Posted by: Luke Schtele, Deputy Press Attaché
Ambassador Pyatt at the Pavlograd Chemical Plant
On November 7, 2013, Ambassador Pyatt and delegation from the Department of Defense visited the Pavlograd Chemical Plant west of Dnipropetrovsk. During Soviet times, the Pavlograd Chemical Plant was responsible for loading solid propellant into the Soviet Union’s arsenal of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Since the late 1990s, the Pavlograd Chemical Plant has been pursuing commercial activities and assisting with the decommissioning of the SS-24 ICBM Solid Rocket Motors under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
Ambassador Pyatt with the delegation at the Pavlograd Chemical Plant
The date of this visit coincidentally coincided with the 95th anniversary of the first successful demonstration of a tube-launched rocket by Robert Goddard back in 1918 in Maryland. Ambassador Pyatt and Mr. Kenneth Myers, Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, inspected the special warehouse complex that currently stores SS-24 solid rocket motors. They also visited the decommissioning system that utilizes a water-washout method and a newly constructed state-of-the-art incinerator that was recently commissioned. This new incinerator complex was manufactured in Germany by Eisenmann and was the result of an agreement reached at the Washington Nuclear Summit between President Obama and President Yanukovich in April 2010.
The Pavlograd Chemical Plant is a state enterprise headed by Dr. Leonid Shiman and represents the region’s largest industrial employer. You can find short video documentaries devoted to this project on YouTube’s NunnLugarCTR channel using the following link.
Comentarios