Ukraine has sent a "significant portion" of its highly enriched uranium stock to Russia, in line with a deal with the United States aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Friday. Kiev, which voluntarily gave up the nuclear weapons it inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed, agreed with Washington in April to get rid of the stocks entirely by 2012, and convert its civilian nuclear research facilities to operate with low enriched uranium fuel.
"Ukraine has fulfilled its obligations by removing a significant portion of these nuclear materials," the ministry said in a statement. "In line with the United States' obligations... Ukraine has received an equivalent amount of low enriched uranium for the needs of... scientific and research facilities." A ministry spokeswoman said the material had been sent to Russia.
A nuclear summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in April vowed to lock down the world's remaining supplies of highly enriched uranium within four years.
The US National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, said in a statement that 50 kg (111 lb) of uranium had been removed from three sites in Ukraine.
The agreement is designed to make it harder for militants to get hold of fissile material that could be used in an atomic bomb. The United States has said it would provide financial and technical assistance to Ukraine and was likely to store some of the highly enriched material on US soil. "The removal of this highly enriched uranium from Ukraine is a major milestone that brings us one step closer to achieving President Obama's goal of securing all nuclear material around the world within four years," NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino said in the group's statement. NNSA and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) helped to co-ordinate the project to ship the material out of Ukraine, said an official of the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna.
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