp. 79-80. See also, CT Directorate, DTRA, “TADR 

Brochure,” no date. 

148 Interview, Andrew Weber, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

October 2009.

149 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007, see Sections, 

Objective 2, and Objective 3. 

150 Interview, Andrew Weber, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

October 2009.

151 Interview, Andrew Weber, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, OSD, 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 14 

October 2009.

152 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004. See also, Briefing, 

Dr. Michael A. Balady, Program Manager, Biological Weapons 

Proliferation Prevention Program, “Overview of the CTR Biological 

Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program,” no date (2005).

153 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2006, pp. 56-

57. See also “The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the 

Department of Defense: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable 

Partnerships,” pp. 59-67.

154 Ibid., pp. 48-49.

155 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2008 (Dec. 31, 

2006), pp. 21-23.

156 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007(Dec. 

31, 2008), pp. 14-17. See also “Countering Biological Threats, 

Challenges for the Department of Defense’s Nonproliferation 

Program Beyond the Former Soviet Union,” Report, Committee on 

the Prevention of Proliferation of Biological Weapons, National 

Research Council, National Academies Press, 2009.

157 CTR Briefing Book, DTRA, “U.S.–Ukraine Executive Review, 

BTRP,” 10 October 2006, Kiev, Ukraine.

158 See CTR Briefing Book, DTRA, “U.S.-Georgia, Executive 

Review and Implementation Program Management Review of the 

Biological Threat Reduction Program in Georgia,” 17 July 2007; 

see also, CTR Briefing Book, DTRA, “U.S.-Azerbaijan, U.S.-Georgia, 

Executive Review and Implementation Program Management 

Review of the Biological Threat Reduction Program,” 25 June 2008, 

Baku, Azerbaijan.

159 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2010 (Dec. 31, 

2008), p. 14.

160 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007, Section: 

Objective 3. The engagement through training was complemented 

in both of the National Research Council reports.

161 “The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the 

Department of Defense, From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable 

Partnerships,” p. 31.

162 Report, CTR Policy Office, DoD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009 (Dec. 

31, 2007), pp. 16-20. See also “Countering Biological Threats, 

Challenges for the Department of Defense’s Nonproliferation 

Program Beyond the Former Soviet Union,” pp. 9-10.

163 “Countering Biological Threats, Challenges for the 

Department of Defense’s Nonproliferation Program Beyond the 

Former Soviet Union,” p. 4.

164 Testimony, Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Technological Security Policy and Counterproliferation , U.S. 

Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities, 10 March 2004.
347

CHAPTER 11

The Obama Years: Program Continuity,

New START Treaty and Global Expansion of

Cooperative Biological Engagement

Following President Barack Obama’s election, inauguration, 

and cabinet selection, he began to outline in a series of 

public speeches his national security and foreign policy 

objectives. Traveling across Europe, he met with national 

leaders, military commanders, students and the public. In 

early April 2009, the president addressed a large crowd in 

Prague’s central square explaining his position on nuclear 

weapons. “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons,” 

he declared, “is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold 

War... today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands 

of those weapons have not.”1

 The threat of a global nuclear 

war had diminished; however, he asserted that the risk of a 

nuclear attack from terrorist organizations had increased. 

In contemporary life, terrorists were determined “to buy, 

build, or steal one [a nuclear weapon].”2

 The United States, 

the president declared, would center its foreign policy on 

strengthening international non-proliferation regimes, 

negotiating and ratifying a new Strategic Arms Reduction 

Treaty with Russia, and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban 

Treaty.3

Next he focused on specific policies designed to deter 

terrorists, announcing a new American-led international effort 

to secure vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within 

four years. He endorsed the Bush administration’s initiatives 

to break up black markets, detect and intercept dangerous 

materials in transit, and use financial tools to disrupt and 

destroy suspicious trades. President Obama signaled out the 

Proliferation Security Initiative and the Global Initiative to 

Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and indicated that they should 

become international institutions. Perhaps the president’s 

clearest statement during the Prague speech concerned the 

future of nuclear weapons: “I state clearly and with conviction 

America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a 

world without nuclear weapons.”4

 In this speech and others, 

Obama defined the contemporary threat as terrorists seeking 

nuclear weapons and he declared that the United States 

and other nations would control and reduce these weapons 

through treaties, prohibitions, and cooperative programs.5

Among a number of international cooperative programs, 

Nunn-Lugar stood out for its long experience with Russia and 

the other regional nations. The program had been in existence 

for 16 years, it had assisted Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and to a 

degree, Belarus, in completely eliminating their inherited 

nuclear weapons and systems. It had sealed hundreds of 

nuclear testing tunnels in Kazakhstan. In Russia, it had assisted 

in the elimination of long range bombers, submarine launch 

ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines, and intercontinental 

ballistic missiles. When the number of weapon systems 

being eliminated escalated across Russia, the Nunn-Lugar 

CTR program helped secure the nation’s nuclear weapons 

storage areas and facilities. It paid for special military trains 

transporting nuclear materials across Russia, and it assisted in 

the design, construction, and equipping of a large, modern, 

secure national fissile materials storage facility. Nunn-Lugar 

had been active in destroying abandoned chemical weapons 

production plants, and it had assisted for years in the design, 

construction, and equipping of one of Russia’s largest 

chemical weapons disposal facilities. In recent years, NunnLugar assistance had developed new programs in biological 

cooperation with Russia, and other nations in the region.
348

With Courage and Persistence

All of these Nunn-Lugar programs began with negotiations 

on bilateral cooperative agreements between nations and 

ministries, and then developed into implementing agreements 

on specific programs between departments, ministries, 

agencies, and organizations. As the projects worked out and 

serious issues arose, American and Russian program leaders 

developed a series of semi-annual managerial reviews which 

examined every aspect of the actual work. In the United 

States, all programs of the Nunn-Lugar assistance were 

examined annually by the administration and congressional 

committees. Senator Lugar was a senior senator in Congress; 

he knew every aspect of the complex program; he traveled 

to the sites year after year, talked with people working the 

projects, in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other nations. 

Senator Obama, newly elected from Illinois, traveled with 

Senator Lugar on a trip to Ukraine and Russia. Lugar and 

Senator Nunn had long believed that the Cold War was over, 

but that nations needed assistance, expertise, and equipment 

in eliminating and securing their excess weapons. Throughout 

the program, special investigations were conducted by the 

Congressional Accounting Office and the Department of 

Defense Inspector General. Consequently when President 

Obama articulated these foreign policy objectives, NunnLugar was a well-established international assistance program, 

working directly on eliminating and securing excess weapons 

from the Cold War.

New People and Nunn-Lugar

Of the many new people entering key positions in the 

Obama administration, a few had direct experience with 

the Nunn-Lugar program. Laura Holgate became the Senior 

Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Threat 

Reduction at the National Security Council.6

 In the 1990s 

she had served in the Defense Department as the Special 

Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction. She had 

signed many of the Nunn-Lugar implementing agreements 

with senior Russian government officials. Holgate knew 

Nunn-Lugar’s objectives, its programs and projects, and 

it’s potential. Ashton Carter became the Under Secretary 

of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in 

the Department of Defense.7

 He had a long association 

with the Nunn-Lugar program. Carter had briefed the first 

meeting of U.S. senators convened by Senators Nunn and 

Lugar to discuss American assistance, before the collapse 

of the Soviet Union. A theoretical nuclear physicist and 

international relations specialist, he led the International 

and Global Affairs faculty at Harvard University. In 

President Obama speaking in Prague, April 2009 the 1990s, Carter was Assistant Secretary of Defense for U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic

Cooperative Threat Reduction program logo

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
349

International Security Policy, a job that involved working with 

Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, and other national governments 

developing cooperative projects under Nunn-Lugar assistance 

programs. In 2008, Carter co-chaired with Robert Joseph, 

former Undersecretary of State for International Security 

Policy in the Bush administration, a special review panel 

that examined the roles and missions of the Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency (DTRA).8

 It reviewed many of the NunnLugar programs being implemented by that agency, and 

recommended new initiatives.

Andrew Weber became the Assistant to the Secretary of 

Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense 

Programs.9

 He worked for Carter. A specialist in threat 

reduction, Weber was instrumental in removing weapons 

grade uranium from Kazakhstan and Georgia and MIG29 fighter aircraft from Moldova. He developed and had 

managerial oversight for the department’s Biological Threat 

Reduction Program. He had worked on policy issues and 

program developments for more than 10 years within the 

department’s Nunn-Lugar program. He traveled extensively. 

In the new position, Weber had oversight of the Nunn-Lugar 

CTR program executed by DTRA.

The new director of DTRA was Kenneth A. Myers.10 He 

worked for Weber. From 1995 to 2003, Myers had served 

as a legislative assistant to Senator Lugar. He worked on 

issues of international-political-military affairs, national 

security issues, international treaties, nonproliferation, and 

European and former Soviet security issues. Myers organized 

and accompanied Senator Lugar on many of the annual 

trips to Russia and other nations. In 2003 he joined the 

U.S. Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations as a senior 

professional staff member. He became Lugar’s senior advisor 

on European, former Soviet and Central Asian affairs, as 

well as nonproliferation, counterproliferation, arms control, 

and arms sales. He continued to travel with the senator 

to CTR working sites. In July 2009 Myers became DTRA’s 

director. This agency had expanded; now its mission was to 

safeguard the U.S. and allied nations from weapons of mass 

destruction -- chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and 

high yield explosives. It provided the Defense Department 

and its worldwide military commands with capabilities to 

examine, reduce, eliminate, and to counter the threat and its 

effects. Implementing the Nunn-Lugar CTR program was one 

element in DTRA’s mission.11

Ashton B. Carter

Department of DefenseDepartment of Defense

 Andrew C. Weber
350

With Courage and Persistence

In a large and complex national government like the 

United States, senior officials with specific knowledge and long 

experience with the international programs are invaluable. 

They provide leadership and support with Congressional 

committees, key officials in foreign governments, and, at 

times, the media. In the United States, experts working 

outside the national government were also influential. In 

2007 and 2008, Congress directed the National Academy 

of Sciences to examine the Defense Department’s biological 

threat reduction program. Two studies resulted, one examined 

the CTR biological programs and another looked at the 

entire Nunn-Lugar CTR effort. Directed by senior American 

scientists, policy leaders and academics, these studies 

produced reports that examined the department’s efforts and 

recommended expansion.

National Research Council Reports

The National Research Council’s report, “Countering 

Biological Threat: Challenges for the Department of 

Defense’s Nonproliferation Program Beyond the Former 

Soviet Union (2009),” placed its recommendations into 

a national security context. “The infrastructure required to 

support a bioterrorism attack is relatively small,” the authors 

wrote, “but the infrastructure for countering an attack is 

complex.”12 They stressed that “dual use” was inherent in 

the biological field, and pointed out that in most human 

health and agricultural surveillance systems three functions 

were present: detection, diagnosis and therapy. To reduce 

proliferation of biological weapons and diseases, nations 

and international organizations had developed treaties, 

agreements, regulations and codes of conduct. The United 

Nations’ International Health Regulations, endorsed by more 

than 100 nations, provided not only the legal framework, but 

defined specific public health diseases and situations that 

had to be communicated to the international community. 

Yet in the more than 130 nations that had endorsed the 

UN resolutions, very few states had developed adequate 

capabilities to counter biological threats. The National 

Research Council panel recommended that Department 

of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program begin a 

biosecurity engagement program with “at least ten countries 

outside the former Soviet Union (FSU) during the next five 

years.”13 These new engagements should be planned to last 

up to five years, with consideration given for extending 

activities another five years.

David R. Frantz and Ronald Lehman led a 15-person 

National Academy of Sciences committee that investigated 

the Department of Defense’s entire CTR program.14 In the 

final report, “Global Security Engagement, A New Model 

for Cooperative Threat Reduction (2009)”, they praised 

the department’s 15 year, $7 billion dollar CTR effort 

to safeguard and dismantle huge stockpiles of nuclear, 

chemical and biological weapons and delivery systems in 

Russia and other regional nations. Then the committee 

recommended that the department expand its CTR 

program’s mission geographically, update its form and 

function, and make it a national foreign policy objective, 

one enhancing global security. The strategic context, they 

argued, had changed: the Nunn-Lugar effort began in 1992 

when there was need to assist Russia, Ukraine, and the 

other new nations that had inherited arsenals of weapons 

of mass destruction from the Cold War. Now, the context 

was the global spread of advanced technologies, the rise 

of terrorism, and the growing interdependence of peoples, 

economies and politics. The United States was the leading 

nation in negotiating and implementing bilateral and 

Kenneth A. Myers

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
351

international nonproliferation agreements; it was signing 

and leading implementation of innovative initiatives such 

as the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Global Initiative 

to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and the United Nations 

Security Council Resolution 1540.15

As a consequence, the National Academy of Sciences’ 

committee recommended reshaping Department of Defense’s 

CTR program into a new 2.0 model. It would include a new 

set of programs and projects that would become part of a 

“cooperative network” that would include a wide range of 

nations, international organizations and nongovernmental 

partners. For instance, the committee thought that many 

nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia might be 

willing to partner with the United States on efforts to 

build their emergency and disaster preparedness policies 

and programs. They might also wish to strengthen their 

port security networks, or develop programs to combat 

smuggling. Certainly, some nations would be willing to 

establish partnerships to improve disease surveillance and 

identify potential biological attacks or disease outbreaks. 

If the Defense Department were to undertake new projects 

and programs, then it should reconsider its approach to 

using umbrella agreements, geographic limitations and 

metrics used to measure program success. In devising future 

programs, cooperation and flexibility should be the essential 

keys.16

Senator Lugar commended the report, noting that it 

would be an excellent resource for expanding Nunn-Lugar 

“beyond the former Soviet Union.”17 Lugar had traveled 

across the region annually, visiting CTR sites in Russia, 

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Albania, examining 

project developments and discussing issues with national 

and local officials. In his published trip reports, the senator 

kept the cooperative assistance program in the public eye 

and before the administration.18 In April 2009, the senator 

introduced legislation that would allow the Defense 

Department more flexibility in meeting unexpected threats 

in locations around the world. Up to 10 percent of the annual 

appropriations for the Nunn-Lugar CTR program could be 

used to meet urgent threats. The Secretary of Defense was 

allowed for the first time to accept funds from other nations, 

international organizations, and multinational entities 

that would finance CTR activities. The final authorization 

bill increased the FY2009 appropriation by $20 million 

to $424.1 million. The new funding would permit CTR to 

take on projects in new countries, principally in the area of 

biological threat reduction. When the conferees included 

the senator’s legislative recommendations in the final act, 

Senator Lugar commented:

“Over the last 16 years, the Nunn-Lugar program 

has made tremendous progress on the destruction 

and dismantlement of massive Soviet weapons 

systems and the facilities that developed them. In 

the future, the program will be asked to address 

much more complex and diverse security threats in 

a larger number of countries.”19

While this legislative authorization represented a major 

turning point in the Nunn-Lugar legislation, it also contained 

important “legacy” elements regarding eliminating ballistic 

missiles and submarine launched missile systems in Russia 

and Ukraine.

National Research Council ‘s report, “Countering Biological 

Threat: Challenges for the Department of Defense’s Nonproliferation Program Beyond the Former Soviet Union”
352

With Courage and Persistence

Strategic Offensive Arms Eliminations 

(SOAE) across Russia

For more than 15 years, Russia had been a major recipient 

of Nunn-Lugar assistance. Using these funds, equipment, 

and management assistance, the Russian Minister of Defense 

and General Staff had agreed on numerous cooperative 

projects to eliminate strategic bombers, intercontinental 

ballistic missiles, and submarine launched ballistic missiles. 

All of these weapons reductions fell under the START Treaty. 

Russian nuclear storage sites had also received assistance, 

improving and strengthening the sites physical security, 

training, accounting, and emergency systems. In 1997 

Marshal Sergeyev, Russian Minister of Defense, endorsed the 

START II Treaty, and announced that Russia would eliminate 

154 SS-18 strategic missiles (10 warheads) and 16 launch 

control centers. 20 These missiles were intercontinental liquid 

rockets, with multiple warheads; they were prohibited by 

the treaty. U.S. CTR policy managers agreed to assist with 

these eliminations, setting up projects at SS-18 missile 

bases, modernizing rocket fuel storage facilities, destroying 

missile launch silos, and establishing a neutralization 

and elimination facility at Surovatikha Arsenal. A second 

elimination facility was established at the Piban’shur military 

base. By 2000, the Russian Ministry of Defense had added 

to the planned missile eliminations, now they included 

206 SS-18s, 87 SS-17s, and 73 SS-19s.21 All were excess to 

Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces. All would be neutralized and 

eliminated with Nunn-Lugar CTR assistance.

The Strategic Rocket Forces had three types of solid-fuel 

strategic rockets: SS-24s, SS-N-20s, and SS-25s. Marshal 

Sergeyev and the General Staff decided these missile 

systems should be eliminated in accordance with the 

unratified START II Treaty. The U.S. agreed to assist Russia 

in eliminating these missile systems, their launchers and 

bases. The SS-24 missile systems were based in fixed silos 

and on special military railroad trains and rail garrisons. 

