RIA Novosti RUSSIAN NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY 25 July 2005 |
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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin.) The Russian government has met to consider allocating extra funds for the destruction of Russia's stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said that 21.29 billion rubles (nearly $900 million), rather than 6-7 billion rubles (about $300 million ), will have to be given annually until 2012, which is Russia's deadline to meet its commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The reason is that Russia is chronically short of the international aid it was promised to help demolish chemical warfare agents.
Stores of chemical agents in Russia when the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) was signed were the world's largest, at 40,000 tons; the U.S. came next, with 36,000 tons. In order to meet the Convention's requirements, Moscow needed an immense sum of money - about $10 billion - which it then lacked. The West promised substantial aid, and America in particular pledged to spend $888 million on building the first stage of a facility to deal with 5,440 tons of nerve gases - sarin, soman and VX - contained in the warheads of theatre and tactical missiles and artillery ammunition stored at Shchuchye in Kurgan Region.
The facility was to have gone on-stream in 2005 and contributed significantly to the second stage of destroying Russian chemical weapons: 8,000 tons by April 29, 2007. Unfortunately, Washington did not honor its pledges. At first, it demanded that the Russian government show how it planned to detoxicate nerve gases. Then it began insisting that Moscow accelerate construction of housing and social amenities at Shchuchye, as agreed and as dictated by human logic. Yet when this condition was fulfilled, American Congressmen wanted to know how much Russia owned by way of binary weapons, and to send controllers from the U.S. to biological research institutes of Russia that were in no way connected with the destruction of toxic chemicals and chemical weapons. In short, there were always some minor excuses not to meet obligations.
True, some Russian experts, including Natalia Kalinina, a leading specialist in the elimination of chemical weapons, believe that the delays in disbursing the required finance by Washington are not due to the Russian position on some or other issue not suiting the American administration, but rather because the U.S. is itself falling behind the Convention timetable for the destruction of its own toxic agents. Thus, it is holding back Russian efforts. The world's wealthiest country, seemingly experiencing no problems with wiping out its own warfare agents, is reluctant to be seen to break its promises in front of the world.
Meanwhile, during the period and helped by other countries, above all Germany, Russia was able to build a plant to destroy yperite stockpiles, lewisite and yperite-lewisite mixes at Gorny in Saratov Region, which has already destroyed 863.6 tons of war gases from their total stockpile of 1, 143.2 tons. By the end of 2005, Viktor Kholstov, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Industry (the organization directly responsible for toxic chemicals destruction) told RIA Novosti that all stockpiles at Gorny would be scrapped. A plant to scrap 6,360 tons of lewisite is fast being built at Kambarka in Udmurtia and is scheduled to go on-stream at the end of this year. Construction of facilities to destroy warfare gases has begun at Maradykovsky, Kirov Region, where 6,980 tons of sarin, soman and VX gases are stored. Design investigations are being conducted at Kizner, Udmurtia, which stores 5,680 tons of nerve agents, at Leonidovka, Penza Region (6,880 tons of sarin, soman and VX gases) and at Pochep, Bryansk Region (7,560 tons of nerve warfare agents).
But to meet the Convention's timescale, Russia also needs to bring the facility at Shchuchye on-line. Recently the U.S. has allocated some money, but not enough. The sum clearly does not suffice to keep within earlier scheduled and repeatedly shifted deadlines. Thus, the Russian government has decided to allocate its own additional funds for chemical disarmament. By April 29, 2012, a further 170 billion rubles, or roughly $6 billion, will be made available for this undertaking.
Without much fanfare, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has demonstrated to the U.S. that it does not believe in its American counterpart's sincerity and consistency in abolishing chemical weapons stockpiles. It is easier to rely on one's own efforts and find additional funds in order to honour one's obligations to the world community than to depend on the whims of a distant uncle.