Ukraine pledged to remove all HEU by 2012

National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine at its meeting on April 6, 2010 approved a decision to remove all HEU from Ukraine. This decision was made in advance of the visit of the President of Ukraine to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. According to press accounts of the meeting, two Ukrainian organizations have highly-enriched uranium - the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology and the Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry.

The Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology was estimated to have up to 75 kg of HEU with enrichment of 90 percent and may also have about 30-40 kg of scrap material with lower enrichments - 20, 25, and 36 percent (see William C. Potter, Robert Nurick, "The Hard Cases. Eliminating Civilian HEU In Ukraine and Belarus," Nonproliferation Review, July 2008). Smaller amount of material, reportedly about 6 kg of HEU, at the Sevastopol National University appears to be part of the subcritical assembly or the IR-100 reactor located there.

The VVR-M reactor at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kiev, which used HEU fuel in the past, was converted to LEU in 2008-2009 (with U.S. assistance). It is not clear, however, if the spent HEU fuel was removed from the site.