400 000 AK-47 and RPG, 1000 MANAGE "Needle" and "Arrow": as NATO destroyed weapons of Ukraine-research

After leaving Eastern Europe, the Soviet forces left a huge amount of ammunition in Ukraine, which, however, would now be outdated and considered dangerous. What threat was this weapons was evidenced by explosions and fires in the past declines. Kyiv Post writes about it. Steve Brown, a former British Army specialist in ammunition and disposal of bombs that worked in the UN and NATO.

Since 2001 he as a NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency Advisor (NATO Maintenance and Supple Agency (Namsa) (Namsa) has been managing a project to destroy anti -personnel mines at the Donetsk chemical plant. Ukraine had to fulfill its obligations under the Prohibition Agreement on anti -personnel mines. " through voluntary contributions to the partnership fund for peace. "In 2004, the United States agreed to be a leading country for this project, but with the conditions.

They were concerned about the fact that surplus small arms, light weapons, portable anti-aircraft missile systems of Ukraine potential The author of the publication was planned to be given all this for destruction. The main financial contribution to the project was made by the United States, but 16 other countries were also attended by: Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey, Britain Hungary.

The EU has also agreed to finance the purchase of special technical equipment. The author of the article and in combination, the head of the disarmament of Ukraine mentioned the political instability, which was then present in the country. "In the five years of my work, in essence, there were five changes in the government.

These changes have always led to a radical reorganization, as new ministers appointed new deputies, new heads of departments, branches and departments; cascade from above could take several months" , - said Brown. According to him, he had to work with five different deputies of the Minister of Defense, five different heads of the Department of Disposal, four different heads of economic management and nine different heads of projects of the Ministry of Defense.

In addition, the bureaucracy of the Ukrainian national and local authorities was also an obstacle to timely progress. It seemed that even the most appropriate technical and operational decisions required the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers. However, the work was done. The project management: in December 2005, a project was opened in the NATO (NATO) communication department in Kiev.

The translator was hired, and for the next few months, as the project developed, three auditors who were supposed to control, register and report on the course of the project were hired, and also had the authority to interfere if the task was not done incorrectly. Demillitarization objects: Donetsk chemical plant and two objects for the production of Ukroboronservice ammunition in Greek, Khmelnytskyi and Shostka, Sumy region, near the borders with Russia and Belarus.

In addition to infrastructure financing at three facilities, they purchased for large money, a gas installation for burning explosive waste (EWI) at the American company El Dorado Engineering (EDE), which had to be supplemented with a unique, custom -made pollution reduction system (PAS) To combat high mercury content, which is present in many types of Soviet ammunition. The system was installed in Donetsk.

"By the way, I was informed that the EWI system had been dismantled and exported to Russia within a few weeks after a full -scale invasion in February 2022. UOS has delayed and built its own less but more efficient EWI electrical installation at the Greek plant," the author said. Initially, our plan involved disassembling missiles to remove components, some of which included rare metals.

The trial disassembly was carried out in the military warehouse of ammunition in Balaklia, about 500 kilometers from Kiev, in December 2005. The sample showed that the disassembly was technically feasible, but it turned out that it was financially and logistically impossible, so they decided to destroy the missiles with an open explosion.

According to journalists, this approach was more liked by the VIP-readers of this event: "Because it was much" more sexy "than to disassemble them in the workshop. " The rockets were destroyed at the former rocket staff, which was governed by the State Research Chemical Institute in Shostka. The destruction of ammunition was preceded by the official ceremony on June 20, 2006.

In total, 1000 rockets and 500 launchers were destroyed in three months, then there was a closing ceremony - September 20, 2006. Steve Brown writes that during 2007 and early 2008 he, together with US representatives, held a number of meetings with the Ukrainian government to try to agree on additional missiles of MSRCs and starting installations for further disposal, but Ukrainian colleagues were decisive.

"Later, I learned that the reason was that the US Department of Internal Security agreed to buy about 2000 tests to protect civilian and military aircraft from potential terrorist attacks, while we simply covered the cost of destruction," the author said. The territory of the military unit 4182 in Kamianets-Podilskyi was elected as a place for the destruction of small arms and light weapons. The site included a separate safe area for weapons storage and maintenance.

They also introduced a computerized audit system in which each unit of weapons was marked with a bar code that was scanned at each stage of the disassembly and destruction process. "The destruction of the LSO has largely turned into political football, and although it was started in January 2007, it was not completed by mid -2011.

We were faced with the objections of a number of ministries who believed that weapons should be sold or deactivated and transformed into "Copies of" weapons, "the author said. The discussion was conducted at the ministers and the US State Department. In September 2009, the Government of Ukraine acknowledged that it was an impractical step, and stated that it was now ready to transfer the balance of agreed weapons to the Project after the Cabinet of Ministers is approved.

In response, the United States stated that they will finance the next project after current operations have completed. As a result, the remaining weapons were handed over for disposal in May 2010, and the final destruction of agreed 400,000 weapons was completed on April 30, 2011. A brief description of what was destroyed is shown in the table below. The initial plan was to create a new object for demilitarization in Kalinovka, but local authorities were hindering for "environmental reasons".

A pragmatic decision was made to use existing state capacity at four separate objects in Shostka, Pavlograd, Donetsk and Grechany. It is reported that, because of the logistics, financial and political difficulties, the project stopped. In particular, Ukraine could not (or did not want to) make its coordinated financial contribution. This has led to the fact that the United States, as a leading country, threatened to stop the project at the end of 2008.

In the process of Namsa, in February 2009, a proposal from the state-owned enterprise "Ukroboronservice" to carry out the destruction of ammunition at the object in Greek and at the State Research Institute of Chemical Products in Shostka at the price of 250 euros per tonne-provided that it can be possible to make without financial support from the Ukrainian government and provided that it will be possible to sell the recyclable material.

This proposal was supported by Namsa, and the leading country of the project was adopted. The funds were allocated, which allowed to complete the final destruction by April 2010. Although the total volume of destroyed ordinary ammunition amounted to just over 8,000 tons instead of the planned 25,000. What was destroyed in Greek and Shostka: a project, which was planned to be completed in three years, between 2006 and 2008, had to continue for another 18 months.