The U.S. agreed to eliminate 56 SS-24 missiles and 24 

missile launchers deployed on three special military 

trains.22 The SS-N-20s were solid rocket motors and 

components. By 1999, the Russian Ministry of Defense 

had declared that 91 SS-N-20 rocket motors were excess 

and should be eliminated.23 The U.S. agreed. The SS-25 

missile system differed considerably. It consisted of SS25 single warhead missiles, mounted on a large military 

road vehicle. The Strategic Rocket Forces had fielded these 

missiles in very large numbers: 360 SS-25s missile systems 

in 40 regiments.24 U.S. CTR policy officials negotiated 

with Russian officials over the schedule for eliminations of 

the missiles and launchers. For Marshal Sergeyev and his 

New Strategic Context

	 H Global Spread of Advanced

Technologies

	 H Rise of Terrorism

	 H Interdependence of Nations

	 H Expansion of CTR into Asia, Middle East 

and Africa

SS-24 ICBM inside railcar

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
353

successors, the rate of decommissioning the SS-25 regiments 

was tied to the rate of deploying new SS-27 Topol-M missile 

regiments. This new missile system did not fall under any 

of the arms control treaties and it represented the future for 

the Strategic Rocket Forces.

The sequence for eliminating all these Russian missile 

systems began with the Russian Ministry of Defense and 

General Staff deciding to decommission specific missile 

regiments and naval submarines. The Russian Air and Space 

Agency was responsible for eliminating the missiles and 

launchers after decommissioning and turnover. All NunnLugar CTR assistance was negotiated, planned, funded, 

and carried out under the U.S.-Russia SOAE implements 

agreements. From 1997 through 2007, there were multiple 

missile elimination projects across Russia, all involving 

Nunn-Lugar assistance, with American CTR managers, U.S. 

integrating contractors, Russian subcontractors, and local 

firms carrying out the elimination, storage, neutralization, 

and destructive work. By 2005, projects were underway at 

more than 30 strategic missile sites and submarine naval 

shipyards across Russia.

That year, working collectively, they destroyed 42 ICBMs, 

eliminated 16 ICBM silos, destroyed 31 ICBM mobile 

launchers, eliminated 29 SLBM launchers, eliminated 21 

SLBMs, and destroyed one SSBN.25 This level of activity 

continued in the following years, until 2008-2009. At that 

time, all SS-24 missiles (56) and launchers (24) had been 

eliminated. The next year Russia was caught up in the 

worldwide financial crises; the Russian Ministry of Defense 

budget was cut, slowing deployments of SS-27 Toprol 

M regiments, and reducing decommissioning of SS-25 

regiments. Then, the Russian ministries, General Staff, and 

military forces grew concerned over the negotiations on the 

new START Treaty. All of these factors reduced the number of 

U.S. Nunn-Lugar elimination projects in Russia.26

Reducing and eliminating SS-25 missiles and 

launchers became a major Nunn-Lugar CTR project. When 

decommissioned, the SS-25 missiles and launchers were 

transported from the Ministry of Defense’ storage facilities 

at Khrizolitovyy and Surovatikha to Votkinsk, location of 

a large factory complex, with a missile disassembly and 

elimination facility.27 At Votkinsk, the CTR program funded 

a Russian firm, Vokinskiy Zavod, a Federal State Unitary 

Enterprise, to dismantle the missiles into rocket motor stages 

and prepare them for transport to rocket motor burning 

facilities located at Perm and Krasnoarmeysk.28 For the SS25 launchers, CTR funded the operation and maintenance 

of an elimination facility at Piban’shur military base. There 

was a dedicated fleet of military railcars transporting the SS25 missiles and launchers from the rocket bases and storage 

facilities to Votkinsk, Khrizolitovyy and Surovatikha; 

CTR agreed to fund its operations, procurement and 

maintenance. Since 2005, the Raytheon Technical Services 

Company had served as the American integrating contractor, 

working on-site to plan, schedule coordinate, certify, and 

pay the subcontractors and workers.29

For more than a decade the CTR program worked with 

the Russian Ministry of Defense to eliminate SS-18 and SS-19 

ICBMs. Starting in 1999, the Russian ministry established a 

missile elimination and dismantlement facility at Surovatikha 

Arsenal. The program funded construction and equipping 

of a large factory warehouse, and renovated another factory 

building for eliminating the missiles. Since these missiles, SS18s and SS-19s were liquid rockets they were defueled as they 

were removed from the missile silos. However, some traces of 

heptyl fuel and amyl oxidizer remained in the rocket’s casing. 

At the Surovatikha facility, they neutralized the residual fuel 

and oxidizer tanks. Then they cut up the missiles components: 

motor cases, missile stages, interstage skirts, dispensing 

mechanisms and nozzles. The Nunn-Lugar CTR program 

funded the management, subcontractors, equipment, and 

materials. As of the end of 2012, this Surovatikha facility 

had eliminated 225 SS-18s, 102 SS-19s, 98 SS-17s and 119 

SS-11 missiles. Recently, the American integrating contract to 

Joseph P. Harahan at the neutralization and elimination facility at 

Surovatikha

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
354

With Courage and Persistence

the Raytheon Technical Service Company expired, and a new 

contract was awarded in 2012 to a Russian firm, Center for 

Ground-Based Space Infrastructure, to manage and preform 

the elimination work.30

Russian submarine dismantlement activity decreased 

after 2008. One Delta III submarine, with 24 SS-N-19 SLBMs 

was under contract to be defueled and eliminated by the 

Joint Stock Company Ship Repairing Center “Zvyozdochka” 

at Severodvinsk, Russia.31 The CTR contract was $9 million 

to offload and inspect the missiles, defuel and neutralize 

them, disassemble, and destroy the rocket and guidance 

components. The 16 SS-N-18 SLBM launchers were removed 

from the Delta III submarine, defueled and eliminated. 

The Russian executive agent, the State Atomic Energy 

Corporation “Rosatom,” financed dismantlement of the 

submarine’s bow, stern, and sail sections. The CTR program 

funded the towing, launcher elimination, dismantlement of 

launcher compartments, and sealing and floating the reactor 

section. On this submarine, Canada financed the defueling 

of the nuclear reactors.32 When this dismantlement work was 

completed in May 2011, the Russian Ministry of Defense did 

not decommission any submarines; consequently none were 

nominated for destruction. Then the Russian Federal Space 

Agency stated that it would be responsible for eliminating 

Russian submarine and missiles in future years.33 What’s 

missing from this account is the declining record of the 

Russian government’s decisions to decommission and 

eliminate its missiles, launchers, and submarines. As the 

chart below indicates, there was a sharp decline from 2008 

through 2011. 

During these years, frequent communications existed 

between American CTR officials and Russian Federal 

Space Agency leaders. Every six months, the leaders met in 

Moscow and reviewed every program and project. During 

the meetings, questions arose over the pace of the Russian 

Ministry of Defense’s plans for decommissioning and 

eliminating missile and submarine systems in the future. 

Russian ministry officials deferred, recommending that U.S. 

officials query the governmental leaders, directly. Slowly 

an impasse developed.34 Resolution would be difficult; but 

negotiations over the U.S.-Russia CTR Umbrella Agreement 

in 2013 might produce some answers.

Nuclear Security Programs with Russia

For more than 15 years American and Russian officials 

had discussed, negotiated, planned, and carried out projects 

on issues of Russian nuclear security. Since the same 

departments were involved - Russia’s 12th Main Directorate, 

U.S. Department of Defense, DTRA and recently the 

Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Agency 

(NNSA) - most senior officials knew the issues, programs and 

projects, and had established regular lines of communication. 

The 12th Main Directorate, a military department within the 

Table 11-1. Russian Missile and Submarine Eliminations, 2008-2011

FY2008 FY2009 FY2010 FY2011

ICBMs Destroyed 61 43 24 1

ICBM Silos Eliminated 11 2 0 0

ICBM Mobile Launchers Destroyed 27 6 37 2

SLBM Launchers Eliminated 0 20 0 0

SLBMs Eliminated 16 20 0 23

SSBNs Destroyed 1 1 0 1

Sources: Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2010; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to 

Congress, Fiscal Year 2011; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2012; Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2013.
355

Russian Ministry of Defense, was responsible for nuclear 

warhead storage and transit within all regions of the 

Russian Federation. This large, military-staffed directorate 

maintained and operated centralized nuclear storage depots 

across Russia that stored and secured tactical, nuclear, and 

operationally strategic nuclear weapons. It operated like a 

military command, responsible for providing the nation’s 

nuclear arsenal security, safety, technical maintenance, 

transportation, issuance, accounting, and disposal.35 By 

2008, leaders of the 12th Main Directorate, DTRA, and NNSA 

had been collaborating for more than a decade, participating 

in numerous technical meetings, bi-weekly telecoms, cables, 

letters and bi-annual executive reviews covering all aspects of 

the CTR projects on nuclear security and safety.36 All projects 

were funded and carried out using the Nunn-Lugar program. 

As a result, security upgrades had been carried out at more 

than 89 nuclear weapons storage sites in Russia and there 

had been extensive security improvements in transporting 

nuclear weapons over the Russian railroad system.

In recent years, DTRA and NNSA program managers 

implemented CTR projects that directly enhanced security 

systems at 24 nuclear weapons storage sites controlled by the 

12th Main Directorate. Presidents Bush and Putin’s Bratislava 

Initiative of 2005 was a major project, designed to secure 

Russian nuclear weapons storage facilities within three 

years. Three departments worked together, the 12th Main 

Directorate, DTRA, and NNSA, completing the project on the 

final day of the year 2008.37 In the current program, DTRA’s 

Nunn-Lugar managers assisted the 12th Main Directorate in 

projects for inventory management, personnel reliability, 

training and other special projects. NNSA managers assisted 

the Russian military in upgrading nuclear security at 65 

storage sites belonging to the Russian Navy, Strategic Rocket 

Forces, and the 12th Main Directorate. In carrying out these 

projects, DOE provided support for training, personnel 

reliability, regulation development, and related projects. 

Often, DOD and DOE mangers met and coordinated 

programs and projects. General Yevgeny Maslin, Director, 

12th Main Directorate (1992 -1997) commented on the 

American assistance, “The disarmament process had become 

active, primarily due to the START I Agreement. Could we 

have fulfilled the obligations we had taken upon ourselves 

on time without American assistance? It is unlikely. The fact 

that there have been several losses of fiscal materials from 

Minatom enterprises and the Northern Fleet also caused us 

to devote serious attention to the problems of countering 

nuclear terrorism.”38

Usually, DTRA program managers divided programs 

with the 12th Main Directorate into two parts: nuclear 

weapons transportation security and nuclear weapons 

storage security. In the area of transportation security, the 

U.S. CTR objective was to assist the Russian Ministry of 

Defense in shipping nuclear warheads via the Russian rail 

system to dismantlement locations or to national secure 

weapons storage sites. The CTR program paid for the trains 

that moved from military rail transfer points crossing to the 

dismantlement facilities or to the national nuclear weapons 

storage depots located across Russia. Beginning in 2000, the 

program had financed over 557 rail shipments by 2012. An 

American contractor was responsible for supporting the rail 

shipments, implementing maintenance with the military 

trains, transfers of custody, and destruction verifications. 

DTRA funded these rail shipments in 2012 at $26.1 million.

In addition, CTR funds paid for scheduled maintenance 

of railcars in the inventory that were being used in support 

of the nuclear weapons shipments. In 2012 scheduled 

maintenance was financed by Nunn-Lugar funds on 83 

Russian military railcars at the Vologda VRZ and Tambov 

maintenance facilities. Continuing a previous, long running 

program, in 2012 CTR procured 15 new railcars and paid 

for the destruction 15 older railcars. The new railcars were 

equipped with satellite communications systems, modern 

Russian security systems, and special spare parts kits. Some of 

the new railcars were heated for the military guards travelling 

with each train.39

In the area of Russian nuclear weapons storage security, 

U.S. CTR policy and program managers worked closely with 

12th Main Directorate officers to develop five programs. 

Nuclear Security Program in Russia

	 H Security upgrades at 89 nuclear 

weapons storage sites

	 H Projects to improve inventory 

management, personal reliability 

and training
356

With Courage and Persistence

To provide the Russian Ministry of Defense with a secure 

inventory management system for its nuclear arsenal, CTR 

program managers developed a project, the Automated 

Inventory Control and Management System for Strategic 

Rocket Forces. The U.S. agreed to purchase Russian 

proprietary software and computers and contracted with 

Black and Veatch, a Moscow firm, to install it at 11 Strategic 

Rocket Forces sites.40 While the U.S. CTR program paid for 

the procurement, installation, and training, it did not have 

access to the SRF sites. 

Another program, Site Security Enhancement and 

Sustainment was developed with officers from the Russian 

Ministry of Defense’s 12th Main Directorate.41 Designed to 

incorporate multiple projects, it had the objective of providing 

Russia with the capacity to sustain its nuclear weapons 

security system. It authorized a series of CTR-funded projects 

in small arms training systems, live fire ranges, perimeter 

surveillance security systems, personnel reliability programs, 

new mobile repair vehicles, a centralized operations 

management system, a special program for vendor services 

contracts, a program to replace failed parts to site security 

systems, and equipment for the Scientific Research Center in 

St. Petersburg. Through 2012, CTR managers had spent $48.5 

million funding these projects.42 Three other projects were in 

various stages of completion.

Officers at the 12th Main Directorate requested a 

construction of a new facility at central location in Moscow 

to manage all of the security sustainment activities. Within 

the Defense Department, CTR policy managers agreed to 

renovate an existing MOD facility in Moscow and to procure 

and install basic security systems. Bechtel was awarded 

the contract and began working at the site and facility at 

Sokilniki.43 In the field, CTR project managers and 12th

Main Directorate officers agreed to procure and deliver 

six modular operational repair buildings; so that military 

work crews would be capable of performing maintenance 

and repairs at the Ministry of Defense’s nuclear weapons 

storage sites.44 This project included acquisition of mobile 

repair vehicles and diagnostic and operational training. 

An earlier project, the Security Assessment and Training 

Center expansion, neared completion. Working together, 

American and Russian managers designed a new training 

facility, with new classrooms, a 220-person dormitory, 

maintenance workshop, a five bay garage, and a centralized 

warehouse.45

Ukraine begins to eliminate its SS-24 

Rocket Motors

When Ukraine agreed to eliminate its SS-24 strategic 

rocket forces in 1998, it worked closely with the U.S NunnLugar CTR program to remove the missiles from the silos in 

the field and to transport them to Pavlograd, a missile factory 

complex in eastern Ukraine.46 The U.S. pledged to store the 

rocket motors and assist in their elimination. The solid 

rocket motor missile had three stages and the U.S. agreed to 

equip an older factory with new environmental and security 

equipment to warehouse the 156 motor stages. An American 

contractor operated and maintained the warehouse facility. 

A Ukrainian firm, Pavlograd Chemical Plant (PKhZ), tried 

for several years to wash-out the solid rocket fuel from 

the missiles and convert it into explosives for excavating 

minerals. They failed. Then in 2007, CTR policy officials 

offered to pay Ukraine a firm fixed price for empty rocket 

motor casing.47 Ukraine agreed, although the elimination 

work began slowly.

Then in April 2010, Ukrainian President Yanukovych 

attended the Global Nuclear Summit in Washington where 

he asked President Obama to complete the Water Washout 

facility at Pavlograd. Obama agreed stating that the U.S. 

would honor its “original commitments.”48 Two months 

later a DTRA/OSD team went to Pavlograd to assess the 

facility. They concluded that the CTR policy officials should 

authorize DTRA’s CTR program managers to purchase an 

Automated Inventory Control and Management System

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
357

incinerator to flash burn the rocket motors and fund the 

construction of a reduction facility, and a flash burn facility 

at Pavlograd.49 The incinerator was capable of burning 

the SS-24 propellant, the carbon graphite motor casings, 

and selected anti-personnel mines. Planning began with 

the National Space Agency of Ukraine and the Pavlograd 

Chemical Plant. At the same time the plant proceeded, 

using its own funds, with plans to build and operate a full 

scale water washout facility. In 2011, President Yanukovych 

commissioned that facility and they began washing out the 

3rd stages of the 163 rocket motors. Construction began on 

the U.S. CTR-funded reduction facility and a flash burn 

facility, slated for completion and turn over to Ukraine 

in April 2013. The current budget for this project through 

completion was $83.7 million. The original U.S.-Ukraine 

agreement remained in effect: the U.S. would pay a fixed 

price for each empty motor casing eliminated.50

Expansion of chemical weapons 

destruction beyond Russia

Construction of Russia’s Chemical Weapons Disposal 

Facility at Shchuch’ye finished in May 2009 when the 

dedication ceremony opened the large, new, modern 

elimination plant. Shchuch’ye was a storage area for 1.9 

million nerve agent-filled rocket shells, portable weapons, 

and bulk-filled rocket warheads.51 Since Russia had signed 

and ratified the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, it was 

working with many other nations to eliminate its huge 

chemical arsenal. The United States’ Nunn-Lugar program 

had worked for many years with Russian managers and staffs 

on this project – designing, planning, building, equipping, 

training, and securing the modern elimination plant. In 2004, 

the U.S. set a cap on U.S. assistance for the plant at $1.039 

billion. From the beginning, Russia stated that it would 

Eliminated SS-24 ICBMs, Pavlograd

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
358

With Courage and Persistence

operate the facility and eliminate the chemical weapons. 

