Russia:  More Funding Needed for Disposal Plant

More U.S. funding is needed for the Shchuchye chemical weapons disposal plant, Russian officials said last week.

“We appeal to the United States to once and for all solve this problem and provide us with the money,” Gen. Valery Kapashin, head of the Munitions Agency department responsible for chemical weapon stockpile security and destruction, said at a public forum in Moscow organized by the environmental organization Green Cross.

Global Green’s Legacy of the Cold War Program Director Paul Walker said that two U.S. conditions for funding have yet to be met: the development of a practical plan for the destruction of Russia’s nerve agent stockpile and the enactment of a law requiring Russia to eliminate all of its nerve agents at one site.  “In essence that means that our American Congress is telling Russia that it has to come up with a new plan to destroy the nerve agents,” Walker said.

The Russian Federation Council approved a bill to allow the transportation of chemical weapons throughout Russia, which is an attempt to fulfill the single-site requirement, said Munitions Agency spokesman Dmitry Timashkov.  It would cost about $888 million to destroy all of Russia’s chemical weapons at Shchuchye (see GSN, Nov. 1), according to the Moscow Times.   Chemical weapons from only one site will be transported to Shchuchye, said Zinovy Pak, head of the Munitions Agency.

Shchuchye residents, however, believe that chemical weapons from all over Russia will eventually find their way to the town.  “I just got a letter from people in my region who found out about the bill and they said public opinion is stirred up because chemical weapons from other places will be brought to our area,” said Galina Vepreva, head of the Green Cross’ information center in Shchuchye.  “We don’t know how much will be brought here and how much it will increase the danger for us,” Vepreva said. 

The funding for the plant is almost available, said Arms Control Association analyst Seth Brugger.  The funding has passed through both houses of the U.S. Congress and a single, compromise version of the bill only needs to be worked out in committee, Brugger said.  The United States might have imposed the funding conditions on Russia in order to get the most use out of the Shchuchye plant, Walker said.  “They want to make sure that if we spend $1 billion in Shchuchye, we get rid of all the nerve agents in Russia.”

Some Russian experts, however, oppose the U.S. conditions.  “The American side is putting substantial political pressure on Russia, dictating conditions it must meet to be given its aid,” said government expert Natalya Kalinina.  “So what does it mean?  Either the American party is consciously pushing Russia not to fulfill the convention, because it is just impossible to fulfill all these conditions and we are heading to a trap—or this is intended to exercise even more political pressure on Russia, to win total governance over the process of chemical weapons disposal in Russia” (Yevgenia Borisova, Moscow Times, Nov. 21).

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