Nearly 1,300 bombs and 19 missiles destroyed as part of large-scale OSCE Soviet-era ammunition demolition project in Georgia

The explosion of a cluster bomb on 12 July 2013 at a demolition range in Georgia marked the end of a two-year project by the OSCE and the United Nations Development Programme to help the country destroy 1,289 pieces of aircraft ammunition and 19 missiles.

The ammunition is part of Soviet-era stockpiles inherited by Georgia and material abandoned after the withdrawal of Russian Armed Forces from their bases in the country in the 1990s. The missiles belonged to the Moldovan Armed Forces and were dismantled and disposed of following an agreement between Moldova, Georgia and the OSCE.

The project is part of a demilitarization programme set up by the OSCE, UNDP and Georgia’s Defence Ministry. Its main goal was to reduce the risk posed by aging and potentially unstable ammunition to the life and health of the local population, but also to improve safety by taking the explosives out of circulation and thus preventing any possible proliferation.

The demolition project, the costs of which totaled nearly half a million Euros, was sponsored by Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden (through the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency).