From Minister of Defense of Ukraine № 148 81к «4» November 1993 г Kiyv to B I Tarasyuk На № УКОР 26-6701 от I II 93 г Dear Boris Ivanovich The Ministry of Defense considered the recording of the conversation of the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Russian Federation V P Kryzhanovsky with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation G E Mamedov In this regard within the competence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine I inform 1 Regarding the state of nuclear weapons in Ukraine The main reason for the deviation from the norm of some parameters that characterize the state of nuclear warheads is not the inactivity and irresponsibility of Ukrainian specialists but the persistent unwillingness of Russia to take timely measures to repair maintain and supply the necessary components for nuclear weapons located in Ukraine As for the two nuclear weapons with an increased hydrogen content on October 22 1993 the named ammunition was sent to the manufacturer in the Russian Federation 2 Regarding the state of liquid-fuel RS-18 missiles Statement by G E Mamedov about the refusal of the general designer to take responsibility for the technical condition of these missiles causes misunderstanding and surprise and does not correspond to reality At the moment all missiles the warranty period of operation of which has expired were removed from combat duty and their condition does not raise any concerns from the point of view of environmental safety Warranty service for the remaining missiles that are on combat duty in Ukraine is carried out by industrial enterprises including the Russian Federation in accordance with the agreements reached The Ukrainian side does not have documents that would indicate the refusal of Russian enterprises to perform warranty and author’s supervision of the operation of missile systems As for the schedule for the export of missiles it can be worked out after the final agreement on the sale or exchange of RS-18 missiles for other types of missiles and on a mutually beneficial and equitable basis and without the participation of Minatom of the Russian Federation and Goscomatom of Ukraine these issues are not within their competence 3 As for negotiations with the U S regarding the RS-22 missiles It should be emphasized that the first attempt to discuss the issue of early deactivation of RS-22 missiles was made in the United States only a week after the above-mentioned conversation At the same time the proposal of the American side to discuss technical approaches to this problem developed by U S specialists was rejected with reference to the existing Ukrainian-Russian agreement on non-disclosure of the principles of the design of missiles of the former USSR Respectfully Colonel-General I Bizhan Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Courtesy of Dr Mariana Budjeryn Translated by Andrey Shenin for the National Security Archive