{"id":134,"date":"2024-05-31T11:38:48","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T11:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghosts-of-war.com\/?p=134"},"modified":"2024-06-02T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T16:42:27","slug":"museum-of-strategic-missile-forces-part-i-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghosts-of-war.com\/?p=134","title":{"rendered":"Museum of Strategic Missile Forces, Part I, Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two minutes to midnight<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Ukraine is a big place by European standards, second only to Russia in land area. Factor in some serious mountains, major watercourses and a network of secondary roads that are potholed to the shithouse and it can take a long time to get from A to \u0411. So I figured that hiring a car would be the most efficient way to get around, particularly to the more out-of-the-way places I was keen to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Odessa airport, the car rental company staffer photocopied my passport and driver\u2019s licence, and then ran through the paperwork with me. It\u2019s the first time I have had to sign a rental agreement which included not taking the car into an area contaminated with radioactive material, or driving into either of two active war zones. Not wishing to be either irradiated or detonated I signed on the line and was soon punting my little Citroen sedan through the Odessa traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the years that Ukraine was part of the USSR, Russia shifted an enormous number of military assets into its southern neighbour. Literally thousands of nuclear weapons were stationed in Ukraine, including (by the end of the Cold War) 176 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). These weapons were the big bangers of the arms race; rockets that were launched into space and arced towards their targets more than 5,500km away at around 24,000km\/h. ICBMs put the assurance in Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). They either made the world safer as neither of the nuclear Superpowers would dare to use them, or more dangerous as any cock-up would lead to Armageddon. Depends on who you talk to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, work began on neutralising the nuclear arsenal that was scattered across Ukraine. ICBMs were removed from launch sites, and the control centres and missile silos destroyed. However the arms liquidators left one launch site intact, near the town of Pervomaisk in south-central Ukraine, to be preserved for the future. Today it is the Museum of Strategic Missile Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I navigated the Citroen 220-odd km north of Odessa through undulating cropping country, arriving in Pervomaisk on a bright and cold afternoon. After stocking up with food, I settled in to my chalet-style motel unit, which, like the weather, had a distinctly Nordic feel. The following day I would drive the half-hour to the Museum of Strategic Missile Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning was overcast and sullen, and a cold wind blew across the paddocks of sunflowers, wheat and corn as I headed north to the Museum. Turning off the tar onto a minor road, it was hard to imagine I was heading towards what was once a major military installation which packed enough firepower to tip off the end of the world. That was the point, of course: to hide the missile sites away amongst the hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of Ukrainian farmland and forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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