On April 15-18, at the invitation of the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF) of the U.S. Department of State and the Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program (PPP) of the Threat Reduction Agency (TRA), KFI participated in a Chemical Forensics and Analysis Consultation Meeting and Command and Control Exercise in Krakow, Poland.
Among the participants of the event were Nataliia Tkachenko, Director of the Department of Expert Support of Justice of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine; Anatolii Klymenko, Senior Researcher of the Materials, Substances and Products Research Department of the Criminalistics Laboratory of KFI; Oleksandr Dolozhevskyi, Deputy Head of the Rocket and Artillery Explosive Research Department of the Military Research Laboratory of KFI; and Oleksandr Vysikan, Chief Forensic Expert of the Rocket and Artillery Explosive Research Department of KFI.
The meeting raised questions about how government authorities and institutions in Ukraine will handle the transfer of evidence; how laboratories and/or experts are selected to analyze samples; what interaction exists between laboratories, prosecutors and investigators; how evidence is stored and processed; and the possibility of analyzing chemical warfare agents and other contaminated evidence collected at the site of a chemical attack.
Due to the discussions and the command and control exercise, the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Foundation, the Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program, and other U.S. partners better understood the role, responsibilities, and requirements of the Ukrainian professional community, and developed a clear pathway for the best support of Ukraine in the event of a chemical attack to hold Russia accountable through laboratory confirmation.
We are grateful to the U.S. Government for facilitating the mission and for its continued support of Ukraine and strengthening interagency relations!
