Russia reported to the CWC yesterday that it has destroyed 15% of its chemical weapons stockpile. Russia has eliminated 3,123 metric tons of blister agents and 2,925 ton of nerve agents. By April 29, 2007, Russia plans to reach a total of 8,000 tons destroyed. As in the U.S., Russian CW destruction continues behind schedule. What’s (not) funny is that even after destroying nearly 6,000 tons of agents, the Russian declared stockpile remains larger than the U.S. stockpile was at its peak.
The U.S. had reached a level of 39% of agents destroyed back in September, as blogged by the Armchair Generalist, who also described some of the problems involved with CW demil and why it’s behind schedule. Part of the problem for the U.S. is that we’ll spare no amount of money and time to study an issue to death (like which process is safer for destroying chemical agents—incineration or neutralization?). It’s ironic that groups that slow down the process of getting rid of chemical weapons inadvertently contribute to a situation of far greater risk, in which a spill or leak could occur from stored agents that were put on hold pending further studies.
[Update: The OPCW announced today that the U.S. and Russia received extensions of their CWC-mandated demil deadlines, both to 2012. Other countries receiving extensions included India (2009), Libya (2010), and a country that requested anonymity (2008). Hmmm! - 11Dec06]
Filed under: chemical weapons
Ah, the arms race with Russia, was that fun or what? Of course now both countries are full of aging stockpiles of incredibly toxic crap that had extremely limited military value to begin with. I’m willing to bet that the ultimate clean up costs are going to be in the hundreds of billions, not surprising it’s taking so long. What a mess, thanks for the update.
JMO Doug
I distinctly remember watching a program on the History Channel in recent years that covered the pitifull state of Russia’s bio/chem stockpile. They did a “walk-through” on an abandoned Anthrax plant, the former scientists were unemployed in the local town and any Anthrax from the facility was plowed into the soil on a small island in the center of a nearby lake. They said the plant could make enough weapons grade anthrax in a single year to kill every air breathing life form on earth…. This stuff is still there and if it isnt there it’s been sold or stolen.
There are a couple of good documentaries covering the Soviet BW program. In the last few years improvements (mostly cleanup efforts) have been made with the help of the U.S.
Vozrozhedeniye (Voz) island, which means Rebirth Island, was a Soviet open-air testing site in the Aral Sea. They tested many different agents there including possibly smallpox. It was heavily contaminated with anthrax spores and was used as a burial site for anthrax containers. Anthrax in soil remains viable for decades so the U.S. has helped Russia with Cooperative Threat Reduction funds and expertise to clean it up. Click here for map Any remaining anthrax in the soil at Voz Island would not really be of any use. The spores that were buried in containers were mixed with bleach and have been further decontaminated. Any contaminated soil would probably be too difficult for a terrorist to “process” for a weapon. Mainly it would be a public health threat if disturbed and allowed to disperse in the air.
The anthrax plant you mentioned was undoubtedly at Sverdlovsk, where a major accident occurred in 1979 which killed about a hundred people in the nearby town. The Russian government blamed it on contaminated meat but later the details of the accidental release of weaponized anthrax came out. If that’s not the weapons plant the documentary covered, possibly they were talking about Stepnogorsk in Kazakhstan where there were significant BW facilities, although I don’t know whether any of those facilities have been opened to film makers…I think it was more likely Sverdlovsk because of the accident.
Thanks for the link, there doesnt seem to be enough information in the article for me to know if that was the subject of the film or not. All I can recall is that it was for Anthrax and it looked like a typical Cold War era soviet structure… squaty, dirty and leaky. The state of the USSR’s military infrastructure always concerned me after the Cold War… nothing like an image of a Russian submarine still in the navy base half sunken from neglect to give me the heeby-geebies.
I remeber in the same film they were walking through the facility and the guide opened up an old 60’s era refrigerator that had all kinds of bio-weapons sapmly in it in jars… really disturbing. Thanks for the information, not every day you get feedback from a chem-bio expert