Ottawa, October 21, 2005

The aid will allow Russia to buy the essential equipment needed for the completion of a chemical weapons destruction facility for nerve agent-filled munitions at the chemical weapons complex near Shchuch’ye in central Russia, the ministry said in a statement.

”Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew today announced a contribution of 55 million dollars for the destruction of chemical weapons in Russia,” the ministry said.

”This project will eliminate approximately 1.9 million artillery shells filled with highly lethal nerve agents,” the ministry said.

The ministry said the Russian arsenal consists of 5,440 tons of the deadly nerve agents sarin, soman and VX, which are stored in more than 1.9 million artillery and rocket-launched munitions.

”The artillery shells pose a particular risk because they are small enough to be carried and are thus especially attractive to terrorists. The Shchuchye arsenal contains enough agents to kill everyone on earth several times over,” it said.

Russia has the world’s biggest stockpile of chemical weapons -- more than 40,000 tonnes. The Russian government has pledged to progressively eliminate the stockpile, most of them left over from the Soviet era, by 2012.

The Shchuch’ye chemical weapons destruction facility is one of six being built in Russia, which currently has only one such facility, in the Saratov region.

The contribution announced Friday is part of Canada’s overall commitment of up to one billion dollars over 10 years toward the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, led by the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries, the ministry said.

At a G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, in 2002, the seven richest countries offered Russia up to 20 billion U.S. dollars to destroy stocks of military plutonium and chemical weapons and to secure weapons facilities.