Chapter 5 -- Final Preparations: NATO and WTO Nations

General-Major Sergey Fedorovich Tsygankov, Deputy Director, Russian NRRC.

The largest CFE Treaty state, Russia, had significant advantages in recruiting, selecting, and training its CFE inspection teams because of its experience in implementing the INF Treaty. The Soviet Union's inspection agency, the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC), was located in Moscow. When Russia emerged as a successor state, the NRRC retained all the agency's missions, functions, and personnel. Thus, Russia had an existing treaty verification organization, experienced leaders, and a corps of professional inspectors and escorts steeped in the procedures and processes of conducting and escorting on-site inspection teams.¹⁷ To carry out the provisions of the CFE Treaty, the INF Treaty, and the other arms control agreements, the Russian center had approximately 150 to 200 personnel.

General-Lieutenant Vladimir I. Medvedev, Director of the NRRC, selected General-Major Sergey Fedorovich Tsygankov to lead CFE Treaty operations. Six months before state representatives signed the CFE Treaty in Paris, Tsygankov arrived in Moscow to become Deputy Director of the NRRC. He began all of his preparations, he said, "with the treaty theory."¹⁸ He also drew upon his years of service with the Soviet Armed Forces Group of Western Forces, where he had participated in inspections under the Stockholm Document. In selecting CFE team chiefs, deputies, and inspectors, General Tsygankov worked closely with General Medvedev and Colonel S.N. Slepnev, Director of Operations for the CFE Treaty Section. For team leaders they selected career military officers with at least 15 years of service. General Tsygankov indicated that some of Russia's CFE team chiefs had been "regimental commanders," others had held important "staff positions," and all "were considered professionals." The key element, he declared, in the selection of team chiefs was their "leadership skills." He observed, "Almost every officer in the center works as an inspection team leader or as an escort team leader. When they go on an inspection, they are responsible for supervising at least nine people. When you are assigned to the escort team, you are to some extent the leader of the inspection facility, so you are in charge of that facility. The inspection team leader, or the escort team leader, is the representative of Russia. This is a very important appointment because everything that he says is on behalf of Russia."¹⁹

The Belarus National Agency for Control and Inspection (NAKI) was established in June 1992, just weeks before the CFE Treaty entered into force. Under the treaty, Belarus had 87 sites subject to inspection. Even more important, the nation had a reduction liability of 1,873 tanks, 1,441 armored personnel vehicles, and 130 fighters. This was a significant reduction liability, especially since Belarus was a newly independent nation, having achieved its independence in December 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the national verification agency was set up, the president made it directly subordinate to the Deputy Minister of Defense for Military Policy of the Republic. General-Major Viktor K. Vakar served as the agency's first Commander.

Although the Belarussian agency was set up just weeks before the CFE Treaty entered into force, the initial cadre of inspectors, escorts, and linguists had had experience under the Soviet Union in implementing arms control treaties and agreements. Belarus had been a Soviet military district with 27 sites subject to inspection under the INF Treaty. From 1988 through 1991, U.S. inspection teams had conducted more than 100 INF Treaty inspections in Belarus. Two major INF Treaty reduction centers, Lesnaya and Stankovo, had been located within the Byelorussian Military District. Most of the officers and specialists who operated these reduction centers were incorporated into the new Belarus National Agency for Control and Inspection.

The Belarus NAKI had five divisions: planning, operational communications and information systems, international relations, escorting and inspecting, and support and logistics. Colonel M.Y. Melomedov, Deputy Chief of NAKI, explained that the escort and inspection division had responsibility for hosting all foreign inspection teams that would be monitoring Belarus's substantial reduction liabilities. To reduce its large quantities of allotted tanks, artillery, and armored personnel vehicles, Belarus set up three reduction centers at Borisov, Stankovo, and Baranovichi. According to Lt. Colonel I.G. Gerus, Group Leader, CFE Treaty Reduction Division, the first task was to "prepare the reduction sites. There, the most complicated issue was to prepare a technology for setting up a reduction line."²⁰ The reduction of all 1,837 tanks in accordance with the provisions of the treaty's reduction protocols, Lt. Colonel Gerus explained, took considerable planning and expense by the Belarus NAKI and the armed forces. He observed that "We spent a lot of effort just organizing the reduction effort." The initial manning for the Belarussian verification center called for an authorized strength of 87, although the actual number of officers and specialists at the treaty's entry into force was less than 50. The agency's headquarters was located in Minsk, the nation's capital. Under the CFE Treaty, Minsk was designated as a point of entry for arriving and departing inspection teams.²¹

Lt. Colonel I.G. Gerus, Group Leader, CFE Reduction Division, Belarus, and Lt.Colonel Steven A. Barneby, OSIA Team Chief, sign inspection report.

Ukraine was another new nation with significant CFE Treaty rights and responsibilities. In defining its foreign policy and military department treaty responsibilities, the Ukrainian government set up a new, presidential-level national committee. Led by Konstantyn Gryschenko, a senior diplomat, this new National Committee for Disarmament reported directly to the president. Its staff and offices were located in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where it was responsible for representing Ukraine at the negotiating sessions of the CFE Treaty's JCG in Vienna, and in future negotiations on other international arms control treaties, such as the Open Skies and START treaties. This national committee also collected, processed, and prepared Ukraine's CFE Treaty data and reports.²²

The Verification Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was located in Kiev, and was organized under the Ministry of Defense. According to General-Major N.T. Honcharenko, Director, the center had four departments: conventional armed forces, open skies, nuclear disarmament, and administration. When the center was established in May 1992, it had approximately 50 officers and civilians. Subordinate to the verification center were four treaty implementation support centers. Located in Kiev (army and air force), Odessa, and Lvov, each center was manned with 25 to 45 military personnel.²³

Before the Ukrainian government established its Verification Center of the Armed Forces in May 1992, General Honcharenko said the government hosted several small, high-level delegations from other CFE Treaty states. These groups presented an informal briefing, explaining their assigned roles and missions, their organizational structure, and their experiences in implementing various treaties. In April 1992, a team arrived in Kiev from the Canadian Verification Agency. In June 1992, Dr. Edward M. Ifft, Deputy Director for External Affairs, OSIA, led a small, six-person American team to Kiev. He was accompanied by Colonel William R. Smith, the new Commander of OSIA's European Operations Command, two planning officers, and two linguists. They explained OSIA's charter, structure, and treaty experiences.

The visit to Kiev was part of an extended 21-day trip to seven CFE Treaty states of the Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. Colonel Smith's impression of the preparations of Belarus and Ukraine was favorable. "In Minsk and Kiev we met with large groups of people who knew a lot about arms control." He found that "they had set up very professional organizations," and were well prepared to carry out their treaty responsibilities.²⁴ Smith learned that the Ukrainians had researched many of the national verification centers and agencies. General Honcharenko said they had studied reports from treaty verification centers in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.

Dr. Edward M. Ifft, Deputy Director for External Affairs, OSIA.

Dr. Ifft's team on its 14,000-mile mission to seven states in 21 days.