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Russia Blames CW Disposal Delay on the West
A Russian official said the chemical weapons destruction plant at Shchuchye in has not been finished on time because of broken funding promises from the West, Interfax-AVN reported last week (see GSN, Oct. 24, 2005). “The Americans froze financial assistance between 1999 and 2002 not only for building the Shchuchye site but for the entire chemical weapons destruction program in Russia. This wrecked the schedule and we had to set new target dates,” said Nikolay Bezborodov, who sits on the State Duma’s defense committee. Bezborodov claims plans to finish the plant by the beginning of this year were based upon funding pledges from the United States. “The deal was that Russia would put up 60 percent of the cost of the project and the U.S.A. 40 percent. But there is a long way to go from the declaration to the reality,” he said. Construction of the plant is now not expected to be completed until 2008, according to Interfax. Bezborodov claimed the United States had no reason to freeze money for the plant. “The U.S. Congress only had one complaint that was justified, that Russia should spend at least $25 million a year on its chemical weapons destruction program,” he said. Other countries expected to provide funding for Russian chemical weapons disposal also failed to follow through, Bezborodov claimed. He said Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland and the European Union pledged a total of $1.8 billion. Russia has received only enough for $264.8 million worth of work, Bezborodov said. Bezborodov said the failure of these countries to provide money detracts from long-term chemical weapon destruction programs. “Only three out of seven destruction facilities are being built with Western help. And at two of those, that help accounts for no more than one third of all spending. At Gorny (Saratov Region), for example, it is 24 percent. At Kambarka (Udmurt Republic) it is 27 percent and at Shchuchye the foreign component is, or rather should be, 40 percent,” he said (Interfax-AVN, Jan. 13).
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