Ukraine Dismantles the Last of Its Strategic Bombers
Ukraine dismantled its last two strategic bombers on Friday as part of a U.S.-backed program to promote nuclear disarmament in the former Soviet Union.
As the official dismantling ceremony began, the Tu-160 Blackjack bomber stood with its tail already cut off and its hull gutted at a military airfield near Pryluky in northern Ukraine. A Tu-22M Backfire bomber was also dismantled.
The last and most expensive warplane constructed in the Soviet Union, the Tu-160 is a copycat version of the American B-1 bomber, capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound.
Technicians used huge scissors operated by an excavator to cut the bombers’ noses along the lines specified by Ukrainian and U.S. experts so that the planes could never be reconstructed.
Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Kuenning, a key Defense Department official, headed a delegation of U.S. defense officials attending the dismantling.
The U.S. initiated the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in 1991 to reduce the nuclear capability of former Soviet Union nations.
Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, including dozens of long-range missiles and bombers, after the Soviet collapse of 1991.
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