F. Peugeot
NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, Luxembourg
S. Brown
NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, Luxembourg
P. Courtney-Green
NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, Luxembourg
Download article
Published in: The Swedish Section for Detonics and Combustion; Fourth International Disposal Conference
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 18:26, p.
Published: 2007-03-13
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
As a legacy of the Cold War; Ukraine holds more than seven million surplus small arms and light weapons and more than two million tons of excess munitions.
The presence of such huge stockpiles is dangerous and represents a direct threat to the safety of the population of Ukraine as well as a potential security threat to the region. Three ammunition depots in Ukraine have suffered devastating explosions in the last few years and the situation will worsen as the stockpiles age and degrade.
A 12-year NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) project has been established at the request of Ukraine. This project was led for the first 3-years by the United States with funding from 12 other NATO Member and Partner Nations (Austria; Bulgaria; Canada; Germany; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Norway; Slovakia; Switzerland; Turkey; United Kingdom) and the European Union aims at the safe destruction of 1000 MANPADS; 1.5 million small arms and light weapons and 133;000 tons of munitions.
The first nine months achievements of the project will be reviewed with a special emphasis on the MANPADS destruction.