After May 2009, the plant began operations. Approximately 

a year later, Russia requested that Department of Defense’s 

CTR program provide technical advice and assistance for 

eliminating chemical weapons at Shchuch’ye and one other 

site, Kizner.52 After deliberation, CTR policy officers agreed 

to support the elimination process at the Shchuch’ye plant, 

but delayed assistance to the Kizner facility until completion 

of its construction. A CTR contract was granted to Parsons 

Government Services International in May 2011 for technical 

advice and assistance through December 2015. Nunn-Lugar 

CTR managers estimated the project would cost approximately 

$9-10 million a year.53

The Libyan national government requested support from 

the United States in December 2011 to improve the security 

and safety of a chemical weapons storage facility and a 

destruction facility.54 Libya had an interesting history with 

weapons of mass destruction. In 2003, Colonel Muammar 

Gadhafi, then the Libyan dictator, renounced the nation’s 

WMD, and invited American and British experts to examine 

the production, testing, and weapons storage sites. Then he 

established a new program to destroy the weapons. Libya 

joined the United Nations CWC Convention, invited its 

experts to survey its modest holdings of mustard agent (23 

metric tons) and nerve agent precursor chemicals (1,300 

metric tons), and set up a chemical weapons disposal facility.55

Suddenly, in August 2011 Colonel Gadhafi’s regime was 

overthrown and two months later the transitional government 

found two undisclosed caches of chemical weapons. They 

invited the UN’s CWC inspectors to return to Libya. The 

inspectors confirmed that the full stockpile of previously 

declared sulfur mustard weapons had not been destroyed, 

plus they identified the newly discovered cache of weapons 

as munitions filled with sulfur mustard.56 The transitional 

government wanted these chemical weapons destroyed, and 

they requested the U.S. government’s assistance.

Within the U.S. government, the Nunn-Lugar CTR 

program had amassed years of technical, financial, and 

managerial experience in working with Russia’s chemical 

weapons destruction facilities. Acting quickly, the Department 

of Defense assigned DTRA the task of cooperating with and 

planning assistance with Libya.57 The agency would provide 

assistance on physical security and safety improvements to 

the Libyan CW storage and destructions sites, develop training 

programs for the Libyan guard forces, provide assistance 

in developing new security and safety concepts during 

elimination operations, and make recommendations on the 

CW destruction operations. In January 2012, a U.S.-Libyan 

meeting in Tunis, Tunisia defined the safety and security 

requirements and initiated discussions on CW destruction 

technologies. Subsequently, joint cooperative meetings were 

held in the United States and The Hague, Netherlands. In July, 

Parsons Governmental Services International received a CTR 

contract to plan and provide agreed upon assistance to Libya. 

Direct assistance, to include site visits to evaluate the existing 

CW facility and to make recommendations, by the contractor 

and project managers were slated for 2013.58

New START Treaty and Nuclear Security 

Summit

For almost 20 years, United States and Russian Federation 

leaders declared that the strategic arms reduction treaties, 

which they signed and ratified, would provide stability in 

the nation’s nuclear relations at significantly lower levels of 

strategic delivery systems and nuclear warheads. Nunn-Lugar 

CTR assistance was linked to these treaties. Since 1991, there 

had been four treaties: START I (1991), START II (1992), 

Moscow Treaty (2002) and the New START Treaty (2010). 

Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed the latest treaty 

in Prague in April 2010. Speaking at the ceremony, Obama 

acknowledged that the two nations had been drifting apart, 

but “this day” demonstrates the “determination of the United 

States and Russia - the two nations that hold over 90 percent 

of world’s nuclear weapons - to pursue responsible global 

leadership.”59 Medvedev observed, “A truly historic event took 

place: A new Russia-U.S. treaty has been signed for the further 

reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.”60 Both 

men pledged to pursue ratification quickly. The new treaty set 

aggregate limits on warheads (1,550), on the combined limits 

for deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers (800), 

and on a separate limit (700) on deployed strategic launchers 

– ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers.61 Within these limits, 

each nation had the flexibility to structure its strategic forces, 

provided it met the treaty’s limits within 10 years.

During ratification of the New START Treaty, many senior 

officials from the Obama administration testified before the 

U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, including James 

N. Miller, Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for 

Policy, and Kenneth A. Myers, Director, DTRA. Miller focused 
359

on treaty inspections, weapons conversions and eliminations, 

and relationship of the treaty and the Nunn-Lugar cooperative 

threat reduction program. On the latter topic, Miller said that 

for almost 20 years the Nunn-Lugar program had worked 

with Russia and other nations in the region, supporting 

the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and their 

associated delivery systems. As of June 2010, he explained, the 

CTR program had supported the elimination of 672 ICBM 

launchers, 783 ICBMs, 476 SLBM launchers, 651 SLBMs, 155 

heavy bombers and 905 air-to-surface missiles. Further, it 

supported Russia’s deactivation of 7,545 nuclear warheads. 

All of these eliminations, Miller continued, were completed 

in accordance with the START treaties. Future Nunn-Lugar 

CTR projects in Russia, he asserted, would “compliment New 

START Treaty objectives.”62 Myers spoke at length about DTRA, 

its missions, participation in treaty negotiations, experiences 

in on-site inspections and escorts, team organization, team 

preparations and the Nunn-Lugar program. He explained 

that the Nunn-Lugar program was currently engaged in 

“decommissioning, disassembly, dismantlement, and 

elimination activities” across Russia.63

Senator Lugar also testified, supporting the new treaty, 

and explaining how he had traveled across the regions of 

the former Soviet Union for many years, witnessing the 

safeguarding and destruction of weapons systems. During 

these years, U.S.-Russian relations had been through many 

highs and lows in the post-Cold War era. However he 

concluded that START inspections and consultations and the 

corresponding threat reduction activities of the Nunn-Lugar 

program have been a constant. “They served,” Lugar believed, 

U.S. President Barack H. Obama (l.) and Russian President Dmitry A. Medvedev (r.) at the signing of the New START Treaty in Prague, 

April 2010

U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic

New START Treaty

	 H Strategic weapons limit - 1,550

	 H Deployed/Non-deployed ICBM

Launchers - 800

	 H Deployed Strategic Launchers - 700
360

With Courage and Persistence

“to reduce miscalculation and to build respect.”64 When the 

committee voted, it endorsed the new treaty, and it went to 

U.S. Senate for the vote on ratification. In late December 2010, 

the U.S. Senate ratified the New START Treaty by a vote of 71 to 

26. One month later the Russian State Duma also ratified the 

treaty, 350 to 96. When Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign 

Minister Lavarov exchanged the instruments of ratification, 

the new treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011.65

While the New START Treaty’s signature, debate, and 

ratification were underway, President Obama convened 

an international Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010 in 

Washington, D.C. Leaders from 45 nations, including 38 

heads of state, gathered at the meeting and addressed how to 

secure nuclear materials and how to prevent acts of nuclear 

terrorism and criminal trafficking. President Obama declared 

that nuclear terrorism “is one of the greatest threats to global 

security – to our collective security.”66 He repeated his call for 

an international effort to secure vulnerable nuclear materials 

around the world within four years. As the international 

conference ended, the leaders signed a communique stating 

that nuclear terrorism was “one of the most challenging 

threats to international security.” They recognized in the 

communique that highly enriched uranium and separated 

plutonium required special precautions, they endorsed the 

call to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials in four years, 

encouraged the full implementation of all existing nuclear 

security commitments, and reaffirmed the essential role of the 

International Atomic Energy Association. Further, the collected 

national leaders recognized the need for cooperation among 

states to prevent and respond to incidents of illicit nuclear 

trafficking. Several national leaders announced that their 

nations were removing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium 

and converting the materials to low-enriched uranium.67 Two 

Nunn-Lugar projects developed from the summit.

Spent Nuclear Fuels Project with Russia 

and a Center of Excellence for Nuclear 

Security in China

The first shipment of spent nuclear fuel went from a 

nuclear submarine based at Russia’s Zveda Naval Shipyard 

to the reprocessing facility at Mayak in June 2011. Canada 

funded the defueling operation, and DTRA funded, through 

Nunn-Lugar, the Russian rail transportation to Mayak.68 A 

second shipment of spent nuclear fuel was transported three 

months later from Zveda to Mayak. Rosatom, the Russian 

Ministry of Atomic Energy, supported both shipments. 

Another submarine, located at the former naval base at 

Gremikha, was defueled with French assistance, and the 

spent nuclear fuels loaded into casks and transported to 

the Atomflot facility in Murmansk. CTR program managers 

financed this transportation shipment, via boat, and funded 

modification of the spent nuclear fuels casks. Also, CTR 

agreed to fund the transportation via rail of the caskets of 

spent nuclear fuel across Russia from Murmansk to Mayak. 

From yet another submarine, OSCAR 617, the spent nuclear 

fuels were offloaded, placed into special casks, and stored 

at the storage pad at Atomflot. The CTR program agreed to 

transport these materials from Murmansk to Mayak.69 All 

of these spent nuclear fuels shipments met the objectives, 

articulated by President Obama in 2009, to secure vulnerable 

nuclear materials within four years.

During the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, 

D.C., Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama 

agreed to support the establishment of a Chinese Nuclear 

Security Center of Excellence.70 Nine months later, in January 

2011, the two states signed a memorandum of agreement on 

cooperation in establishing a Center of Excellence for Nuclear 

Security. Then the following month, U.S. Secretary of Energy 

Steven Chu signed an agreement with officials from the 

People’s Republic of China on the project. Specifically, they 

agreed jointly design, fund, and establish a regional Center of 

Excellence on Nuclear Security in Beijing to promote nuclear 

security and safeguards. Also, the memo stated responsibility 

for facilitating environmental performance testing of physical 

protection systems, consistent with statutory restrictions and 

requirements. Further, the CTR program would facilitate the 

training, using non-live fire drills, of Chinese security forces 

responsible for the protection of nuclear facilities. During the 

following two years, there were a series of meetings, devoted 

to technical discussions. Ground breaking ceremonies for 

the new Center of Excellence facility in Beijing was scheduled 

for the spring or summer of 2013.71

Cooperative Biological Engagement 

Program 

The Obama administration issued a Presidential Policy 

Directive, “National Strategy for Countering Biological 

Threats,” in November 2009, which outlined its strategy 
361

for countering biological threats.72 Laura Holgate, NSC, 

and Andrew Weber and Ashton Carter, DOD, assisted in 

writing, reviewing, and fighting for this new presidential-level 

national strategy. The Defense Department had responsibility 

for its implementation. The strategy began with a statement 

recognizing that there had been an “unparalleled” period of 

advancement and innovation in the life sciences, globally. 

Significant health benefits had resulted, alongside of the 

development of lethal biological agents. Biological weapons, 

defined broadly, presented a major challenge to national 

security. The strategy directed the development of a national 

plan, a budget, managerial and policy oversight and extensive 

coordination. One element called for the expansion of 

international partnerships and bioengagement, including 

support for public health efforts, nonproliferation, and 

security and training programs.73

President Obama issued another important policy 

statement, National Security Strategy, in May 2010. He 

explained how the nation’s military strategy was connected to 

its people, its past, and its role in the contemporary world. “The 

international order we seek,” Obama wrote in the opening 

letter, “is one that can resolve the challenges of our times – 

countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the 

spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; 

combating a changing climate and sustaining growth....”74

A section in this strategy statement covered reversing the 

spread of nuclear and biological weapons. “To protect against 

biological threats,” required working with domestic and 

international partners, “by promoting global health and 

reinforcing norms of safe and responsible conduct.”75 Clearly, 

the president and his advisors were internationalists, engaged 

in strategies that would reduce nuclear weapons, nuclear 

materials, and biological weapons and materials.

In developing international biological programs there 

were two critical keystones: establishing cooperation 

with other national governments and their public health 

agencies and developing coordination with other U.S. 

governmental departments, universities and scientific 

institutes, international non-profit organizations and the 

private sector. Unlike reducing nuclear weapons which 

had a final end point, cooperative biological programs 

engaged a nation’s public health in the present and the 

future. In providing assistance programs, the public health 

field had many international organizations, international 

corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. The 

Defense Department had 15 military commands, institutes 

and laboratories involved with biological threat reduction 

programs.76 Six other federal departments and agencies had 

responsibility for programs countering biological threats. To 

develop and institute cooperative threat reduction projects 

in this field required clear objectives, sharp management, 

funding, and discipline. In FY2009, Congress authorized $20 

million for a series of “New Initiatives” for the Department of 

Defense’s CTR program to expand the Cooperative Biological 

Engagement Program, focusing on nations in Africa and 

Southern, Southeastern, and Western Asia.77 Led by Senator 

Lugar, Congress set program objectives for developing new 

biological programs under this initiative: establish with 

cooperating nations in these regions the capacity for building 

biosafety, biosecurity, and bio surveillance systems that would 

allow them to recognize and secure especially dangerous 

pathogens. Other related objectives outlined building the 

nation’s capacity to recognize and communicate data about 

emerging infectious diseases that could become pandemic 

threats. In designing new projects, Congress expected the 

Defense Department would work with the Department of 

State’s biological engagement program and the U.S. Agency 

for International Development.78

Underlying Congress’s initiative was an acknowledgment 

that Defense Department’s CTR program had already 

developed significant biological threat reduction programs 

with the nations of the former Soviet Union. That effort 

began in Russia in 1997, when the U.S. CTR policy officials 

negotiated agreements with the directors of Russia’s biological 

institutes to assist them in safety and security projects. The 

U.S. was already organizing the destruction of the region’s 

abandoned biological weapons plants. Then during the next 

Cooperative Biological Engagement 

Program

	 H New CTR Program with six nations

	 H Biological Safety and Security

	 H Cooperative Biological Research

	 H Disease Surveillance, Detection, 

Diagnosis and Reporting
362

With Courage and Persistence

decade, U.S. CTR officials developed new comprehensive 

biological programs with Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, 

Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Andrew Weber and Jim 

Reid traveled across the region, meeting with national 

health and veterinary officials and developing cooperative 

agreements in three areas: biological safety and security 

(BS&S), cooperative biological research and engagement 

(CBR) and disease surveillance, detection, diagnosis, and 

reporting (DSDDR).

All former Soviet Union nations had national public 

health laboratories and animal clinics and institutes. U.S. CTR 

officials persuaded the governments and the national health 

leaders to accept new biosafety and biosecurity programs in 

their laboratories and institutes. Biological safety, under an 

internationally recognized definition, was “the application of 

knowledge, techniques and equipment to prevent personal, 

laboratory, or environmental exposure to potentially infectious 

agents and biohazards.”79 It was an international standard, 

one which emphasized facility containment practices. 

Biosecurity encompassed direct and indirect measures that 

contributed significantly to preventing inappropriate persons 

from gaining access to materials, equipment, or technology 

that could be used in producing biological weapons; or to 

detect, characterize, or respond to outbreaks of diseases that 

involved biological pathogens or toxins.80

All programs were governed by cooperative, bilateral 

umbrella agreements, followed by implementing agreements, 

which led to further negotiations and contractual agreements. 

Biological risk assessments, using international recognized 

firms, started a process that became the basis for planning 

projects, funding, construction, equipping and training. 

In some nations, new central reference laboratories were 

designed, constructed, and equipped; in other nations 

agricultural diagnostic labs were constructed and equipped, 

and all of the nation’s extensive training courses were 

instituted. Engagement with national scientists conducting 

research was encouraged. A special program was instituted, 

one which established a national disease surveillance system 

capable of detecting, diagnosing, and reporting biological 

weapons-related materials.81

Conducting research at the Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health in Georgia

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
363

Between the years 1997-2008, the CTR Biological Threat 

Reduction Program funded an extensive number of projects 

and programs in Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, 

Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. As the table indicates, 

all nations received CTR funds. By the end of 2008, the 

Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction 

Program was the largest biological nonproliferation program 

in the world.82

During the next four years, 2009-2012, the cooperative 

biological threat reduction program expanded in funding, 

changed its name, and engaged with new nations. CTR 

program managers obligated more than $735 million during 

these years. Each year, it was the CTR program’s largest 

expenditure.83 Congress changed the name, authorizing it 

in 2010 to become the Cooperative Biological Engagement 

program. New leaders emerged. As explained earlier, Andrew 

Weber became the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for 

Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs. At 

the CTR implementing agency, DTRA, Kenneth Myers became 

the director and he selected S. Elizabeth George as the new 

CTR director. George, a member of the federal government’s 

senior executive service, held a PhD in microbiology, and had 

directed biological and chemical threat reduction programs 

in Department of Homeland Security and the Department 

of Energy.84 She led the design, deployment, and transition 

of BioWatch, the nation’s first civilian biological threat 

agent monitoring system. The author of numerous scientific 

journal articles, George had presented research reports at 

national and international forums.

