SITE SURVEY PURSUANT TO ELIMINATION OF UKRAINE'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L KYIV 000316

SIPDIS

EUR/PRA, ISN/MTR, ISN/NDF

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/13/2019
TAGS: MTCRE PARM PREL UP
SUBJECT: SITE SURVEY PURSUANT TO ELIMINATION OF UKRAINE'S
SCUDS (C)

REF: A. 2008 KYIV 2339

B. 2008 STATE 132581

C. CATIPON/PALMIERO EMAIL 2/12/09

Classified By: Political Counselor Colin Cleary. Reasons 1.4 (b,d).

Summary
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1. (C) Following up on the November 17 meeting in Kyiv (ref
a) and subsequent demarche (ref b),Embassy met with Acting
Head of the Economic Department of Ukraine's Ministry of
Defense Novosiolev to discuss progress on possible
cooperation to eliminate Ukraine's SCUD missiles. Emboff
briefed Novosiolov on the addition of the State Department as
an executive agent to the CTR Umbrella Agreement, and noted
that we would like to bring a site survey team to Ukraine in
late April-early May, but must begin serious planning if we
are to keep to this time frame. Novosiolev agreed that
detailed planning is needed and found our proposed time frame
for the site survey acceptable. He requested an expert-level
visit to plan in earnest. He noted that the draft MoU for
the project is nearly ready for interagency review. End
Summary.

MOD a Committed Partner
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2. (C) Novosiolev reiterated the MoD's serious interest in
pursuing this project with the U.S., and noted that the MoD
has nearly completed its internal review of the draft MoU
passed in the November meeting. The next step will be to
seek interagency approval of the MoU and its annexes, which
detail the types of equipment and their disposition. From
MoD's perspective, there is no problem with the time frame we
have proposed for the site survey.


3. (C) To that end, MoD is interested in further
expert-level discussions as soon as possible to flesh out the
details of the site survey and to map out the project itself
(to the greatest extent possible in advance of the site
survey),including enough detail to develop reliable cost
estimates for the MoD. Novosiolev asked if we could share as
an example the details of our experience with any previous
SCUD elimination projects in the region to gain a better
understanding of what would be expected of Ukraine. As in
the November meeting, he referred to the concerns of the
Ministries of Economy and Finance that considerable effort be
made to employ Ukrainian subcontractors or laborers, and that
Ukraine avoid the destruction of any salable equipment.

Site Survey Logistics
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4. (C) Specific to the site survey itself, Novosiolev
advised that there are as many as 20 sites around Ukraine.
He asked whether the U.S. would prefer to review the general
inventory of these sites in order to indicate what really
needs to be inventoried, and then MoD could consolidate these
items in as few sites as possible. He observed that 20 sites
would take some time to catalogue one by one, and suggested
we might also want to consider whether to split the survey
team into two groups if we need to visit all twenty.
Novosiolev laid down a marker that Ukraine would prefer that
destruction actually take place at one or two consolidated
locations, but did not focus discussion on this issue.

Comment
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5. (C) The interagency review of the MoU may raise
opposition from the Ministries of Economy and Finance, which
do not have a particular interest in arms control per se. In
part to avoid problems similar to those suffered by the
ill-fated NATO PfP Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW)
project, MoD would like to have a detailed proposal to
present at the outset of the interagency review in order to
forestall later objections by the Ministry of Economy and/or
Finance.
TAYLOR