Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program in May supported security for five nuclear-weapon train shipments and disposal of 11.11 metric tons of chemical nerve agent, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) announced on Tuesday (see GSN, June 29).

Since being established in 1991 to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states, the CTR program has assisted in deactivation of 7,619 strategic nuclear warheads and destruction of 902 ICBMs, 498 ICBM silos, 191 mobile ICBM launchers, 680 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 492 SLBM launchers, 33 ballistic missile-capable submarines, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles and 194 nuclear test tunnels, according to the release (see GSN, June 6).

The effort has also provided protection for 572 nuclear-weapon train shipments, boosted security at 24 nuclear weapons storage facilities and constructed 39 biological agent monitoring stations. It supported the removal of all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, nations that once respectively held the world's third-, fourth- and eighth-largest nuclear arsenals, Lugar's office said.

The Nunn-Lugar program aided the elimination of Albania's small stockpile of chemical warfare materials, its first effort outside the former Soviet Union. In total, more than 2,935 metric tons of Albanian and Russian chemical agents have been eliminated with assistance from the U.S. initiative (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, July 3).