Belarus - De-nuclearization - 1991-1996
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, several emerging nations inherited staggering quantities of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the infrastructure that supported them. For example, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus became the 3rd, 4th, and 8th largest nuclear weapons powers in the world. Political upheaval and economic hardship in the former Soviet Union left warheads, delivery systems and technology vulnerable to diversion or sale. A vast cadre of scientists, engineers and military personnel who had spent much of their professional careers supporting the Soviet Weapons of Mass Destruction complex faced the prospect of not being paid. In essence, the political structure and financing that had sustained and safeguarded the enormous Soviet WMD industry had broken down.
In Minsk, Presidents Yeltsin of Russia, Kravchuk of Ukraine and Shushkevich of Belarus announced in December 1991 in a joint declaration that the Union Treaty of 1922, which established the Soviet Union, had been abolished and that they were forming a new federation, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). They declared that “member states of the community will preserve and maintain under a united command a common military – strategic space, including unified control over nuclear weapons…” Jointly, the three presidents stated they would provide the necessary conditions, specifically funding, for the stationing and functioning (operations) of strategic armed forces located on their national territories.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, Belarus (along with Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) technically became a nuclear power because of the eighty-one single-warhead SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles on its soil, even though the republic's Declaration of State Sovereignty declared Belarus to be a nuclear-free state.
In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, the rocket armies, missile divisions and bomber commands were led by Russian generals, operated and maintained by Russian officers and men. They were controlled from higher headquarters in the Russian capital for their personnel, funding, communications, nuclear safety standards, security systems, even their operational targets. Their professional loyalty was to Russia, but their armies and commands were located in another nation’s territory. Consequently, the commanders of the air divisions and rocket armies stationed in Belarus faced conflicting pressures.
In October 1992, Stanislav Shushkevich, chairman of the Belarus Supreme Soviet, announced that Belarus and Russia had signed an agreement declaring that the strategic nuclear forces on its territory – three missile divisions, with 81 SS-25 missiles – would be legally placed under jurisdiction of the Russian General Staff. Shushkevich acknowledged that the commander of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces had authority over these missiles. Command authority included control over arming and launching codes for the SS-25 missiles. In the new document, the Belarusian parliamentary chairman agreed that the Russian Federation would have legal jurisdiction over the missile divisions. The Belarusian government agreed to negotiate a withdrawal schedule for removing the three divisions, including missiles, launchers, support equipment and personnel to Russia within two years.
Not part of this bilateral agreement, but understood, was that Russia also legally owned all of the tactical nuclear weapons that Belarus inherited in 1991. Those weapons were anti-aircraft missile warheads, aerial bombs, nuclear landmines and nuclear artillery shells. The Russian General Staff had already removed these tactical nuclear weapons and warheads from Belarus in the spring of 1992.
In May 1992, Belarus signed the Lisbon Protocol to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and, along with Ukraine and Kazakhstan, agreed to destroy or turn over all strategic nuclear warheads on its territory to Russia.
To achieve this objective, the Supreme Soviet had to ratify the START I Treaty. For some time, however, the legislature stalled while seeking international guarantees of the republic's security and international funding to carry out the removal. Finally, on February 4, 1993, the START I Treaty was ratified, and adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was approved. When Belarus formally acceded to the NPT it became the first country to voluntarily denounce the possibility to possess nuclear weapons inherited from the former Soviet Union. Welcoming the accession of Belarus to the NPT as a non nuclear weapon state Russia, UK and USA provided security assurances to Belarus and signed on 5 December 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
Organizationally, the three divisions in Belarus were elements of the 43rd Rocket Army, commanded by General Mikhtyuk from his headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. At this time Mikhtyuk had six missile divisions stationed on Belarus territory. Of these, three divisions were paper units without missiles or personnel. Following the October 1992 Belarus-Russian agreement, there was a series of meetings in Kiev and Moscow between the Russian SRF commander and Ukraine’s Minister of Defense. Only after these meetings did General Mikhtyuk order immediate disbanding of the three unequipped missile divisions, located at Lutsk, Romney and Belokorovichy. The three active missile divisions in Belarus were located at Lida, Mozyr and Postavy.
In the fall and winter of 1992-1993, Russian and Belarusian defense officials moved quickly to negotiate a schedule for removing the nuclear warheads and missiles. The Russian SRF planning staff drew up a schedule, with the objective of relocating the final SS-25 regiments onto Russian missile bases by December 1994. However, a complex array of political issues and events within both the Russian and Belarusian governments delayed initial and later movements of the missile regiments.
All tactical nuclear weapons were removed from Belarus by mid-1993, but although the country strove to remove the strategic nuclear weapons (based at Lida and Mazyr) by 1995, there was little hope of meeting this deadline. Lukashyenka decided to stop Conventional Forces in Europe arms reductions in February 1995, claiming NATO encroachments on Belarus's territory; rather, it was a matter of finances. These remaining strategic nuclear weapons were tended by Russian troops who would continue to be stationed there for twenty-five years according to the customs union agreements reached with Russia in January and February 1995.
As of July 1996, a total of 63 of the initial 81 single-warhead mobile SS-25 Topol missiles, had been withdrawn, with the remaining 18 yet to be removed to Russia. However, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced that Belarus would suspend the withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Belarus to Russia. Lukashenka said the decision to withdraw the weapons was a political mistake made by the previous leadership, and that it was unnecessary since Belarus and Russia may soon unite. The weapons had been dismantled and were no longer a military threat, and were finally returned to Russia in late November 1996.
It was not until December 1996 that the SRF transported the last regiment of SS-25s and launchers out of Belarus and into Russia. Throughout the two and a half years of the withdrawal operation, Russian general officers controlled access to the regiments, missiles, facilities and rocket forces.
Project Peace was the Congressional initiative to provide U.S. equipment and expertise to the Belarus government for the environmental restoration of the former SS-25 SRF facilities throughout the new nation. The project fell under the Nunn-Lugar program. Congress directed that $25 million be set aside specifically for this project. In defining the project, Defense Department officials had two main objectives. First, they wanted to encourage Belarus’ Minister of Defense and other ministries to initiate technical discussions on environmental restoration of the SRF military facilities. Second, they wanted to ensure these military facilities would not be used for future rocket forces activities. For this program, the U.S.-Belarus implementing agreement was signed in late July 1993.
The 1994 election of Alexander Lukashenko as president of Belarus accelerated a downward spiral. Authoritarian, nationalistic, anti-western and pro-Russian, Lukashenko’s government arrested some European and American diplomats and citizens and harassed others to the point that the United States and European nations suspended diplomatic relations.
US Defense Department’s senior Nunn-Lugar policy officials decided in 1995 to issue a competitive contract to an American demolition firm to do the work in Belarus. In March 1996, Controlled Demolition, Inc. won the contract. However, start of the work in Belarus was delayed repeatedly by the Belarusian Ministry of Defense. For more than a year, the American firm was denied access to the former SS-25 missile sites. By that time, President Alexander Lukashenko had negotiated and signed a new treaty binding Belarus and Russia into a union, both economically and militarily.
Among the many consequences of the break was that the Nunn-Lugar programs in Belarus completely collapsed. By the time Belarus and Russian leaders signed the Treaty of Union in April 1996, the defense conversion projects in Belarus had collapsed. A year later, all CTR projects ended when the United States and Belarus suspended diplomatic relations.
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