As the CTR director at DTRA, George focused on two areas. 

First, she concentrated on expediting the expansion of the CTR 

Cooperative Biological Engagement (CBEP) program outside 

the region of the former Soviet Union nations. Congress 

had directed this expansion; they wanted new cooperative 

engagements with nations in Africa and Asia. Secondly, 

George worked to develop a new CTR strategic plan, with 

Department of Defense policy offices, Threat Reduction and 

Arms Control (NCB) and the Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Policy.85 The biological engagement program retained 

its three main sections: Biological Safety and Security, 

Cooperative Biological Research and Engagement, and 

Disease Surveillance, Detection, Diagnosis, and Reporting. 

The program had several objectives. It sought to secure and 

consolidate each nation’s collections of especially dangerous 

pathogens and associated research into a minimum number 

Table 11-2. Biological Threat Reduction Program, 

FY 1997-2008

Azerbaijan $55,358,307

Armenia $1,723,385

Georgia $189,648,957

Kazakhstan $122,106,796

Russia $93,250,886

Ukraine $26,040,036

Uzbekistan $122,405,441

TOTAL $610,533,808

Source: Department of Defense BTRP Program Manager, 

January 13, 2009

S. Elizabeth George

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
364

With Courage and Persistence

of secure human and animal health laboratories and related 

facilities. It worked with each nation and the regions to 

enhance the capacity to prevent the sale, theft, diversion, or 

accidental release of biological weapons-related materials, 

technologies, and expertise by improving their biological 

safety and security standards and procedures. It encouraged 

new programs to enhance the nation’s capability to detect, 

diagnosis, and report natural or man-made especially 

dangerous pathogens from endemic and epidemic diseases, 

bio-terror attacks, or potential pandemics. Throughout all 

these programs, it sought to develop capabilities that were 

sustainable. Finally, it facilitated engagement of partner 

nation’s and the region’s scientific and technical personnel 

in research projects. In carrying out all of these cooperative 

biological engagement programs, the U.S. government 

insisted that the cooperating nations and their health 

officials comply with the World Health Organization’s 

International Health regulations, the World Organization for 

Animal Health standards, and the United Nations’ Food and 

Agricultural Organization guidelines.86

The Congressional-directed cooperative biological 

engagement program expanded very slowly. As with 

the development of all the CTR biological programs 

in new countries, the State Department was involved 

in establishing initial contacts, meetings, briefings, 

and proposals that led a check on the worst aspects. In 

2009, Afghanistan and Pakistan were receptive to CTR 

program with biological safety and security measures.87

In Afghanistan, CTR program managers worked with 

national health officials to improve the safety and security 

of Kabul’s Central Public Health Laboratory. They worked 

closely with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassy, 

Kabul, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

Research projects were initiated with a few Afghanistan 

scientists. In 2010, the Cooperative Biological Engagement 

Program expanded, holding major biological workshops 

in Kenya and Uganda. Health officials and scientists from 

seventeen African nations attended the workshops. Then in 

2011, CTR projects were underway in Afghanistan, Pakistan 

and Kenya. In Kenya, CTR program managers developed 

a cooperative program to complete biological safety and 

security upgrades at the Kenyan Medical Research Institute 

in Nairobi. Negotiations were underway in Iraq, with 

senior health ministry officials.88 During 2012, expansion 

continued in East Africa, South Africa and Southeast Asia.

The East African Regional Engagement involved five 

nations: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The 

Defense Department’s Cooperative Biological Engagement 

program objectives were to assist in building reliable disease 

surveillance, diagnosis, and reporting networks; to encourage 

common practices on biological safety and security 

standards and regulations; to establish a regional baseline of 

endemic diseases; and to develop cross border cooperation 

and scientific cooperation.89 Regional workshops provided a 

forum for national health leaders and scientists to discuss 

the objectives, best practices, and a regional approach to 

bio surveillance. From the United States, Andrew Weber, 

Department of Defense, and Elizabeth George, DTRA, Jed 

Royal, CTR Policy Director and others participated in the 

workshops.

While CTR projects varied in each nation, usually they 

began with risk assessments, examining a nation’s biological 

health and veterinary laboratories, and evaluating biological 

safety and security and reporting networks. In South Africa, 

officials from the DOD’s CTR biological engagement program 

worked with the U.S. Embassy, Pretoria, Department of 

2012 expansion of CTR biological programs in Africa 

Top Row (l.-r.): Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania 

Bottom Row (l.-r.): Rwanda, Burundi and South Africa

2012 expansion of CTR biological programs in Southeast Asia 

Top Row (l.-r.): Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia 

Bottom Row (l.-r.): Thailand and Vietnam
365

State, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the CDC Global 

Disease Detection Center to improve the nation’s human 

and animal disease detection networks and its biological risk 

management systems. South Africa was a modern state, with 

established human health institutes, excellent universities, 

and an interest in these programs. The Academy of Sciences 

of South Africa was awarded a CTR contract to assess the state 

of biosafety and biosecurity in laboratories across the nation. 

South Africa’s objective was to become a regional leader in 

biorisk management and biosurveillance.

During 2012, Andrew Weber and CTR senior managers 

traveled to the Southeast Asia Region, and held meetings 

and discussions with leaders in five nations, Cambodia, 

Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. This cooperative 

engagement involved regional conferences, specific proposals 

and agreements. Some nations had considerable expertise in 

biosecurity and risk management, like Thailand, others had 

developed strong health institutes, like Malaysia, and still 

others had long partnerships with international foundations 

and foreign research institutes, as in Laos. All national health 

leaders were receptive to the CTR program, its concepts, and 

long experience.90

During these years, 2009-2012, CTR’s Cooperative 

Biological Engagement program was especially active in 

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, 

Ukraine, and Russia. Bilateral umbrella and implementing 

agreements had been negotiated and signed with all these 

nations. In Armenia, CTR program managers contracted 

with Sandia National Laboratories to conduct a biological 

risk assessment, and to make recommendations for 

policy changes, biological safety and security projects 

and sustainment measures. The Armenian government 

was looking for a site to construct a central laboratory 

to consolidate especially dangerous pathogens collected 

from humans and veterinary animals.91 In Azerbaijan, CTR 

program managers worked with Ministry of Health officials 

to design a permanent Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) 

in Baku. Bechtel National received a CTR contract to oversee 

construction management of the laboratory, including 

equipment, security systems, training, and commissioning 

support.

Across Azerbaijan there was construction and equipping 

of nine smaller diagnostic laboratories and one Ministry 

of Defense facility in Baku. The State Veterinary Service 

completed a pilot program using the Electronic Integrated 

Disease Surveillance System (EIDSS) which enhanced the 

capability to detect, diagnose, and report endemic and 

epidemic occurring diseases with especially dangerous 

pathogens. This computer-based program concluded the 

pilot program at seven sites and tested it at another 124 sites 

across Azerbaijan. Finally, CTR program managers supported 

training courses in Azerbaijan for clinician training, 

epidemiology, laboratory procedures, computer systems, and 

biological safety and security.92

When Senator Richard G. Lugar came to Tbilisi, Georgia 

in August 2012, he participated in a dedication ceremony for 

the Georgian Central Public Health Reference Laboratory.93

Planned, designed, constructed, and equipped with CTRfunds, President Mikhail Shaakashvili declared the new 

laboratory would be named the Richard G. Lugar Center for 

Public Health. Its mission, according to President Shaakashvili, 

was to promote public and animal health through infectious 

disease detection, epidemiological surveillance, and research 

for the benefit of Georgia, the Caucasus region, and the global 

community. Then, the President and Senator participated in a 

groundbreaking ceremony for a new administration building 

for the Georgian National Center for Disease Control. That 

Dedication ceremony of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Public 

Health in Tbilisi, August 2012

Defense Threat Reduction Agency
366

With Courage and Persistence

center had been extensively outfitted with CTR-funded 

biological safety and security equipment and upgrades. The 

new administrative facility, located on the Lugar Center’s 

campus, will host scientists and physicians from Georgia, 

along with specialists from the U.S. Center for Disease 

Control’s Global Disease Detection program, and technicians 

from the U.S. Army’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. 

Georgia anticipated that these two complimentary centers, 

the Lugar Center for Public Health and the National Center 

for Disease Control, would become a regional center for 

biological and scientific excellence, the site of a U.S. overseas 

laboratory and the cornerstone for nation’s infectious disease 

surveillance system.94

Extensive training courses, funded by the CTR program, 

were conducted at the centers, with students receiving courses 

in clinical training, epidemiology, laboratory procedures, 

computer systems, animal training, laboratory quality 

management systems, vector surveillance, and biological 

safety and security. During 2012, there were 317 training 

courses, with 99,000 student contact hours. Georgian 

scientists at the center participated in two major research 

projects; they also conducted research and surveillance of 

local lakes and the Black Sea; and they continued their work 

in investigating local outbreaks of anthrax and tularemia. All 

these research projects were reviewed and supported by the 

CTR-funded program.95

Activities in Kazakhstan consisted of constructing a 

small biological safety laboratory, level 3 (BSL-3), at the 

Research Institute for Biological Safety Issues in Otar. 

In the nation’s largest city, Almaty, a central reference 

laboratory was under construction, with planning underway 

for equipment, training, and operational procedures. As 

in the other nations, there was extensive training and 

collaboration on research proposals and projects. Five major 

research projects were underway in Kazakhstan, collectively 

examining the prevalence, spatial distribution, and genetic 

diversity of many pathogens involved in diseases in the 

region. In Uzbekistan, the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent worked 

with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop a 

cooperative biological program. CTR program managers 

completed a detailed design of the Ministry of Health’s new 

training center, located at Tashkent Institute of Postgraduate 

Medical Education. Training courses were offered and 

research projects approved. Uzbek scientists participated in 

international scientific conferences in the United States.96

Ukraine was a large nation with established public 

health and veterinary institutions. American CTR officials 

had worked with various government ministries for more 

than 15 years. During 2012 Nunn-Lugar officials worked 

with the Ministry of Health to complete biological safety 

and security enhancement projects at three diagnostic 

laboratories at Vinnitsa, Zakarpatye and Lviv. They also 

initiated design and construction work on three remaining 

diagnostic laboratories at Kharkiv, Kherson and Ternopol. 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Health and the CTR program had 

worked to develop a network that enhanced disease 

surveillance, detection, diagnostics, and reporting. In 2012, 

this system achieved initial operational capability. Ukraine 

received new mobile response vehicles and associated 

training at 28 Ministry of Health sites. As was the custom, 

CTR supported training courses and research projects 

in Ukraine.97 In Russia, the CTR program had supported 

a series of programs since 1997 with Russian Biological 

Institutes. During contemporary years, the program worked 

at three institutes, Pokrov, Kazan and Vladimir, to design 

and construct upgrades in the laboratories’ biological 

safety and security systems. During 2012, all three projects 

were completed. CTR program managers supported 

two research projects and the scientists presenting the 

research at international conferences.98 However, further 

engagement with Russia awaited renegotiation of the two 

nation’s umbrella agreement.

Nunn-Lugar program reaches 20 years, 

President Obama honors visionaries

When comprehensive national security programs, 

like Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, reach 

anniversaries it is time to consider their long records. 

From 1992, when Senators Nunn and Lugar succeeded in 

persuading Congress to enact the initial appropriation, 

through 2012, the scorecard below shows reductions in 

the former Soviet Union nations’ massive arsenals of 

inherited nuclear and chemical weapons. Not shown in 

the chart are new nations joining existing arms control 

treaties, renouncing nuclear weapons, or signing nuclear 

nonproliferation treaties. Nor does the scorecard reveal 

the difficult issues negotiated and resolved by national 

presidents, defense ministers, military commanders, and 

policy and program managers as they established rules, 
367

procedures, and restrictions needed to carry out the long 

running, massive international assistance programs.

From 1992 to 2012, the CTR program spent a total of 

$8.22 billion in obligation authority.99 Senator Nunn 

supported the program strongly, and after he retired in 1996, 

Senator Lugar guided the appropriations through Congress 

every year. Lugar and a few other senators traveled each 

year to the project sites, located in remote areas across the 

region. Not shown in the chart were the thousands of trips 

and meetings by CTR policy and program managers at the 

project sites. In FY2012, for example, Defense Department 

managers and teams made 359 trips. Not revealed were the 

dozens of American contractors and hundreds of national 

subcontractors working on the multi-year elimination and 

security projects. However, the CTR scorecard does explain 

the record of former Soviet Union nations in deactivating 

warheads, eliminating strategic weapons, and destroying 

chemical weapons from 1992 -2012.

This scorecard does not explain the expansion of the CTR 

program’s biological engagement programs in recent years 

into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Nor 

does it reflect the cooperation on destruction of chemical 

weapons with Albania and Libya.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar 

CTR Program, the Department of Defense honored Senators 

Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar at a conference at the National 

Defense University in early December 2012.101 Secretary of 

Defense Leon Panetta presented them with the department’s 

highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service 

Award. Panetta praised “their dedication, their leadership, 

and their efforts to ensure that we do everything we can to 

control the spread of weapons of mass destruction ...”102

Their vision had been global, cooperative and engaged. 

When Ashton Carter, Deputy Secretary of Defense, spoke, he 

remembered the end of the Cold War, “As the Soviet Union 

disintegrated, [Nunn and Lugar] realized before anyone 

else that the danger of a Soviet Union attack was being 

replaced by a new and unprecedented danger: the possibility 

that its nuclear arsenal might fall into entirely new and 

unaccompanied hands – instantaneous proliferation on a 

massive scale...”103 From that point, they and others, worked 

with Russian leaders reducing and securing nuclear weapons 

Table 11-3. Nunn-Lugar CTR Scorecard, 2012100

Former Soviet Union nations Total Inherited Total Eliminations, 2012

Warheads deactivated 13,300 7,601

ICBMs Destroyed 1,473 792

ICBM Silos Eliminated 831 498

ICBM Mobile Launchers Destroyed 442 182

Bombers Eliminated 233 155

Nuclear ASMs Eliminated 906 906

SLBM Launchers Eliminated (Submarines) 728 492

SLBMs Eliminated (Submarine missiles) 936 674

SSBNs Destroyed (Submarines) 48 33

Nuclear Test Tunnels/Sealed 194 194

Declared CW Agents Destroyed (Metric Tons) 39,986 3,512

Nuclear Weapons Train Shipments 596

Nuclear Weapons Storage Site Security Upgrades 24

Source: Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014,” pp. 3-5,48-

49.
368

With Courage and Persistence

and materials using all manner of Nunn-Lugar programs. 

Carter explained that Nunn-Lugar assistance persuaded 

Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to become denuclearized 

and to sign and ratify the Treaty of Nonproliferation of 

Nuclear Weapons. In past decade, Carter praised Nunn and 

Lugar for encouraging congressional and defense leaders 

to use the CTR program in new ways to meet threats from 

terrorist organizations. “CTR will forever be a part of human 

governance,” he concluded, “because we can never forget 

what we know about these destructive weapons, and it will 

forever be associated with two names: Nunn and Lugar.”104

Then, Secretary Panetta introduced a special guest, President 

Obama.

“I wanted to just come by, “President Obama began, 

“and join you in marking the 20th anniversary of one of the 

country’s smartest and most successful national security 

programs: Nunn-Lugar.”105 The President looked out across 

the auditorium at Ashton Carter, Laura Holgate, Rose 

Gottemoeller, Andrew Weber, Jim Reid, Susan Koch, Jed Royal, 

Kenneth Myers, Paul McNelly, Ronnie Faircloth, Elizabeth 

George, and many, many others who had developed the CTR 

Senator Richard G. Lugar, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Senator Sam A. Nunn (l.-r.) at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar CTR Program, December 2012 

President Obama (r.) praises Senators Nunn and Lugar for their 

key roles in the success of Nunn-Lugar CTR program, December 

2012

Department of Defense Department of Defense
369

program, and he explained “people in this room conceived it 

... built it ... sustained it.”106

But, President Obama insisted that no one had done 

more than the “two visionaries,” Nunn and Lugar. He 

praised Nunn’s work in creating a world without nuclear 

weapons, endorsing nuclear treaties, rallying world leaders 

to secure nuclear materials, and strengthening the global 

nonproliferation regime. Then he recounted how as a junior 

senator, he had joined Senator Lugar on a long trip to Russia, 

Ukraine, and Azerbaijan, examining assistance programs. 

Local workers were disassembling weapons in dusty factories, 

weapons junkyards, and old nuclear weapons storage sites. 

It was primitive, dangerous work, but it was being done. At 

that point, Obama said he concluded: “This is one of our 

most important national security programs. And it’s a perfect 

example of the kind of partnerships that we need, working 

together to meet challenges that no nation can address on 

its own.”107

At one point, President Obama summarized all his 

major weapons of mass destruction policies, together. 

