Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in October helped to ensure the security of four nuclear-weapon train shipments, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) announced on Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 17).

The Nunn-Lugar program that month also supported disposal of 121.66 metric tons of Russian chemical warfare agents, the lawmaker said in a press release.

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 7,601 strategic nuclear warheads and destruction of 792 ICBMs, 498 ICBM silos, 182 mobile ICBM launchers, 674 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 announcement.

The effort has also provided safeguards for 551 nuclear-weapon train shipments, boosted security at 24 nuclear weapons storage facilities and constructed 34 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, 2,486.9 metric tons of Albanian and Russian chemical agents have been eliminated with assistance from the U.S. initiative (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, Dec. 21).