Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 64, May - June 2002

News Review

Russia CW Stockpile in Spotlight

Doubts continue to swirl around Russia's troubled chemical weapons (CW) destruction programme. While the US appears to have given approval in principle to provide $50 million to Moscow for the construction of a centralised destruction facility at Shchuchye (see last issue), release of the funds is dependent, under the terms of the Fiscal Year 2002 Defense Authorization Act, on clarification on both the size of the stockpile and the detailed plans for its dismantlement.

On March 18, a Bush administration official told the Global Security Newswire: "There is information available to us that suggests there are stockpiles that have not been declared. This is a concern that the Russians need to address. ... We want to make sure the Russians understand the seriousness of this and are prepared to show greater transparency. ... At this stage, without the Russians addressing and resolving our concerns, I don't see that anyone is going to prepare a recommendation [to release the funds] any time soon. I don't want to write it off, but it's going to be difficult." With regard to the details of the destruction plan, the official noted: "There have been a number of different ideas, statements and announcements in Russia. They seem to be basically conceptual rather than a concrete plan." To add to the gloom, the official added, "Shchuchye has a very short construction season. If anything is going to happen, it has to happen soon."

On March 6, an independent Russian study suggested that the country had only partially declared its CW stockpile. According to Lev Federov, President of the Union for Chemical Safety in Moscow, the Soviet Union produced an astronomical 200,000 metric tons of chemical munitions between 1924 and 1987. The weapons, according to Federov, are stored underground at 350 sites across Russia, with the exception of 160 tons of early chemical weapons stored in water (including the Baltic Sea). Russia's official stockpile, declared under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, is 40,000 tons. On March 11, the official estimate was defended as an accurate definition of the modern, post-World War II stockpile by Alexander Garbovsky, a senior official in the Munitions Agency. Garbovsky acknowledged the existence of other, long-neutralised weapons and promised that "we are not going to forget about this problem and will deal with it".

On March 21, Zinovy Pak, the Director General of the Russian Munitions Agency, told officials at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague that "the financial aid promised by the US has a political slant". Pak warned that the delay in funding could lead to Russia missing its new target of destroying 20% of its stockpile by 2007. Under the terms of the Convention, Russia should have fully completed its stockpile elimination by that date (ten years after the treaty's entry-into-force in 1997), but the accord does provide scope for a five-year extension of the deadline.

On March 22, senior Foreign Ministry official Valey Semin was reported by Itar-Tass as claiming Russia would require $3 billion to eliminate its arsenal. On March 18, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joseph Biden talked of even higher figures, urging their urgent provision: "The Russian CW stockpile is a ticking time bomb... We need to accelerate, in my view, US funding, and that may cost as much as $10 billion over several years - a price we can afford if we want to neutralise that menacing threat. ... Russia needs to step up to the plate with its own funding, and we need to push our European allies to do more, because it's clearly in their interests as well as ours. Why is not in our interest, I keep asking myself, for us to spend $8 billion to $10 billion to wipe out a significant portion of the chemical capability that exists out there?" The main problem, as identified by Senator Richard Lugar, is not lack of Russian candour or planning, but plain lack of resources: "The Russians have a palpable fear of the results of the stuff getting out, as we do, to Chechens or others in their own country, where Russians would be killed... The problem is...it comes down essentially to money. There hasn't been much in the Russian budget."

There was some good news for Russia on March 14, with the signing at the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow of a 'Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Destruction of Chemical Weapons in the Russian Federation' between Norway and the United Kingdom. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement (March 19) welcomed the development:

"In accordance with this document, Norway is to release $1 million for the destruction of Russian chemical weapons through the 'British assistance to Russia' programme, of which the Russian-British Intergovernmental Agreement, signed in London on December 20, 2001, is the legal base. Norway had planned to direct this million dollars through the US assistance programme for Russia in building a complex for the destruction of chemical weapons in Shchuchye, Kurgan region. But the slowness of the Americans in questions of the start of construction has led to the decision of Norway to join in British assistance with a view to starting work on the creation of the engineering infrastructure for this complex as soon as possible. Earlier, in accordance with the Norwegian-British Memorandum of Understanding signed on December 5, 2001, in The Hague, Norway already allocated...$1 million for the purchase of an electric transformer for the operation of the complex in Shchuchye."

Reports: Russia - estimates of buried weapons are too low, expert says, Global Security Newswire, March 6; Russia - old chemical weapons are safe for now, official says, Global Security Newswire, March 11; On the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Great Britain and Norway regarding the destruction of chemical weapons in Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Statement, Document 502-19-03-2002, March 19; Russia - US doubts keep destruction funds frozen, Global Security Newswire, March 19; $10 billion needed to destroy Russian stockpiles, Biden says, Global Security Newswire, March 19; Gorny disposal plant to begin operations in July, Global Security Newswire, March 22.

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© 2002 The Acronym Institute.