The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program last month deactivated six former Soviet strategic nuclear warheads, eliminated four ICBMs and destroyed six mobile ICBM launchers, the office of U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) announced yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 24).
The program also constructed and supplied a new biological agent monitoring station and transported 12 train shipments of nuclear weapons to secure storage sites.
As construction continued on the Russian chemical weapons disposal facility at Shchuchye, the CTR program moved chemical weapons at the site to a central location and upgraded security to help protect 1.9 million chemical munitions in storage. The site is expected to begin operating in the near future, according to a Lugar release.
Since being established in 1991 to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union, the Nunn-Lugar initiative has deactivated 7,298 strategic nuclear warheads and destroyed 724 ICBMs, 496 ICBM silos, 137 mobile ICBM launchers, 631 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 456 SLBM launchers, 31 ballistic missile-capable submarines, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles and 194 nuclear test tunnels.
The program has also secured 411 nuclear weapon train shipments, increased security measures at 17 nuclear weapon storage facilities and built 16 biological agent monitoring stations. It removed all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, nations that once respectively held the world's third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear arsenals.
By sponsoring the International Science and Technology Centers, the Nunn-Lugar program has helped to provide civilian opportunities for 58,000 former weapons scientists. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has involved 14,000 former weapons personnel in 750 projects and established 580 technology-sector positions (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, Oct. 20).