From speeches in Prague, comments at the Nuclear Security 

Summits, the signing the New START Treaty, and remarks on 

securing nuclear materials, the President said all, “strengthen 

the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and prevent the spread 

of the world’s most deadly weapons.”108 That’s why, the 

President asserted, his administration had worked over the 

past four year to not only sustain the Nunn-Lugar program, 

but to strengthen and expand it. He mentioned new programs 

in recent years to destroy chemical weapons in Africa and 

new projects to prevent the spread of deadly diseases and 

bioterrorism in Asia and Africa. Finally, President Obama 

concluded with remarks that resonated: “It’s painstaking 

work. It rarely makes the headlines. But I want each of you 

to know... that the work you do is absolutely vital to our 

national security and to our global security.”109

Endnotes

1

 “Remarks by President Obama,” Hradcany Square, Prague, 

Czech Republic, April 5, 2009, The White House, Office of the Press 

Secretary.

2

 Ibid. 

3

 Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger , “Citing Rising Risk, 

Obama Seeks Nuclear Arms Cuts,” New York Times, April 6, 2009, 

p 1. 

4

 “Remarks by President Obama,” Hradcany Square, Prague, 

Czech Republic, April 5, 2009, The White House, Office of the Press 

Secretary.

5

 See, “Remarks by the President at the New Economic School 

Graduation,” Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2009, The White House, 

Office of the Press Secretary.

6

 Center for Biosecurity, Speakers biography, Laura Holgate, 

October 6, 2009, Washington, D.C. http://www.upmc-biosecurity.

org/website/events/2009_prevention_bio/speakers/holgate

7

 Ashton B. Carter, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Defense 

Government Biography, http://www.defense.gov/bios/

biogrphydetail.

8

 Report, “Review Panel on Future Directions for the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency Missions and Capabilities to Combat 

Weapons of Mass Destruction,” March 2008.

9

 Biography Andrew Weber, Center for Biosecurity, 

UPMC, April 2010, http://www.umpc-biosecurity.org/website/

events/2010GlobalHealth/speakers/weber.html

10 Directors Biography, Kenneth A, Myers, Director, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency and USSTARTCOM Center for Combating 

WMD. http://www.dtra.mil/About/DirectorsBio.aspx

11 Ibid.

12 National Research Council, “The Biological Threat Reduction 

Program of the Department of Defense: From Foreign Assistance to 

Sustainable Partnerships” (2007), p 3. 

13 Ibid. pp. 15-16.

14 National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Strengthening 

and Expanding the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Program, “Global Security Engagement, A New Model 

for Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Report, National Academies 

Press, 2009. 

15 Ibid. pp. 9-10.

16 Ibid. pp. 1-16.

17 Press release, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, ”Report underscores 

importance of expanding Nunn-Lugar,” 6 March 2009. 

18 These trip reports were published electronically by Senator 

Lugar’s Office. See Nunn-Lugar Report, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, 

August 2007. Reports for 2007 through 2010 at http://lugar.senate.

gov/nunnlugar/reports/ accessed 22 December 2011.

19 Press Release, Senator Richard Lugar, “Lugar legislation 

included in final defense authorization bill,” 15 October 2009.

20 Interview, Nikolai I. Shumkov, Director (retired), Department 

of Missile Technologies, Federal Space Agency, and Director, 
370

With Courage and Persistence

Administration for Disposition of Weapons and Materiel, Ministry 

of Defense, Russian Federation with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 20 July 2005. Interview, N. Shumkov, Director (retired), 

Department of Missile Technologies, with J. Harahan, DTRA, 

Moscow, 20 July 2005; Interview, Lieutenant General Vasily F. 

Lata, Director, Strategic Plans, SRF, Russia, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

DTRA, Moscow, 25 January 2005. See also, Ivan Sfranchuk, “ESOA 

Program in Russia: Results and Problems of Implementation,” in 

Sfranchuk, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: How Efficient? pp. 

24-34.

21 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2000.

22 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2000. See also 

Federation of American Scientists, Fact Sheet, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction, “RT-23/SS-24 Scalpel,” at http://www.fas.org/nuke/

guide/russia/icbm/rt-23.htm accessed on 30 November 2011. See 

Michael Jasinski and Nikolai Sokov, “Russia: Strategic Rocket Forces 

Overview, ”Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 2001, at http://www.nti.

org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm accessed on 30 

November 2011.

23 Report, CTR Directorate, DTRA, “Nunn-Lugar, Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program: Russia,” August 2000. DoD, CTR 

Directorate, “Russian Country Book: Program Briefing,” 23 March 

2005.

24 See Michael Jasinski and Nikolai Sokov, “Russia: Strategic 

Rocket Forces Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 2001, at 

http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/icbms/srfovr.htm 

accessed on 30 November 2011. Also, see Colonel General Yakolev, 

SRF Commander, Remarks, 17 December 1998 in Krasnaya Zvezda, 

cited in Russia: Archived ICBM Test Launch Developments, Nuclear 

Threat Initiative, Russia, at http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/

weapons/icbms/icbmtest.htm accessed on 30 November 2011.

25 See, Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2007 (December 

2005), pp. 12-17.

26 Memorandum for Record, “Global Nuclear Security (GNS) 

Program and Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination (SOAE) 

Program Executive Review/Implementation Program Management 

Review Between DoD and Rosatom,” June 6, 2012; Memorandum 

of Record, “Global Nuclear Security Executive Review/IPMR 

Meeting with 12th GUMO,” November, 17 2011, Moscow, Russia; 

Memorandum for Record, “DoD/Rosatom Executive Review Global 

Nuclear Security,” May 25, 2011.

27 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, SS-25 System Elimination 

Project, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

28 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Briefing, Chas Marquez, Program 

Manager, “Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination and Strategic 

Nuclear Arms Elimination”, no date, @ February 2011. 

29 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, SS-25 System Elimination 

Project, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

30 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, Liquid Propellant (LP) 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Elimination Project, 

http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

31 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Briefing, Chas Marquez, Program 

Manager, “Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination and Strategic 

Nuclear Arms Elimination”, no date, @ February 2011.

32 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, Liquid Propellant (LP) 

Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) Elimination Project, 

http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

33 Ibid.

34 Memorandum of Record, “Global Nuclear Security Executive 

Review/IPMR Meeting with 12th GUMO,” 17 November 2011, 

Moscow, Russia. Essentially, these were the minutes of the meeting. 

Program and projects were reviewed, but the questions and answers 

covered policy issues as well. 

35 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “12th Main Directorate,” 

http://dtra1/j3-7/j3ct/ctn/CTN%20Learning%20Center/12th%20

Main%20Directorate.aspx

36 Ibid.

37 Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and President 

Vladimir V. Putin on Nuclear Cooperation, Bratislava, 24 February 

2005. at http://moscow.usembassy.gov/transcripts_photo_bio/

joint-statement-by-president-george-w.-bush-and-presidentvladimir-v.-putin-on-nuclear-security-cooperation-bratislavafebruary-24-2005 accessed on 22 December 2011. Interview, Hunter 

Lutinski, Program Manager, Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security 

Program, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 

May 2009; U.S. Department of Energy, Press Release, “U.S. and 

Russia Complete Nuclear Security Upgrades from Bratislava,” 23 

December 2008. 

38 Interview, General Yevgeny Maslin, Director, 12th Main 

Directorate, Yaderny Kontral Journal, No 5, May 1995, pp. 11-13.

39 Briefing, 3JCT Directorate, Global Nuclear Security, DTRA, 

“Nuclear Security: Executive Review/ Implementation, Program 

Management Review,” November 17, 2011, Moscow, Russia. 

40 Ibid, PP. 7-8.

41 Ibid, pp. 9-13; J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, 

“Sustainment – Site Security Enhancements” January 15, 2013, 

http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

42 Ibid.

43 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “Unified Operations 

Center,” December 31, 2012,, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/

forms/AllItems.aspx

44 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “On-Site Repairs Points” 

January 28, 2013, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx

45 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet,” Security Assessment 

and Training Center,” January 28, 2013, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/

Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx. 

46 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “SS-24 Storage and 

Propellant Elimination, Empty Motor Case Elimination Facility, 

December 31, 2012. http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx . Briefing, John Byrd, Director, CTR, DTRA, 

“Cooperative Threat Reduction” Moscow, April 2004. 

47 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Briefing, Chas Marquez, Program 

Manager, “Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination and Strategic 

Nuclear Arms Elimination”, no date, @ February 2011.
371

48 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “SS-24 Storage and 

Propellant Elimination, Empty Motor Case Elimination Facility, 

December 31, 2012, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx . 

49 Briefing, LT Commander Robert Bridges, Project Officer, 

CTO, DTRA, :SS-24 Solid Rocket Motor Storage and Propellant 

Disposition Support in Ukraine, October 27,2009. J3CT 

Directorate, DTRA, Briefing, Chas Marquez, Program Manager, 

“Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination and Strategic Nuclear Arms 

Elimination”, no date, @ February 2011.

50 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “SS-24 Storage and 

Propellant Elimination, Empty Motor Case Elimination Facility, 

December 31, 2012, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx. Memorandum, Director CTR, G. Thomas Cataldo, 

Director, Treaties and Threat Reduction, Assistant to the Secretary of 

Defense, March 26, 2007.

51 Vladimir Orlov, editor, Guidebook, Global Partnership Against 

the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Moscow, 2006) pp. 45-

50, 111-154. 

52 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, Chemical Weapons 

Destruction Facility (CWDF) Technical Advice and Assistance 

Project in Russia, December 31, 2012, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/

Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx.

53 Ibid.

54 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, Libyan Chemical 

Weapons Project, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx.

55 Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Libya, Country Profile, July 2012”, 

http://www.nti.org/country-profiles/libya

56 Ibid. 

57 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “Libyan Chemical 

Weapons Project”, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/

AllItems.aspx.

58 Ibid

59 The White House, ”Remarks by President Obama and 

President Medvedev at the New START Treaty Signing Ceremony,” 

Prague, Czech Republic, April 8, 2019, http://www.whitehouse.gov/

the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev

60 Ibid.

61 The White House, “The New START Treaty and Protocol,” 

Washington, D.C., April 8, 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/blog/2010/o4/08/new-start-treaty-and-protocol

62 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Hearings on the 

New START Treaty (START),”June 24, 2010. Testimony, Dr. James 

M. Miller, Principal Deputy Under Secretary, Policy, Department of 

Defense. 

63 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Hearings on the 

New START Treaty (START),”June 24, 2010. Testimony, Mr. Kenneth 

A. Myers, III, Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

64 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Hearings on the 

New START Treaty (START),”June 24, 2010. Statement, Senator 

Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana).

65 Mary Beth Sheridan and William Brannigan, “Senate ratifies 

new U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons treaty”, Washington Post, 

December 22, 2010; Fred Weir, “with Russian Ratification of New 

START, What’s next for U.S.- Russian relations,” Christian Science 

Monitor, January 26, 2011; “New START: Executive Summary”, ACQ 

web, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 29 March 2013, http://www.

acq.osd.mil/tc/treaties/NST/NST-exec-sum.htm

66 The White House, “Remarks by the President at the Opening 

Plenary Session of the Nuclear Security Summit,” Washington, 

D.C., April 13, 2010. http://whitehouse.gov/ the press office/

remarks-president-opening-plenary-session. 

67 The White House, “Communique of the Washington Nuclear 

Summit,” Washington, D.C., April 13, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.

gov/the-press-office/communique-washington-nuclear-summit

68 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “Spent Nuclear Fuel 

Project”, January 25, 2013, http://dtra1/j3-7/j-3ct/Fact%Sheet/

forms/AllItems.aspx

69 Ibid.

70 J3CT Directorate, DTRA, Fact Sheet, “China Nuclear Security 

Center of Excellence Project,” January 25, 2013, http://dtra1/j3-7/j3ct/Fact%Sheet/forms/AllItems.aspx

71 Ibid.

72 Directive, President, “National Strategy for Countering 

Biological Threats”, Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-2, November 

23, 2009. 

73 Ibid.

74 Letter, President Barack Obama, accompanying report, 

“National Security Strategy,” May 2012.

75 See, report, “National Security Strategy,” May 2012. p.23.

76 Report, National Research Council, ”Countering 

Biological Threats, Challenges for the Department of Defense’s 

Nonproliferation Program Beyond the Former Soviet Union,” 

National Academies Press, 2009, pp. 9-10. 

77 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2009, p. 23.

78 Ibid. 

79 Report, National Research Council, “Countering Biological 

Threats,” National Academies Press, 2009, pp. 17-18.

80 Ibid.

81 See this book, Chapter 10.

82 Report, National Research Council, ”Countering Biological 

Threats” National Academies Press, 2009, p. 26.

83 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2011; Report, CTR 

Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report 

to Congress Fiscal Year 2012; Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal 

Year 2013; and Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014.

84 Biography Fact Sheet, Dr. S. Elizabeth George, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, September 2012. 

85 Response to Historian’s questions for Dr. S. Elizabeth George, 

Director, CT3, DTRA, February 25, 2013; Interview, Dr. S. Elizabeth 

George, Director, CT3, DTRA, with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, February 28, 2013.
372

With Courage and Persistence

86 Response to Historian’s questions for Dr. S. Elizabeth George, 

Director, CT3, DTRA, February 25, 2013.

87 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 201” (Dec. 

2009) p. 27; Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2012”,

(Data, Dec. 2010), p. 22. 

88 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2013”, (Sep. 30, 

2011), p.28-29.

89 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014”, (Sep. 30, 

2013), p.32-34. 

90 Ibid, pp. 36-38.

91 Ibid, pp.22-23.

92 Ibid, pp23-24.

93 U.S. Embassy, Georgia, “U.S. Senator Richard Lugar visits 

Georgia,” August 12, 2013. http://georgia.usembassy.gov/programand-events/embassy_news2012. Democracy and Freedom Watch, 

“Senator Lugar get a new lab named after him in Tbilisi, “August 

13, 2012, http://dfwatch.net/senator-richard-lugar-93396. 

94 Ibid.

95 Briefing, David Walley, DTRA/CBEP, “Cooperative Biological 

Engagement Program Georgia, Executive Review,” January 30, 2013; 

Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014”, p.32-34. 

96 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014”, pp. 25-26. 

97 Ibid, pp. 27-28.

98 Ibid, pp. 26-27.

99 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014”, p. 3. 

100 Report, CTR Policy Office, DOD, “Cooperative Threat 

Reduction Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2014”, pp. 3-5,48-

49. 

101 National Defense University,”20th Anniversary of the NunnLugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,” December 3, 2012. 

102 Cheryl Pellerin, “Panetta Awards Nunn, Lugar Highest 

Defense Civilian Defense Honors,” American Forces Press Service, 

December 3, 2012. http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.

aspx?id=18697 .

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid.

105 The White House, “Remarks by the President at the NunnLugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Symposium,” National 

War College, Washington, D.C., December 3, 2012. http://www.

whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/12/03/ remarks-president 

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid.

108 Ibid.

109 Ibid.
373

GLOSSARY

AMEC Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation

ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile

AICMS Automated Inventory Control and 

Management System

BTRP Biological Threat Reduction Program

BWC Biological Weapons Convention

BWPP Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention

CFE Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty

CLS CTR Logistical Support

CIS Commonwealth of Independent States

CSCE Commission for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe

CTBT Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

CTR Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

CTRIC CTR Integrating Contractor

CW Chemical Weapons

CWC Chemical Weapons Convention

DOD Department of Defense

DOE Department of Energy

DOS Department of State

DNA Defense Nuclear Agency

DTRA Defense Threat Reduction Agency

FAR Federal Acquisition Regulations

FMSF Fissile Materials Storage Facility

FY Fiscal Year

GAO Government Accounting Office

HEU Highly Enriched Uranium

IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile 

INF Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty

ISTC International Science and Technology Center

IG Inspector General

KGB Committee for State Security of the Soviet 

Union

MPC&A Material Protection, Controls and Accounting

MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MinAtom Ministry of Atomic Energy

MOD Ministry of Defense

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

NSC National Security Council

NPT Non-Proliferation Treaty

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

OSIA On-Site Inspection Agency

RASA Russian Aviation and Space Agency

SSD Safe, Secure, Dismantlement Talks

SATC Security Assessment Training Center

START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I

START II Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II

SNDV Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles

SOAE Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination

SRF Strategic Rocket Forces

SSBN Ballistic Missile Submarine

SLBM Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile

TADR Threat Agent Detection and Response

Program
374

With Courage and Persistence

TNT Trinitrotoluene: an explosive

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VAT Value Added Tax

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction 
375

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Adams, Bianka J. and Joseph P. Harahan. Responding to War, 

Terrorism, and WMD Proliferation: History of DTRA 1998-2008. 

Washington: Government Printing Office, 2008. 

Albright, David, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker. Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 

Alexandrov, Mikhail. Uneasy Alliance, Relations between Russia 

and Kazakhstan in the Post-Soviet Era, 1992-1997. Westport, 

Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. 

Allison, Graham, Ashton B. Carter, Steven E. Miller, and Phillip Zelikow, eds. Cooperative Denuclearization: From Pledges 

to Deeds, CSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge: 

CSIA, 1993. 

