Russian plant destroys VX gas bombs

Viktor Vasenin, the Associated Press     Engineers wearing protective gear begin         the process of neutralizing chemical                 weapons in Russia newest plant in                     Maradykovsky. The plant is expected to         neutralize nine or more weapons per day.         The bombs at Maradykovsky hold VX,           lewisite and mustard gas. Technicians will     have to open each bomb, drain out some         agent if necessary, insert a neutralizing             reagent, close up the bomb and let it sit for     a few months to allow the neutralizing             chemical processes to take place

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Russia opened its third chemical weapons destruction plant as part of an effort to jump-start stalled efforts to eliminate the world's largest arsenal of toxic weaponry and prevent any possibility terrorists could get hold of them.

Officials and observers attending a ceremony Friday at the plant in the town of Maradykovsky watched as engineers clad in full-body chemical protection suits reached into hermetically sealed boxes in the first operations to neutralize aerial bombs filled with VX nerve gas.

The plant, located some 725 kilometres northeast of Moscow, holds more than 17 per cent of Russia's arsenal, or 6,900 tons of nerve agents stored in aerial bombs and missile warheads.

The destruction facility, on the site of one of Russia's seven former chemical weapons production plants, will become a focal point of the push to meet an April 2007 target set by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for Russia to destroy 20 per cent of its stockpile. To date it has eliminated just 3 per cent, as opposed to 39 per cent destroyed by the U.S., home to the second largest stockpile.

(source: The Associated Press)

Chemical weapons: the global picture

• More than 71,000 metric tons globally.
• About 13,000 tons (18 per cent) have been destroyed, requiring the treaty timetable to be extended.
• Of the six countries that have declared chemical stockpiles under the convention, only one -- Albania -- has any chance of eliminating them on time.
• The United States and Russia possess more than 95 per cent of the Cold War stockpiles of chemical arms, have both requested a five-year extension of the deadline until 2012.
• The United States had destroyed about 39 per cent of its declared inventory of 28,575 metric tons stored at eight Army depots around the country.
• Russia has destroyed about 3 per cent of its 40,000 metric tons.
• Albania, Libya, South Korea, and India have declared much smaller chemical weapons stockpiles and pledged to destroy them.
• Japan is faced with eliminating a vast buried stockpile that it abandoned in China during the Second World War.
• Albania possesses 16 tons of a mixture of two blister agents in barrels.
• Libya has declared 23.62 metric tons of mustard agent and more than 1,300 metric tons of chemical ingredients for making nerve agents.
• South Korea has declared a single chemical weapons production facility and a stockpile of 156,000 sarin artillery shells. It aims to eliminate the weapons by December 2008.
• India has a declared a stockpile of 1,044 metric tons of sulfur mustard. India had destroyed 53 per cent of its stockpile.
• A number of other states that have not yet joined the convention are believed to possess chemical weapons, including: Egypt, Israel, Syria, and North Korea.

(source: Boston Globe, Jonathan B. Tucker, Center for Nonproliferation Studies and Paul F. Walker, Global Green USA)

The delays at that plant have pushed Maradykovsky onto the front line. It has been constructed in less than a year and a half, and is the sole site to be funded 100 per cent by Russia.