Toxic rocket fuel component fully removed from Eastern Ukraine with OSCE support

SHEVCHENKOVE, Ukraine, 4 September 2013 – Seven-hundred and sixty tonnes of mélange, a highly toxic Soviet-era rocket fuel component, were shipped today from Ukraine to Russia to be processed into chemical products for civilian use, under an OSCE-supported project.

With this shipment from the military base in Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region, Eastern Ukraine is now fully free of the dangerous substance used to propel short- and medium-range missiles. At chemical plants in the Russian Federation the mélange is converted into chemical products, such as paint components. The whole process of transportation, disposal and end use is monitored by OSCE experts.

Before the disposal phase of the OSCE project was launched in 2009, Ukraine had a total of 16,000 tonnes of melange stored in six locations across the country. Now, 13,500 tonnes of mélange have been safely removed from Ukraine, with five out of six depots, including Shevchenkove, fully cleared. The works on the only remaining melange storage site, the Liubashivka military base in Southern Ukraine, have started this summer and will conclude by early 2014.

"Melange represents a serious hazard for people and the environment, and today this ‘ticking bomb’ was successfully neutralized in Eastern Ukraine," said OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier. “This marks yet another important landmark in the largest OSCE project ever.” He praised close partnership between the OSCE, the Government of Ukraine, partners in the Russian Federation and donor states, which made the project possible.

The melange disposal in Ukraine is the largest ever OSCE project financed by individual countries. OSCE participating States that provided more 20 million euro to the project are: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden through the Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency, and the United States of America.