Allison, Graham T., et al. Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing 

the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Materials, CSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge: MIT 

Press, 1996. 

Baker, James A. III. The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War 

and Peace, 1989-1992. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1995. 

Beschloss, Michael R. and Strobe Talbott. At the Highest Levels: 

The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War, Boston: Little Brown 

& Co, 1993.

Bertsch, Gary K., and William C. Potter. Dangerous Weapons, 

Desperate States. New York: Routledge, 1999. 

Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. New 

York: Penguin, 2002.

Burns, Richard Dean, editor. Encyclopedia of Arms Control and 

Disarmament, 3 volumes. New York: MacMillan, 1993. 

Bush, George H.W. and Brent Scowcroft. A World Transformed. 

New York: Vintage, 1998. 

Campbell, Kurt M., Ashton B. Carter, et al. Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet 

Union. CSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge: 

CSIA, 1991. 

Carter, Ashton B., William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner. A New Concept for Cooperative Security. Washington, D.C.: 

Brookings Institution Press, 1992. 

Carter, Ashton B., and William J. Perry. Preventive Defense: A 

New Security Strategy for America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999. 

Carter, Ashton B., and Robert G. Joseph, et al. Review Panel on 

Future Directions for Defense Threat Reduction Agency Missions 

and Capabilities to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction. March 

2008.

Cirincione, Joseph, et al. Deadly Arsenals, Tracking Weapons of 

Mass Destruction. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, 1998. 

Committee on Prevention of Proliferation of Biological 

Weapons. The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the 
376

With Courage and Persistence

Defense Department: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable Partnerships. National Research Council of the National 

Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., July 2007.

D’Anieri, Paul, Robert Kravchuk, and Tara Kuzio. Politics and 

Society in Ukraine. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2002. 

Dunlop, John B. The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet 

Empire, Princeton: Princeton University, 1993. 

Ellis, Jason D. Defense By Other Means, The Politics of US-NIS 

Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation. Westport, 

Conn.: Praeger Publishing, 2001. 

Evangelista, Matthew. Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University 

Press, 1999. 

Falkenrath, Richard, et al, America’s Achilles Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack. Cambridge, 

Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998. 

Gaddy, Clifford G. The Price of the Past: Russia’s Struggle with 

the Legacy of a Militarized Economy, Washington, D.C., Brookings Institute Press, 1996. 

Galdi, Theodore. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Program for Soviet Weapons Dismantlement: Background and Implementation, Washington: Congressional Research Service, 

1993. 

Garnett, Sherman W. Keystone in the Arch: Ukraine in the 

Emerging Security Environment of Central and Eastern Europe. 

Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, 1997. 

Goldgeiger, James M., and Michael McFaul. Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War. Washington, 

D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. 

Goodby, James E. Europe Undivided: The New Logic of Peace in 

U.S.-Russian Relations. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998. 

Harahan, Joseph P. On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty. 

Washington, Government Printing Office, 1993. 

Harahan, Joseph P. and John C. Kuhn. On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty. Washington, Government Printing Office, 

1996. 

Harris, John F. The Survivor, Bill Clinton in the White House. 

New York: Random House, 2005. 

Hoffman, David E. The Dead Hand, The Untold Story of the 

Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. New York: Doubleday, 2009. 

Hutchings, Robert L. American Diplomacy and the End of the 

Cold War. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 

1997. 

Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1991-1992. 

London, Great Britain, 1992. 

Jones, Rodney W. et al. Tracking Nuclear Proliferation. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

1998. 

Kingdom, John W. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 

New York: Longman, 1995. 

Kanat, Saudabayev and Sam Nunn, Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Disarmament, Global Model for a Safer World. Washington, D.C.: 

Nuclear Threat Initiative and Embassy of Kazakhstan, 2006. 

Kuzio, Taras and Andrew Wilson. Ukraine, Perestroika to Independence, London: CIUS Press, 1994. 

McDougal, Walter A. Promised Land and Crusader State, the 

American Encounter with the World Since 1776. New York: 

Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 

Matlock, Jack F., Jr. Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: 

Random House, 1995. 
377

Miller, Judith, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad. Germs: 

Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War. New York: Simon 

and Schuster, 2001. 

Morozov, Konstiantyn P. Above and beyond: From the Soviet 

General to Ukrainian State Builder. Cambridge: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 2000. 

National Academy of Sciences, “Global Security Engagement: 

A New Model for Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Washington, D.C., April 2009.

Nazarbayev, Nursultan, Epicenter of Peace. Hollis, New Hampshire: Puritan Press, 2001. 

Olcott, Martha Brill. Kazakhstan, Unfilled Promise. Washington, 

D.C.; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2001. 

O’Prey, Kevin P. A Farewell to Arms? Russia’s Struggles with Defense Conversion. New York, Twentieth Century Fund, 1995. 

Orlov, Vladmir, Roland Timberlaev and Anton Khlopkov, Nuclear Nonproliferation in U.S. Russian Relations: Challenges and 

Opportunities. Moscow: PIR Center, 2002. 

Orlov, Vladmir, ed. Guidebook: Global Partnership against the 

Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Moscow: Human Rights 

Publishers, 2006. 

Podvig, Pavel, editor. Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. 

Powell, Colin L. My American Journey. New York: Ballantine 

Books, 1995. 

Reiss, Mitchell and Robert S. Litwak. Nuclear Proliferation after the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center 

Press, 1994. 

Reiss, Mitchell. Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain 

Their Nuclear Capabilities. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995. 

Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb, The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. New York: Vintage, 1994. 

Rueckert, George L. On-Site Inspections in Theory and Practice: 

A Primer on Modern Arms Control Regimes. Westport, Conn.: 

Westwood Press, 1998. 

Service, Robert. Russia, Experiment with a People. Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. 

Sfranchuk, Ivan, editor. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: 

How Efficient? Moscow: PIR Center, 2000. 

Shaw, John T. Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate: Crafting Foreign Policy from Capitol Hill. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2012.

Shields, John M. and William C. Potter. Dismantling the Cold 

War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1997. 

Shkolnik, Vladimir S. The Semipalatinsk Test Site: Creation, Operation, and Conversion. Almaty, Kazakhstan, no date. 

Snyder, Timothy. The Reconstruction of Nations, Poland, Ukraine, 

Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 2003. 

Spanger, Hans-Joachim. Between Ground Zero and Square One. 

Frankfurt, Germany: Peace Research Institute, 2008. 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 

1992. Stockholm, Sweden: Oxford University Press, 1993. 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 1993, World Armaments and Disarmaments. Stockholm, 

Sweden: Oxford University Press, 1994. 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 1994, World Armaments and Disarmaments. Stockholm, 

Sweden: Oxford University Press, 1995. 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 1995, World Armaments and Disarmaments. Stockholm, 

Sweden: Oxford University Press, 1996. 

Strayer, Robert. Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse. London: 

M.E. Sharpe, 1998. 
378

With Courage and Persistence

Talbott, Strobe. The Russian Hand, A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. New York: Random House, 2002. 

Taylor, Brian D. Politics in the Russian Army, Civil-Military Relations, 1698-2000. New York: Cambridge University Press, 

2003. 

Tokayev K.K. and Vladimir S. Shkolnik, editors. CTR in Kazakhstan. Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2003. 

Tucker, Jonathan B. Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. 

Wedel, Janine R. Collision and Collusion: The Strange case of 

Western Aid to Eastern Europe 1989 -1998. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. 

Zaloga, Steven J. The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword, The Rise and Fall 

of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000, Washington: 

Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.

Reports and Articles

Einhorn, Robert and Michele Flournoy. “Protecting Against 

the Spread of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons: 

An Action Agenda for the Global Partnership.” Nuclear Threat 

Initiative and Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

January 2003.

Einhorn, Robert and Michele A. Flournoy. “Assessing the G8 

Partnership: From Kananaskis to St. Petersburg,” Center for 

Strategic International Studies, July 2006.

Golan-Vilella, Robert. “Congress Boosts Nonproliferation 

Funding,” Arms Control Today, May 2011. 

Gottemoeller, Rose. “Cooperative Threat Reduction Beyond 

Russia.” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 2, Spring 

2005.

Gottemoeller, Rose. “The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat 

Reduction (CTR) Program.” Nuclear Threat Initiative. Harrington, Anne M. “Adapting Cooperative Threat Reduction 

to New Environments: Lessons Learned from Iraq and Libya 

WMD Redirection.” 27 July 2004.

Joint Working Group. “Re-Shaping U.S.-Russian Threat Reduction: New Approaches for the Second Decade.” Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and 

the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. 

2002.

Kane, Chen. “From Donor to Partner: The Evolution of the 

U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction into Global Security Engagement.” Nuclear Threat Initiative, May 12, 2011. 

Jenkins, Bonnie. “Adapting to the Times: The Evolution of 

U.S. Threat Reduction Programs.” Arms Control Today, January/February 2011.

Moltz, James Clay and et al. “Special Report: Assessing U.S. 

Nonproliferation Assistance to the NIS,” The Nonproliferation 

Review, Volume 7, Number 1, Center for Nonproliferation 

Studies, Spring 2000. 

National Academy of Sciences, “Global Security Engagement, 

A New Model for Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 2009.

National Research Council, “Countering Biological Threats, 

Challenges for the Department of Defense’s Nonproliferation 

Program Beyond the Former Soviet Union,” Washington, 

D.C., National Academy Press, 2009.

Shields, John. “Report: CIS Nonproliferation Developments.” 

The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Center for Nonproliferation Studies Fall 1995.

Interviews

Alberto, Ronad, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army. Program Manager 

SSBN Dismantlement Program, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, in Washington, 14 October 2004.

Ashanti, Karmen. Program Manager, Ukraine, Bechtel Corporation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in 

Kyiv, 7 November 2002.
379

Antonov, Alexander, Major General (Retired). Vice Director, 

Rosobschemash Enterprise. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian DTRA, at Headquarters SRF Rocket Division 

Kartaly, Russian Federation, 28 July 2005.

Arbatov, Alexei, Dr., Deputy Chairman, Defense Committee, 

DUMA, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Moscow, 21 January 2005.

Archer, Ed. CTR Program Manager, Acquisitions and Logistics 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Interview, Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 7 May 2003.

Baal, Edward P. Deputy Director of Production, Zvezdochka 

Federal State Unitary Enterprise, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, at Archangelsk, Russia, 28 

January 2005.

Beha, Mark. CTR Country Manager for Raytheon Technical 

Services Company, Kiev, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Kiev, Ukraine, 8 November 

2002. 

Bektemisov, Murat. General Director, and Alexander P. Toropov, Chief Engineer, Almatypromstri JCS. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 8 

March 2001.

Beisel, Larry D., Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army. Political-Military Officer, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Moscow, 28 March 2000.

Blanar, Oleg. Director General, Stroom, RITIE, Inc., Vinnitsa, 

Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 26 February 2002.

Blidar, Valeriy Mikitivich, Colonel. Head, Analytical Branch, 

Strategic Forces Administrative Control Center, Ministry of 

Defense. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

in Kyiv, Ukraine, 3 June 2003.

Booker, John. CTR Program Manager, Kazakhstan, CTR Directorate, DTRA. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, Washington, 8 March 2001.

Boren, Paul. Program Manager, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, in Washington, 26 May 2000.

Bushaev, V.N., Major General. Deputy Commander, 43rd 

Rocket Army, Strategic Rocket Forces. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, at Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 25 February 

2002.

Collins, James F. U.S. Ambassador to Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, in Moscow, 29 March 2000.

Cook, Harry. Program Manager, CT Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Fort Belvoir, 15 August 2005.

Connell, John. Program Manager, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, 16 February 2001.

Courtney, William. U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan, 1992-

1995. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, Washington, 28 August 2002.

Denysyuk, Nikolai. Operations Manager, Heavy Bomber 

Elimination Program, Raytheon Technical Services Company, 

Kyiv, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, in Kyiv, Ukraine, 7 February 2003.

Dynaev, Alexander, A. Chief, Construction at SNF Defueling 

Facility, Zvezdochka Federal State Unitary Enterprise, Archangelsk Region, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Servodvinsk, 

Russia, 17 February 2005. 

Dickey, Robert, Colonel, USAF. Deputy Chief, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Washington, 26 May 2000. 

Foster, Mark, Colonel, USAF. Deputy Director, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort 

Belvoir, Virginia, 16 May 2005. 
380

With Courage and Persistence

Fursa, Leonard Petrovich, Lt. General, Ukrainian Air Force. 

First Deputy Commander, Ukrainian Air Force. Interview 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, Poltava Air Base, Ukraine, 12 November 2002.

Freeland, Raymond E., Jr., Lt. Colonel, USAF. Chief, Arms 

Control Implementation Unit, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, in Moscow, 28 March 2000. 

Frolov, Vladimir Petrovich, General-Major (Retired). Deputy 

Chief, 12th Main Directorate, General Staff, Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, in Moscow, 24 January 2005.

George, S. Elizabeth. Director, CT3 Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, 28 February 2013.

Golev, Alexander N. Center for Defense Industries, Republic 

of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 7 March 

2001.

Goodby, James. U.S. Ambassador for the Safe, Secure, and 

Dismantlement Talks, 1993-1994, with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Department of Defense, Washington, 14 

March 2005. 

Green, Richard, Colonel, U.S. Army. Chief DTRA-Moscow Office, U.S. Embassy, Moscow. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Moscow, 21 July 2005.

Haver, Barrett. CTR Program Manager, Raytheon Technical 

Services Company, Kyiv, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Kyiv, 1 February 2000. 

Hicks, Gene. SS-24 Silo Dismantlement Project Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Pervomaysk, Ukraine. Interview with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Pervomaysk, Ukraine, 

26 February 2002.

Holcomb, Donald, Commander U.S. Navy. Program Manager SSBN Elimination, Russia, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 7 December 2004

Holcombe, Wayne H. CTR Program Manager, Washington 

Group International, Kiev, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in 

Kiev, 22 February 2002.

Holgate, Laura S. H. Vice President for Russia and NIS Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Washington, D.C., 20 June 2002.

Horbulin, Volodymyr P. Assistant to the President of Ukraine, 

Secretary of the National Security Council, Ukraine Republic. 

Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Kyiv, 

Ukraine, 15 March 2003.

Iliashov, Oleksander, Major-General. Commanding General, 46th Rocket Division, 43rd Rocket Army, Pervomaysk, 

Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

in Pervomaysk, Ukraine, 3 June 2003.

Kairgeldina, Dariya. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of 

Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 6 

March 2001.

Kavakazskiy, Igor K. Deputy Program Manager, Strategic 

Bomber Elimination, Raytheon Technical Services Company. 

Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, in Kyiv, 7 February 2002. 

Khusainov, Karshaubay Sh. Center for Defense Industries, Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 7 March 2001.

Klotz, Frank G., Brigadier General, USAF. U.S. Defense Attaché, U.S. Embassy, Moscow. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Moscow, 30 March 2000. 

Kluchko, Luke J. CTR Program Manager, DTRA, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia, and CTR Program Manager, DTRA, U.S. 

Embassy, Kyiv. Interviews with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 
381

DTRA, in Moscow, 29 March 2000 and in Kiev 7 February 

2003.

Koch, Susan, Dr. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Threat Reduction Policy, Department of Defense. Interview 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Washington, 

D.C., 7 June 2000.

Komarov, Valery. First Assistant Director, National Space 

Agency, Republic of Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Kyiv, 21 February 2002.

Kravets, Igor Y. Business Manager, YULIA Company, Vinnitsa, 

Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

in Vinnitsa, 25 February 2002.

Kuenning, Thomas E., Jr. Director, CTR Directorate, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Dr. Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Ft. Belvoir, 6 August 2004.

Kukin, Andre. President, Ukrainian Cargo Airways, Kyiv, 

Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 

in Kyiv, 13 November 2002.

Kuzminskiy, Lt. Colonel Victor F. SOATIC Representative, 

Ukrainian Air Force, Kiev, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in 

Kyiv, Ukraine, 7 November 2002.

Kuzmuk, Oleksander, General-Colonel. Minister of Defense, 

1996-2001, Republic of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine. Interview 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, in Kyiv, 5 February 2003. 

Kuzmenko, Andrei. Foreign Affairs Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Kyiv, 5 February 

2000.

Lajoie, Roland, Major General, U.S. Army (retired). Deputy 

Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat 

Reduction. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, in West Wilton, New Hampshire, 31 March 2004.

Lata, Vasily F. Lieutenant General, Strategic Rocket Forces (Retired). Director, Strategic Plans, Strategic Rocket Forces, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, DTRA, in 

Moscow, 25 January 2005.

Lutinski Hunter. Program Manager, Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 20 May 

2009.

Lyapunov, Vladimir, Dr. Institute of Chemical Sciences, Academy of Sciences, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in 

Almaty, 7 March 2001.

Malinovsky, Sergey N, Brigadier General, Ukraine. Vice-Chief 

of Construction, Ministry of Defense, Ukraine. Interview 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, in Kyiv, 2 June 2003. 

Maslin, Yevgeny P., Colonel-General (Retired). Director,12th 

Main Directorate, Russian General Staff, Russian Armed Forces. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency, in Moscow, 18 January 2005.

Medvedev, Vladimir I., Lieutenant General. Director, Nuclear 

Risk Reduction Center, Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, On-Site 

Inspection Agency, in Magna, Utah, 30 August 1994. 

Mikhaylov, Victor Nikolai, Dr. Minister of Atomic Energy, 

and Scientific Director of the Sarov Nuclear Center, Russian 

Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, in Moscow, 19 January 2005.

Mikhtyuk, Vladimir Alexeyevich, Colonel-General. Commander, 43rd Rocket Army, Strategic Rocket Forces, and Deputy Minister of Defense, Republic of Ukraine. Interview with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 25 

February 2002.

Miles, Mary Ann. CTR International Project Manager, CTR Directorate, DTRA. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, in Washington, 2 March 2003.
382

With Courage and Persistence

Milicevic, Don. SS-19 Silo Elimination Project Manager, 

Bechtel Corporation, Kyiv, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in 

Kyiv, Ukraine, 22 February 2002.

Miller, William G., U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, 1993-1998. 

Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Washington, D.C., 1 February 2006.

Moon, William M. Chief, Safe, Secure, Nuclear Weapons Division, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 20 July 2004. 

Pabst, Viktor A. Center for Defense Industries, Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Almaty, 

Kazakhstan, 7 March 2001.

Parman, Donald, Major, USAF. Project Officer, CTR Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 

Washington, 2 September 2002.

Pascual, Carlos. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, 2002-2003, 

Kiev, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 5 June 2003.

Prokhach, Eduard, Professor. Director, Kharkiv Scientific Research Center of Military Ecology, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Interview 

with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, in Kyiv, 6 June 2002.

Pifer, Steven K. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. Interview with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency, in Kyiv, 28 January 2000.

Reid, Jim. Director, Cooperative Threat Reduction Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 1 May 2000.

Regan, J. Randall Regan. CTR Country Manager, Bechtel Corporation, Kiev, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, in Kyiv, Ukraine, 31 January 2000.

Reppert, John, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (Retired). Executive Director, Belfer Center for Science and International 

Affairs, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 9 June 2000. 

Rutherford, Thomas. Chief, Fissile Material Control Division, 

CTR Directorate, DTRA. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, 6 October 2003.

Sajevic, Jack, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army. Inspection Team Chief, 

Start Treaty Nuclear Division, DTRA. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, 24 February 2000.

Sarkisov, Ashot A., Professor. Director, Nuclear Safety Institute, IBRAE, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Moscow, 21 January 2005.

Sartorius, John A. CTR Program Manager, CTR Logistics Support Program, Raytheon Technical Services Company, Moscow, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

DTRA, in Moscow, 31 March 2000.

Serdyuk, Aleksandr I., Colonel, Ukraine. Deputy Director, 

National Space Agency, Republic of Ukraine. Interview with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Kyiv, Ukraine, 7 February 2002.

Shkolnik, Vladmir S., Professor. Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Republic of Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph 

P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA , in Washington, D.C., 15 December 2003.

Shmarov, Valery Nikolayevich. Minister of Defense, 1994-

1996, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 6 June 2002, in Kyiv, 

Ukraine.

Shumkov, N. I.. Director, Administration for Disposition of 

Weapons and Materiel, Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in 

Moscow, Russia, 20 July 2005.

Smith, Harold P. Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs, 1993-1998, Depart-
383

ment of Defense. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Washington, D.C., 14 December 2001.

Solomin, Professor Victor A. Institute of Chemical Sciences, 

Academy of Sciences, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Almaty, 7 March 2001.

Suziki, William. Program Manager, SS-24 Elimination, Raytheon Corporation, Moscow, Russia. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Moscow, 20 July 2005.

Toropov, Alexander P. Chief Engineer, Almatypromstri JCS, 

Almaty, Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Almaty, 8 March 

2001.

Tukhvatulin, Shamil T., Dr. Director General, National Nuclear Center, Republic of Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 5 March 

2001.

Tyupkina, Olga G. Executive Director, Institute for Non-Proliferation, Republic of Kazakhstan. Interview with Joseph P. 

Harahan, Historian, DTRA, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 5 March 

2001.

Wagner, Dan, Lt. Colonel, USAF. SOAE Program Manager, CT 

Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Interview with 

Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, 10 September 2002.

Wakefield, Patrick. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Chemical Demilitarization and Threat Reduction, Office of 

the Secretary of Defense. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, 

Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C., 21 June 2005.

Weber, Andrew. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear 

and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, DTRA, Washington, D.C. 14 October 2009.

Yulia company managers, Igor Yefimovich Kravets, Business 

Manager, Mikhail Ivanovich Brovochenko, Chief Engineer, 

Yevgeny Grigorievich Korolchuk, Project Manager. Yulia 

Company, Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination Project, Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Interview with Joseph P. Harahan, Historian, 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 25 

February 2002.

Government Sources

Department of Defense CTR Reports to Congress

Cooperative Threat Reduction Annual Report to Congress, FY 

2002; FY2003; FY2004; FY2005; FY2006; FY2007; FY2008; 

FY2009 and FY2010through FY 2014.

Report on Program Activities for Facilitation of Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation in the Former Soviet Union: 

March 30, 1994; September 20, 1993; April 30,1993; January 30,1993; September 30,1992; July 30,1992 and April 

30,1992.

Semi-Annual Report on Program Activities to Facilitate 

Weapons Destruction and Nonproliferation: March 3, 

1995; October 30, 1994 and April 30, 1994.

Semi-Annual Report on CTR: March 3, 2000; September 30, 

1999; March 31,1999; September 30,1998; March 31, 1998; 

September 30,1997; March 3,1997; September 30,1996; 

March 3,1996; September 30,1995.

Department of Defense Inspector General Audits

Report. Evaluation of the Defense Nuclear Agency’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Office, Department of Defense Inspector General. October 12, 1995.

Report. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Department 

of Defense Inspector General. March 9, 2001.

Report. Defense Enterprise Fund, Department of Defense Inspector General. August 15, 2001.

Report. Management Costs Associated With the Defense Enterprise Fund. Department of Defense Inspector General. December 31, 2001.
384

With Courage and Persistence

Report. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Liquid Propellant Disposition Project. Department of Defense Inspector 

General. September 30, 2002.

Report. Cooperative Threat Reduction: Management Structure 

of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Department of 

Defense Inspector General. February 5, 2003.

Statement of Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Auditing 

on U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction and Non-Proliferation Programs. Department of Defense Inspector General. March 4, 2003.

Report. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: Solid Rocket 

Motor Disposition Facility Project, Department of Defense 

Inspector General. September 11, 2003.

Report. Cooperative Threat Reduction Construction Projects. 

Department of Defense Inspector General. December 18, 

2003.

Report. DOD Initiatives for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction. Department of Defense Inspector General. March 

30, 2007.

Congressional Research Service Reports

Squassoni, Sharon. “Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options”. July 2, 2004. 

Woolf, Amy F. “Nonproliferation and Threat Reduction Assistance: U.S. Programs in the Former Soviet Union”. January 

3, 2008.

Woolf, Amy F. “Expanding Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs: Concepts and Definitions”. October 5, 2004.

Woolf, Amy F. and Michelle Stem Cook. “Preventing Proliferation of Biological Weapons: U.S. Assistance to the Former 

Soviet States”. April 10, 2002.

Woolf, Amy F. “Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction 

Programs: Issues for Congress”. March 23, 2001. 

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Report, Russian Nuclear Weapons: U.S. Implementation of 

the 1991 Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act, July 1992, 

GAO/NIAD-92-47.

Report, Soviet Nuclear Weapons: Priorities and Costs Associated with U.S. Dismantlement Assistance, March 1993, GAO/

NSIAD-93-154.

Report, Soviet Nuclear Weapons: U.S. Efforts to help Former 

Soviet Republics Secure and Destroy Weapons, March 1993, 

GAO/T-NSIAD-93.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reducing the Threat 

from the Former Soviet Union, October 1994, GAO/NSIAD-95-7.

Report, Former Soviet Union: U.S. Bilateral Program Lacks 

Effective Coordination, February 1995, GAO/NSIAD-95-10.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reducing the Threat 

from the Former Soviet Union: An Update, June 1995, GAO/

NSIAD-95-165.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: DOD Reporting Cooperative Threat Reduction Assistance Can Be Improved, September 1995, GAO/NSIAD-95-191.

Report, Former Soviet Union: Assessment of U.S. Bilateral 

Programs, December 1995, GAO/NSIAD-96-37.

Report, Nuclear Nonproliferation: status of U.S. Efforts to 

Improve Nuclear Materials Controls in Newly Independent 

States, March 1996, GAO/NSIAD/RCED-96-89.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, September 1996, GAO/NSIAD-96-222.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, April 1997, GAO/

NSAID-97-101.
385

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Effort to Reduce Russian Arsenals May Cost More, Achieve Less than Planned, 

April 1999, GAO/NSIAD-99-76.

Report, Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD’s 1997-98 Reports on Accounting for Assistance Were Late and Incomplete, 

March 2000, GAO/NSIAD-00-40.

Report, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Limited Progress in Improving Nuclear Material Security in Russia and the Newly Independent States. March 6, 2000, GAO/RCED/NSIAD-00-82.

Report, Biological Weapons: Effort to Reduce Former Soviet 

Threat Offers Benefits, Poses New Risks. April 28, 2000, GAO/

NSIAD-00-138. 

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: DOD’s Actions to 

Combat Weapons Use Should Be More Integrated and Focused. May 2000, GAO/NSIAD-00-97. 

Report, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Security of Russia’s Nuclear Material Improving; Further Enhancements Needed. February 2001, GAO-01-312. 

Report, Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD Has Adequate 

Oversight Assistance, but Procedural Limitations Remain. 

June 2001, GAO-01-694.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Additional Russian 

Cooperation Needed to Facilitate U.S. Efforts to Improve Security At Russian Sites. March 2003, GAO-03-482. 

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Observations on U.S. 

Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs in Russia. 

March 2003, GAO-03-482. 

Report, Nuclear Nonproliferation: U.S. and International Assistance Efforts to Control Sealed Radioactive Sources Need 

Strengthening. May 2003, GAO-03-638. 

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Addresses Broad Range of Threats, but Performance Reporting Can Be Improved. February 2004, GAO04-330.

Report, Nonproliferation: Delays in Implementing the 

Chemical Weapons Convention Raises Concern about Proliferation. March 2004, GAO-04-361.

Report, Russian Nuclear Submarines: U.S. Participation in the 

Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation Program Needs 

Better Justification. September 2004, GAO-04-924.

Report, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Nonproliferation Programs Need Better Integration. January 2005, GAO-05-152.

Report, Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD Has Improved 

Its Management and Internal Controls, but Challenges Remain. June 2005, GAO-5-329.

Report, Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD Needs More Reliable Data to Better Estimate the Cost and Schedule of the 

Shchuch’ye Facility. May 2006, GAO-06-692.

Report, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Progress Made on Improving Security at Russian Nuclear Sites, but the Long-Term Sustainability of U.S.-Funded Security Upgrades in Uncertain. 

February 2007, GAO-07-404.

387

INDEX

A

Adveev, A.V., Colonel, Russia, 315

Alberto, Ronald Lt. Colonel, USA, 237, 238, 241

Albright, Madeline, U.S. Secretary of State, 244

Alekseev, V.C., 153

Alessi, Victor, 85

Alibek, Kenneth, 212

Almatypromstri JCS, 203, 204, 206, 207

Ambartsumov, Yevgeny, 71

Arbatov, Alexei, 72, 73

Archer, Edward, 163

Aspin, Les, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 50, 57, 59, 86, 95, 107, 

108

Astafiev, Mikhail, 71

Atwood, Donald, 74, 76, 79, 278

B

Baal, Edward, 237

Baichov, Alexander, 48

Baker, James A., U.S. Secretary of State, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 25, 

26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 70, 84, 187

Baker, Mark, Commander, USN, 237, 238, 239, 242

Balady, Michael A., 311, 334

Bartholomew, Reginald, 27, 30, 70, 79

Baturin, Yuri, 94

Baykonur Space Launch Complex, 183, 185, 186, 212

Beard, Jack, 119

Bechtel, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 156, 

161, 162, 163, 167, 168, 218, 228, 239, 246, 252, 254, 

255, 271, 273, 275, 280, 281, 287, 289, 307, 308, 334, 

356, 365

Beha, Mark, 143, 147

Bektemisov, Murat, 204, 206

Beloshitsky, A.G., 281

Bickell, Kevin, 171

Birely, John H., 32, 33, 34, 56, 75, 77, 78

Bizhan, Ivan, General, 45

Blanar, Oleg, 148, 149, 163

Bodman, Samuel S., U.S. Secretary of Energy, 322, 323

Booker, John, 51, 56, 61, 167, 168, 173, 206, 207

Boren, Paul, 51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 60, 61, 116, 152, 210, 211

Breeze, Roger, 335

Bridges-Steely, Ann, 254

Bronson, Lisa, 218, 282, 309, 310, 311, 312, 332, 339, 340

Brown and Root, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 246, 254, 255, 308

Bukharin, Oleg, 74, 93

Burns, William F., Major General (Retired), USA, 31, 32, 33, 

36, 48, 70

Burwell, Thomas, Lt. Colonel, USAF, 207

Bush, George H. W., U.S. President, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 18, 

25, 26, 28, 35, 36, 71, 174, 187, 188, 216

Bush, George H.W., U.S. President, 5, 6, 8, 9, 26, 29, 46, 47, 

232

Bush, George W., U.S. President, 251, 255, 276, 292, 293, 

303, 307, 309, 312, 313, 318, 322, 330, 339

Bushuev, V.N., General, Ukraine, 140

Buteyko, Anton, 108, 110

Byrd, John T., 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 321, 322, 

325, 329, 332, 340

Bytsyuk, O.I., 140

C

Cali, Shawn, 335, 338

Carter, Ashton B., 17, 86, 92, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 

124, 129, 141, 146, 147, 169, 191, 196, 215, 227, 236, 

265, 348, 349, 361, 367, 368

Chaliy, Oleksander, 171
388

With Courage and Persistence

Cheney, Richard B., U.S. Secretary of Defense, 8, 32

Chivers, Sid, 54

Christopher, Warren, U.S. Secretary of State, 50, 108, 109, 

110, 111, 115, 187, 192

Chu, Steven, U.S. Secretary of Energy, 360

Clinton, William J., U.S. President, 50, 53, 83, 86, 92, 95, 

108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 116, 136, 147, 159, 187, 190, 191, 

192, 193, 196, 209, 210, 228, 229, 230, 231, 244, 267, 

276, 360

Cohen, William, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 151, 158, 169, 

172, 236, 271, 284, 291

Coleman, William, Lt. Colonel, USA, 78, 86

Connell, John, 51, 58, 61, 92, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 

142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 150, 152, 155, 161, 163, 164, 

167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 255

Conner, Ben, Lt. Colonel, 271, 272, 273, 275

Cook, Harry, 51, 214

Courtney, William, 188, 190, 191, 214

Crow, Scott, Commander, USN, 278

D

Davidov, Oleg, 60

Davies, Robert, Lt. Colonel, USAF, 118

Defense Enterprise Fund, 60, 210, 211

Degelen Mountain Nuclear Testing Tunnels, 193, 198, 199

Demio, Michael, 118, 203, 235

Denysyuk, Nikolai, Colonel, Ukraine, 125, 148

Derevyanko, Vladimir, 281

Derse, Anne E., U.S. Ambassador, Azerbaijan, 332

Deutsh, John, 227

Dickey, Robert, Colonel, USAF, 76, 85

Domenici, Peter, U.S. Senator, 93, 210

Drobot, A.G., Lt. Colonel, Ukraine, 144

Dubinin, Yuri, 113

Duffy, Gloria, 49, 56, 83, 86, 87, 108, 116, 117, 126, 127, 

140, 141, 144, 167, 187

E

Evenson, Michael, 51

F

Faircloth, Ronald, 368

Favreau, Michael, 335

Filatov, V. N., General, Ukraine, 140

Flamm, Kevin J., 287

Frantz, David R., 350

Freeman, David, 144, 145, 237

Frolov, Viktor P., Colonel, Russia, 271, 273

Fuerth, Leon, 231

G

Gabriel, Larry, 197

Gadhafi, Muammar, President, Libya, 358

Gates, Robert, 84

Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, Foreign Minister, Germany, 84

George, S. Elizabeth, 363, 364, 368

Gift, Elwood, 190, 191

Glukhikh, Victor, 87

Golev, Alexander N., 203, 208

Goodby, James, 49, 56, 77, 81, 86, 88, 108, 109, 187, 188, 

227

Gorbachev, Mikhail, President, USSR, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 18, 27, 

