Mélange: a toxic time-bomb
When the Soviet Union collapsed, a number of states including Ukraine inherited large quantities of mélange, a highly toxic and volatile rocket fuel component used in short- and medium-range missiles. Ukraine was saddled with 16,000 tonnes of the deadly substance, but under an OSCE-supported project there is now just 2,500 tonnes left in the country, after another shipment of mélange was safely transported to Russia to be processed into chemical products for civilian use, leaving Eastern Ukraine fully free of the substance.
As mélange decomposes it becomes increasingly unstable, producing nitric acid and nitrogen tetroxide, and when the containers housing this deadly oxidizer begin to erode they pose a grave threat to human life and the environment. Large leaks can produce toxic clouds that could drift to residential areas, contaminating the environment and causing long-term pollution of the groundwater.
Fortunately, over the last 15 years most OSCE participating States have taken measures to eliminate their mélange – either by neutralizing it, or by safely transferring it to specialized chemical facilities where it can be safely converted to industrial products, such as agricultural fertilizers.
The OSCE has already helped Albania, Armenia, Georgia and, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, Montenegro, to eliminate mélange from their territory. 13,500 tonnes of the deadly substance have been fully cleared from five depots across Ukraine; Kalynivka, Vinnytsya region; Tsenzhiv, Ivano-Frankivsk region; Radekhiv, Lviv region; Radekhiv, Lviv region; and most recently from Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region, which was the largest mélange depot in Ukraine. The works on the only remaining mélange storage site, the Liubashivka military base in Southern Ukraine, started this summer and will conclude by early 2014.
The mélange disposal in Ukraine is the largest ever OSCE project financed by individual countries. More than 20 million euro was provided to the project by 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.