PRYLUKY, Feb. 2 (AP) – Ukraine dismantled its last Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber and a Tu-22M Backfire bomber on Friday, under the U.S.-Ukrainian Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.
As the official dismantling ceremony began, the Tu-160 stood with its tail already cut off and its hull gutted at a military airfield near Pryluky in northern Ukraine.
Huge scissors operated by an excavator cut the bombers’ noses along the lines specified by Ukrainian and U.S. experts so that the bombers could never be reconstructed. The cutting, conducted by the Raytheon Technical Services Company, went on for about 25 minutes.
The Tu-160, the last and most expensive warplane constructed in the Soviet Union, is a copycat version of the American B-1 bomber, capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound.
A delegation of U.S. defense officials, headed by Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Brigadier Gen. Thomas E. Kuenning, attended the dismantling.
Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal with the 1991 Soviet collapse, including 130 SS-19 missiles, 46 SS-24 missiles and 44 strategic bombers.
Ukraine has since handed over to Moscow three Tu-95s and eight Tu-160s, as well as 581 missiles, in partial payment of a debt for Russian natural gas supplies.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry asked the United States for assistance in dismantling 38 Tu-160s and Tu-95s and 487 Kh-55 air-launched cruise missiles, signing a corresponding treaty in 1997. Last October, it asked for more funding to dismantle the country’s Tu-22M bombers and Kh-22 missiles.
By Friday, 10 Tu-160 and 20 Tu-95 Ukrainian bombers have been eliminated, and one Tu-160 and two Tu-95 aircraft were turned into static displays or converted for laboratory use. Four remaining Tu-95s are to be dismantled by May, and all work under the disarmament program is scheduled to be competed by Dec. 4.
Nonferrous metals from the dismantled bombers have been sold to fund social programs for military officers and their families, and to improve military units participating in the disarmament program, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
