NATO and Ukraine Initial Team Meeting in Kyiv on November 26, 2002.

FfP Vice President Anne C. Bader and Marketing Director Krista Hendry visited Kyiv the last week of November 2002 and toured various sites as part of a NATO Ad Hoc Steering Committee of the Partnership for Peace Trust Fund. The trip launched a feasibility study on the first phase of a 10-15 year project described by a NATO expert as "the largest weapons destruction project ever anticipated". Greece is the feasibility study's leading donor country with Turkey and Germany also contributing.

This is the first time NATO has ever invited an NGO to join a NATO team of experts in a field mission. The team was convened to assess the feasibility of destroying 1.5 million small arms and light weapons and 133,000 tons of munitions in Ukraine. The NATO Delegation is led by Susan Pond of the Defence Partnership & Cooperation Directorate in the Defence Planning & Operations Division International Secretariat of NATO, pictured here.

The Fund for Peace will collaborate with a Ukrainian NGO, the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies (The Razumkov Centre), in a 6-month feasibility study to create a communications strategy and action plan. FfP will travel to various sites, like the one pictured here, to gain an understanding of the scope of the project and formulate a strategy on how to communicate its benefits and create transparency to help ensure success.

The team of experts, which includes representatives from NATO HQ, technical experts from NAMSA and representatives from the two NGOs, were greeted with hospitality, openness and professionalism throughout their one-week initial visit to Kyiv. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has been collaborating with NATO in the Partnership for Peace program, under which this project also falls, for several years.

NATO Press Release.
NATO Update.

Susan Pond, Leader of the Delegation,
at the Rozsishky depot.

Anne Bader inspects ammunition,
some pieces left from WWII, which is
left in the open air at the Rozsishky depot.

 The Group inspects the vast amount of
ammunition in the open air at Rozsishky
and in varying states of corrosion.

 NATO Team and Hosts on arrival
at Balakliya in Eastern Ukraine.