Defense Minister Yevgeny Marchuk startled the international community last week by revealing that Ukraine was looking for "hundreds of rockets."

But he revised his comments Tuesday, saying the missing missiles were not a threat.

"I would like to say outright that there is nothing to fear. There is nothing there that can fly," Interfax quoted the defense minister as saying, adding that the missiles were decommissioned in the late 1980.

"What is being searched for now is not so much the missiles themselves as the precious metals contained in them, including gold, silver, platinum and titanium."

Marchuk refused to specify what sort of missiles remain unaccounted for.

Ukraine was the third-largest nuclear power in the world at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, possessing 176 strategic missiles and 1,300 nuclear warheads.

All of the warheads were transferred to Russia by 1996 in a trilateral disarmament accord signed between Kiev, Moscow and Washington.

Ukraine began to destroy its intercontinental ballistic missiles in 1999.

US-Ukraine ties were badly hurt last year by allegations that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma had personally approved the sale of an advanced radar system to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.

Now, Ukraine is the fourth largest contributor of troops to the US-led stabilization effort in Iraq, with some 1,650 soldiers on the ground in southeastern Iraq.

WAR.WIRE