Russian Lawmakers to Discuss Disposal Progress Today

The board of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, is scheduled today to discuss the progress made in disposing of Russia’s vast stockpile of chemical weapons and on implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, according to ITAR-Tass (see GSN, March 17; Lyudmila Yermakova, ITAR-Tass, April 6).

Meanwhile, Russian officials are criticizing delays in international funding to aid Russia’s chemical weapons disposal efforts, according to Izvestia. 

While countries promised to provide Russia with $1.3 billion in chemical weapons disposal aid between 1992 and 2003, the actual sum provided was $268 million, Munitions Agency Director Viktor Kholstov said. 

Sources in the Munitions Agency said that while Russia lacked adequate funding of its own to destroy its chemical weapons when it ratified the convention in 1997, it now can provide about $200 million annually for such efforts.

“We will accomplish the task with the Western assistance or without it,” said Munitions Agency Deputy Director General Vyacheslav Kulebyakin. “With it, however, we will accomplish it much faster,” Kulebyakin added (Dmitry Litovkin, Izvestia/What the Papers Say, April 6).

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