KAMBARKA (Udemurtia), March 1 (Itar-Tass) - The first phase of the technological complex for destruction of chemical weapons will be launched in Udmurtia’s town of Kambarka on Wednesday.

This is the second facility in Russia for destruction of poisonous substances under the programme of chemical weapons disposal.

Kambarka is one of Russia’s seven arsenals of chemical weapons, five of which are located in the Volga Federal District.

More than 6 thousand tonnes of lewisite are stored in Kambarka since the 1940s, which is 16 percent of Russia’s total volume of chemical weapons.

By ratifying the Hague convention banning the development, stockpiling, use and spread of chemical weapons in 1997, Russia has assumed the obligation to destroy all of its 40 thousands tonnes of especially dangerous weapons of mass destruction that are its legacy from the former Soviet Union.

Seventeen countries participating in the Global Partnership programme have committed themselves to give financial assistance.

In 2001, Russia destroyed powder charges and phosgene from ammunition ahead of schedule.

More than 1,143 tonnes of yperite and lewisite, which are blister war gases, were destroyed in last year’s December.

“The capacity of the facility in Kambarka are approximately 6-8 times larger than in Gorny,” the deputy chief of the Udmurt government’s department of conventional problems, Valery Malyshev, told Itar-Tass.

He said that 360 kilogrammes of lewisite would be destroyed at the technological complex in Kambarka.

It is planned to bring the facility to a rated capacity in 2006, allowing the disposal of 2.5 thousand tonnes of lewisite a year.

“The transformation of especially dangerous poisonous substances into safe reaction masses will be done with an alkaline hydrolysis method, but the engineering arrangement of technologies will be somewhat different as compared to the first facility in the settlement of Gorny,” Malyshev said.

He explained that “this will provide a possibility for increasing volumes of lewisite engaged in the detoxification technological process and keep the timetable of the international obligations, according to which all reserves of lewisite stored in Kambarka must be destroyed within three and a half years,” he said.