Ukraine, NATO to carry out radioactive clean-up

Ukraine and NATO will soon begin a joint ecological project to clean up the territory of Ukraine from military radioactive sources leftover from the Soviet era, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. The issue was discussed Thursday in Brussels during a Ukraine-NATO commission's meeting at the level of ambassadors. The ministry did not specify the area to be cleaned up. "The members of the meeting noted Ukraine's initiative to launch a joint NATO-Ukraine project on the removal of radioactive sources from military origin left since the Soviet times and their safe storage in specialized places," the ministry said adding that an agreement on the preparation of special measures for cleaning up the territory from the radioactive sources had been reached. Ukraine has raised some $782 million for the completion of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant shelter project during an international conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the disaster, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said in April. An explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 resulted in highly radioactive fallout in the atmosphere over an extensive area. A 30-kilometer (19-mile) exclusion zone was introduced following the accident.