Flowers Replace Missiles Ceremony Caps Ukraine’s Disarming

In a gesture reminiscent of the 1960s peace movement, the American, Russian and Ukrainian defense chiefs planted sunflowers Tuesday in a field where a nuclear missile aimed at the United States once stood Cold War duty.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry joined his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in ceremonies marking the completion of Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament - a politically touchy process that began more than two years ago.

Perry likened the moment to the drifting away of a dark cloud of nuclear fear.

“It is altogether fitting that we plant sunflowers here at Pervomaysk to symbolize the hope we all feel at seeing the sun shine through again,” he said, standing on a small concrete pad in the middle of the now defunct missile field. Nearby, the American, Russian and Ukrainian flags waved in a warm breeze.

It was an event oddly recalling those staged by anti-war activists of decades past in which flowers were used as symbols of hope for an end to the nuclear arms race.

Pervomaysk, one of two main nuclear missile fields in Ukraine, is situated in the south-central part of the country, about 180 south of the capital, Kiev. Just two days before Perry arrived, the Ukrainians shipped out the last of more than 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads they inherited in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Perry and his counterparts - Gen. Pavel Grachev of Russia and Valery Shmarov of Ukraine- tossed handfuls of sunflower seeds onto the freshly tilled earth. Then they grabbed white-handled spades and planted six sunflower seedlings.

The three watered the plants and stood back to admire their work.