and chemical weapons destruction. In Obama's second term, work on nuclear threat reduction was said to be more bleak because of the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Arms Control Today opined that "the crisis in Ukraine probably has ruined prospects for another formal Russian-U.S. arms control agreement during the Obama administration's second term." As far as reducing nuclear weapons in other countries, besides Ukraine, there is more of a chance of an agreement. This idea is explained in "countering nuclear weapons proliferation to states and to nonstate actors, the prospects are somewhat better, given mutual Russian and U.S. concerns in that area". There are still many agreements that have been proposed that can be passed between the US and Russia as far as nuclear weapons and the control and elimination of them are concerned. As time progresses, the threat of nuclear weapons and the money needed to spend on the elimination of them diminishes. The CTR program has faced many budget cuts since its beginning in 1986 because the program was, as opined by one observer, "created to deal with yesterday's strategic weapons and yesterday's threats have largely diminished". In January 2015 Russian Federation representatives told their US counterparts that Russia would no longer accept US assistance in securing stored weapons-grade nuclear material but said they would continue the program on their own. Joint security work at numerous Russian sites and facilities was halted on 1 January 2015. In December 2014, the program awarded a $4 million contract to MRIGlobal to "configure, equip, deploy and staff two quick response mobile laboratory systems (MLS) to support the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa." The labs were deployed to Sierra Leone. Future plans In 2018, David Franz and Libby Turpen co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control to discuss the next ten years regarding the CTR program. The committee found that the Cooperative, or "C", in CTR was found to be central in reducing threats through transparency and action further strengthening world relations while mitigating dangers to the U.S. Sustainable partnerships between new and existing countries under the CTR is fundamental to the threat reduction program. The committee found the CTR program in 2018 still to be "foundational" in U.S. safety from WMD, even 30 years after the birth of the program. See also The World Institute for Nuclear Security Project Sapphire MPC&A Global