Ukraine about to start disposing of Soviet weapons-grade uranium

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RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED July 03,2010

Ukraine is "about to start" getting rid of its Soviet-era stockpile of weapons-grade uranium in line with agreements reached during the Washington nuclear summit in April, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said on Friday.

Ukraine, which was briefly left with the world's third largest nuclear arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union, agreed to give up the remaining stockpiles of highly enriched material by the next nuclear summit in 2012.

"We resolved to gradually take weapons-grade uranium out of the country. This process is about to start," Yanukovych said at a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is on an official visit to Ukraine.

The White House earlier said Ukraine had nearly 90 kg of highly enriched uranium, which is enough "to construct several nuclear weapons."

"We are now carrying out preparatory work aimed at single-step removal of highly enriched uranium along with the delivery of low-enriched uranium, technologies and equipment for our research centers," he said.

He added that Ukraine, where about 50% of all electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, needed reactor-grade uranium "to continue scientific research using low-enriched uranium."

Topics: East Europe, Ukraine

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