KAMBARKA, April 29 (Itar-Tass) -- Over 166 tonnes of lewisite has been eliminated at the chemical arms disposal facility in Kambarka, Udmurtia. The first unit of the facility went operational two months ago, on March 1. The second unit, built in Russia under the federal program for chemical arms elimination program was commissioned three weeks later.

“The capacity of the facility in Kambarka is approximately 6-8 times that of the industrial complex built in Gorny, the Saratov Region,” the deputy chief of the conventional problems department in Udmurtia’s government, Valery Malyshev told. “Two to three and a half tonnes of lewisite, one of the most dangerous chemical warfare agents, is eliminated there a day.”

The process of lewisite’s detoxication and conversion into less hazardous agents is automated and it rules out the participation of humans or their presence inside the industrial facility.

Kambarka is one of Russia’s seven chemical weapons stockpiles, where more than 6.3 tonnes of lewisite (15.9 percent of all of the country’s chemical warfare agents) have been kept in stock since 1940s. All lewisite at Kambarka is to be eliminated over three and a half years.

By ratifying the Hague convention prohibiting the development, creation, stockpiling, use or proliferation of chemical weapons Russia assumed the international obligation to eliminate all of the 40,000 tonnes of chemical warfare agents it inherited from the USSR.

“Today the world is celebrating Chemical Weapons Victims Day, proclaimed by the 10th session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We can say that all of our obligations have been fulfilled as expected. The facility operates at the expected pace, the amount of lewisite in store is shrinking and the territory of our republic is becoming a safe place,” Malyshev said.