30, 194, 232, 257

Gore, Albert, U.S. Vice President, 109, 136, 158, 159, 187, 

188, 191, 196, 200, 209, 210, 212, 231, 251

Gottemoeller, Rose, 92, 118, 227, 368

Graham, Thomas, Jr., 31

Gravchev, Pavel, General, Russia, 43, 47, 67, 86, 104, 107, 

120, 146, 210, 230

Green, Richard, Colonel, USA, 316

Guliyev, Elchin, Lt. General, Azerbaijan, 332

H

Handelman, Kenneth B., 283

Harbert, Bill, 123, 129

Harkin, Ruth, 60

Haver, Barrett H., 142, 170

Hicks, Gene, 153, 154, 155, 162, 163

Holcomb, Donald, 317

Holcombe, Wayne H., 153, 163, 164

Holgate, Laura S., 86, 108, 118, 139, 229, 230, 250, 271, 280, 

348, 361, 368

Hryshchenko, Konstantine, 108

Hu Jintao, 360

Hughes Technical Services Company, 129, 142
389

Huizenga, David, 319

Hunter, Duncan, 304

I

Idrissov, Erlan, 212

Ilayshov, A.A., Major General, Ukraine, 140

Industrial Partnering Program, 50, 59, 60, 210

International Science and Technology Center, 83, 84, 85, 

337, 338, 373

Ivanov, Sergei, 251

J

Jagger, Robert, 142, 143

Johnson, Michael, 173

Joseph, Robert, 174, 349

K

Kalistratov, Nikolai Y., 235, 237

Kamenskyhk, Ivan, 283, 284

Kapashin, Valerii, Lt. General, Russia, 291

Kasyanov, Mikhail, Prime Minister, Russia, 292

Kasymov, Alibek, Major General, 189, 200

Kawakami, Toshiyuki, 240

Keller, Daniel, Lt. Colonel, USAF, 51, 54

Kenik, Ivan, 53

Kholstov, Viktor I., 291, 316, 329

Kirienko, S.V., Minister of Atomic Energy, Russia, 291

Kline, Dale, 313

Kluchko, Luke, 197, 198, 199, 203, 205, 254

Kobasa, V.N., General, Ukraine, 140

Koch, Susan J., 36, 118, 189, 243, 368

Kolomiychenko, Anatoly Y., Lt. General, Russia, 319, 322

Konikov, Stanislav, 153

Korolchuk, Yevgeny G., 151

Kosmo, Jorgen, 241

Kozlovsky, Pavel P., Minister of Defense, Belarus, 50

Kozyerev, Andrey, 31

Kravchuk, Leonid, President, Ukraine, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 23, 

25, 28, 43, 95, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 

112, 113, 114, 120, 136, 137, 158

Kravets, Igor Y., 151, 152

Kryzko, A.L., Lt. General, Ukraine, 114, 116, 138, 140

Kuchma, Leonid, Prime Minister, Ukraine, 105, 107, 126, 

135, 146, 148, 151, 158, 159, 160, 166, 170, 209

Kuenning, Thomas S., Jr., 162, 165, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 

232, 236, 243, 249, 250, 252, 253, 272, 273, 303, 305, 

309, 313

Kuntsevich, Anatoly, 82, 285

Kuroydev, Vladimir, Admiral, Russia, 274

Kuzminskiy, Victor F., 169, 172

Kuzmuk, Oleksander, Minister of Defense, Ukraine, 148, 

150, 151, 158, 167, 169, 171, 172, 209

Kvashnin, Anatoly, General, Russia, 275

L

Lajoie, Roland, Major General (Retired), USA, 69, 118, 119, 

120, 121, 127, 139, 141, 152, 161, 170, 196, 209, 215, 

229, 232, 235, 246, 252, 265, 266, 267, 271, 272, 280

Lata, Vasily F., Lt. General, Russia, 228, 251, 252

Lehman, Ronald, 350

Leith, William, 198

Lepyoshkin, Gennady, 214

Linger, Don, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199

Liplyansky, Anatoly, 53

Litovkin, Dmitry, 77

Lobov, Vladimir, General, Russia, 7

Lockheed-Martin Corporation, 240, 250

Lomacky, Oles, 85

Lugar, Richard M., U.S. Senator, 16, 17, 28, 32, 36, 37, 53, 

56, 59, 72, 82, 83, 86, 93, 94, 103, 107, 108, 121, 136, 

147, 196, 209, 210, 216, 218, 219, 228, 230, 236, 251, 

252, 268, 282, 288, 293, 294, 295, 306, 313, 314, 318, 

324, 325, 330, 331, 339, 348, 349, 351, 359, 361, 362, 

365, 366, 367, 368, 369

Lukashenko, Alexander, President, Belarus, 57, 58, 60, 61

Lutinski, Hunter, 278, 283, 315, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322

Lyapunov, Vladimir, 203

Lytvyn, M.M., General, Ukraine, 333

M

Malcolm, Susan, 170

Malinovskiy, S.N., Major General, Ukraine, 116

Malomedev, M.Y., 56

Mamadaliyev, Saidigapbar, 217

Mamedov, Georgi, Foreign Minister, Russia, 94, 109
390

With Courage and Persistence

Mamilov, Valerii, 94

Markov, Alexei A., 230

Martelle, Craig, 173

Maslakov, Valery A., 235, 237

Maslin, Yevgeny, Colonel General, Russia, 54, 68, 70, 73, 74, 

75, 76, 78, 79, 91, 94, 114, 120, 186, 201, 265, 266, 267, 

269, 270, 271, 276, 355

Maslyukov, Yurily, Deputy Prime Minister, Russia, 277

Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility, 77, 79, 81, 230, 241, 

242, 243, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 303, 

307, 310, 340, 360

McNelly, Paul, 293, 329, 368

Medvedev, Vladimir I., Lt. General, Russia, 68, 69

Mehdiyev, Ilham, Major General, Azerbaijan, 333

Mette, Vitalii, 189, 190

Mikhailov, Victor, Minister of Atomic Energy, Russia, 30, 31, 

32, 33, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 84, 94, 

111, 278, 279, 280, 284

Mikhtyuk, Vladimir A., Lt. General, Ukraine, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 18, 

23, 24, 25, 45, 48, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 112, 

113, 114, 115, 118, 120, 129, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 

144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 158, 160, 161, 

163, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 175, 201, 209, 228

Miles, Mary Ann, 155

Miles, May Ann, 51, 155, 163

Milicevic, Don, 148, 149

Miller, James N., 358, 359

Miller, William G., U.S. Ambassador, Ukraine, 107, 108, 109, 

110, 121, 125, 140, 145, 146

Mitchell, Zane, Lt. Colonel, 315

Mityayev, Igor, Colonel, Ukraine, 167

Moon, William M., 34, 51, 59, 61, 77, 267, 269, 271, 273, 

274, 275

Morozov, Konstiantyn P., General, Ukraine, 7, 18, 25, 102, 

103, 105, 106, 107

Myers, Kenneth A., 349, 350, 358, 359, 363, 368

N

Naidovich, Ivan, 48

Napper, Larry, U.S. Ambassador, Kazakhstan, 212

Nazarbayev, Nursultan, President, Kazakhstan, 12, 13, 14, 

23, 28, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 

194, 195, 196, 198, 200, 201, 203, 209, 210, 212, 213, 

217, 218, 219

Nikulin, Yevgeny, Major General, Belarus, 55, 56

Norman, Douglas, 144, 145, 150, 152, 161, 169

Nourgaliev, Bolat, Foreign Minister, Kazakhstan, 188, 191

Nunn, Sam, U.S. Senator, 16, 17, 28, 32, 37, 53, 56, 59, 72, 

82, 83, 84, 86, 93, 94, 103, 107, 108, 116, 121, 136, 147, 

196, 209, 210, 228, 236, 282, 330, 348, 366, 367, 368, 

369

Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, 16, 18, 

33, 35, 36, 73, 81, 84, 86, 92, 112, 118, 119, 137, 229, 

255, 311, 340, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 358, 359, 

366, 367, 368, 369

in Belarus, 41, 50, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61

in Kazakhstan, 192

in Russia, 68, 70, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 86, 94, 256, 265, 

276, 278, 306, 331, 340, 347, 355, 357, 358, 359

in Ukraine, 114, 121, 123, 129, 136, 356

O

O’Leary, Hazel, U.S. Secretary of Energy, 192, 284

Obama, Barack, U.S. President, 324, 325, 347, 348, 356, 

358, 359, 360, 361, 366, 368, 369

Ovcharenko, U.V., Lt. Colonel, Ukraine, 144

P

Pak, Zinovy, 229, 291, 305, 328, 340

Papst, Viktor, 203

Parker, Robert W. Major General, USAF, 27

Parman, Donald, Major, USAF, 171, 172, 173

Parsons Delaware Corporation, 255, 288, 289, 308, 316, 

328, 329, 330

Pas’ko, Victor, 54

Pavlychuko, Dmytro, 105

Paznyak, Vyachaslau E., 58

Pena, Francisco, U.S. Secretary of Energy, 274

Perry, William J., U.S. Secretary of Defense, 59, 60, 81, 83, 86, 

95, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 

127, 128, 129, 136, 137, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 167, 

169, 192, 196, 209, 210, 211, 214, 215, 227, 230, 235, 

236, 241, 265, 267, 280, 284, 288

Petito, John, 51, 56, 58, 61, 203

Petrov, Stanislav, General Officer, Russia, 82, 285, 287, 288, 

291

Petrovskiy, Vladimir, 26
391

Pifer, Steven F., U.S. Ambassador, Ukraine, 171

Pikayev, Alexander A., 94

Potter, William C., 190, 191

Powell, Colin L., U.S. Secretary of State, 8

Primakov, Yevgeny, Foreign Minister, Russia, 244

Project Sapphire, 189, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 200, 208, 

209

Prokhach, Eduard, 170

Putin, Vladimir, President, Russia, 167, 251, 255, 256, 282, 

289, 291, 292, 293, 305, 306, 313, 317, 318, 323, 328, 

331, 339, 340, 355

Pyankov, Boris, 45

R

Radetskyi, Vitaly, General, Minister of Defense, Ukraine, 112, 

113, 114, 115, 116, 120, 121

Raytheon Technical Services Company, 170, 171, 172, 254, 

255, 278, 308, 320, 321, 322, 333, 353, 354

Reagan, J. Randall, 145, 147, 148

Reid, James, 86, 90, 91, 118, 127, 148, 152, 161, 169, 172, 

200, 203, 209, 232, 235, 236, 237, 241, 246, 249, 250, 

253, 254, 273, 305, 307, 309, 316, 318, 319, 323, 324, 

325, 327, 328, 329, 332, 333, 334, 335, 338, 340, 362, 

368

Reiss, Mitchell, 50

Reppert, John C., Brigadier General, USA, 116

Reynolds, Randolph, 210, 211

Richardson, William, U.S. Secretary of Energy, 284

Rodionov, Igor, Minister of Defense, Russia, 241

Romanov, Alexander, 164

Royal, Jed, 364, 368

Rozak, Robert, Colonel, USAF, 86

Ruberto, John, 118

Rumyantsev, Alexander, Minister of Atomic Energy, Russia, 

283, 284, 303

Rutherford, Thomas, 280, 281, 283

Ryabev, Lev D., 305, 340

S

Sadovnikov, Vitality, 283

Sajevic, Jack, 172

Sandia National Laboratories, 78, 80, 276, 278, 365

Sannikov, Andrei, 48

Sarkisov, Ashot A., Vice Admiral, Russia, 290

Schultz, Robert, 51

Scowcroft, Brent, 8

Seleznev, Gennadiy, 277

Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapons Proving Ground, 183, 185, 

192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 200, 211

Serbin, Victor, Colonel, Russia, 316, 329

Serdyuk, Aleksandr I., Colonel, Ukraine, 114, 125, 126, 127, 

129, 138, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 148

Sergeev, Igor D., General, Russia, 54, 105, 113, 146

Sergeyev, Igor, General, Russia, 189, 201, 202, 228, 243, 244, 

245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 271, 276, 352

Sestanovich, Stephen, U.S. Ambassador, 212

Shaakashvili, Mikhail, President, Georgia, 365

Shaposhnikov, Yevgeny I., Marshal, Russia, 14, 41, 42, 43, 45, 

46, 70, 104, 184, 185, 187

Shelton, Henry H., General, USA, 252

Sherwood, Elizabeth, 118

Shkolnik, Vladimir S., 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 

197, 199, 207, 209, 212, 214, 215, 218

Shmarov, Valeriy, Vice Premier, Ukraine, 113, 120, 121, 126, 

127, 128, 129, 138, 141, 143, 146, 147, 209

Shumkov, Nikolai, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 120, 231, 232, 235, 

239, 249, 250, 252, 305, 323, 324, 325, 340

Shushkevich, Stanislav, Head of State, Belarus, 2, 10, 12, 13, 

14, 23, 24, 47, 48, 49, 50

Shvec, V.V., Major General, Ukraine, 140

Smith, Harold P., Jr., 60, 83, 86, 93, 118, 119, 120, 121, 129, 

141, 161, 169, 170, 209, 265, 271, 286, 287, 288, 289, 

291

SOAE Program, 56, 57, 86, 91, 230, 232

Sobchak, Anatoly, 6

Solomin, Victor A., 203, 207

Solovtsev, Nicolai, Colonel General, 200

Soltanov, Shahin, Vice Admiral, Azerbaijan, 333

Sosedko, I.M., Colonel, Ukraine, 144

Starodubstev, M.V., Major General, Russia, 318, 319

START Treaties

New START Treaty, 347, 353, 358, 359, 360, 369

START I Treaty, 6, 26, 27, 29, 30, 43, 46, 74, 88, 91, 107, 108, 

111, 113, 127, 158, 232, 244, 248, 252, 255, 257, 282, 

358

START II Treaty, 26, 33, 36, 70, 228, 229, 230, 233, 244, 246, 

352, 358

START III Treaty, 244
392

With Courage and Persistence

Steblin, Pavel, 235, 237

Stobbs, Jay, Colonel, USA, 267

Stoltenberg, Jens, Prime Minister, Norway, 240

Stroom RITIE, 148, 149, 162, 163, 168, 170

Superfin, Alexander, 281

Syutkin, Pavel, 230

T

Tagiyev, Ramiz, Minister of National Security, Azerbaijan, 

333

Talbott, Strobe, 109, 111

Tarasuk, Boris, 106, 107, 108

Tegnelia, James A., 323

Thiokol Corporation, 152, 165, 239, 254

Thompson, Herbert, 163, 255

Tolubko, Vasily, Major General, Ukraine, 103, 104

Toropov, Alexander, 204

Trass, Ken, 232, 235, 237

Tsyrkov, Georgy, 75

Tukhvatulin, Shamil T., 192, 195, 196, 197, 198

Turner, James, 31

Tuttle, Bill, Colonel, 118

Tver Rail Car Building Plant, 79, 276

Tyupkina, Olga G., 195, 196, 199

U

Ulbinsky (Ulba) Metallurgy Plant, 189

United Engineering Company, 153, 162

V

Valynkin, Igor, Colonel General, Russia, 230, 268, 269, 272, 

273, 274, 278, 305, 315, 319, 320, 340

Verkhovtsev, Vladimir N., Colonel General, Russia, 320, 321, 

322

Von Hippel, Frank, 78

W

Wakefield, Patrick J., 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 329, 332, 

340

Washington Group International, 165, 167, 255, 308, 328, 

332, 333

Weaver, Michael, 335

Weber, Andrew, 190, 191, 214, 215, 216, 311, 314, 334, 335, 

340, 349, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 368

West, Mark, 174, 315

Wojciechowski, Paul, 316

Wolfowitz, Paul, 283, 284, 285, 303, 313

Wright, Richard, Colonel, USAF, 55, 80

Wynne, Michael, 313

Y

Yakolev, Igor, Colonel General, Russia, 250, 251, 265, 266, 

271

Yeltsin, Boris, President, Russia, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 23, 26, 27, 

32, 33, 34, 36, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 69, 70, 71, 72, 

73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 83, 84, 85, 86, 91, 93, 94, 104, 105, 

107, 111, 112, 135, 136, 184, 185, 186, 187, 194, 200, 

201, 202, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 243, 244, 246, 

247, 251, 267, 278, 285, 286

Yergov, Nikolai, 77, 81

Yerofeev, Oleg, Admiral, Russia, 235

Youngstrom, William, 332

Yulia Company, 151, 162, 168

Yurasov, Nikolay, Admiral, Russia, 274

Yuzhnoy, 153, 164, 165, 166

Yuzmash, 153, 164

Z

Zlenko, Anatoly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine, 102, 

108, 110, 113, 115

This book recounts the history of one of America’s most important national security 

programs and celebrates the work of the many public servants who have made it 

a success. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which became 

law in 1991, was aimed at providing American funds and technical expertise to help 

safeguard and dismantle vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological 

weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. Although much of this original 

mission has been completed, the capabilities of the Nunn-Lugar Program and the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which implements it, have expanded 

to meet global proliferation threats and much more important work remains to 

be done. Nunn-Lugar and DTRA will continue to be vital components of the U.S. 

national security strategy.

Eliminating and Securing Weapons of Mass Destruction with the

Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs

WITH COURAGE

AND PERSISTENCE

DTRA History Series

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

U.S. Department of Defense

2014