Russian and US officials formally opened yesterday a massive plant in Siberia that is to destroy about 2 million chemical weapons shells, hailing the move as a milestone in global security and in cooperation between Moscow and Washington.
The village-sized plant in Shchuchye, about 1,600km east of Moscow, was largely funded by the US under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) initiative that started a year after the Soviet Union’s collapse. The US contribution exceeds US$1 billion.
“The path to peace and prosperity for both Russia and the United States depends on how we resolve the threats posed by the arsenals built to fight World War III. Thankfully that confrontation never came. But today we must ensure that the weapons are never used, and never fall into the hands of those who would do harm to us or others,” US Republican Senator Dick Lugar said at the opening ceremonies.
He is a coauthor with former US senator Sam Nunn of the legislation that led to the CTR.
“The United States and Russia have too much at stake and too many common interests to allow our relationship to drift toward conflict. Both of our nations have been the victim of terrorism that has deeply influenced our sense of security,” he said.
The weapons at Shchuchye, loaded with nerve gases, including VX and sarin, have a cataclysmic potential for terrorist attacks. If set off in a tightly packed area, each could kill tens of thousands of people. Many of them are small enough to fit in a briefcase.
Russia, as a signatory of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, is obliged to eliminate its vast stores of Class I weapons — chemicals that have no use other than in arms. Moscow already has destroyed about 30 percent of its stockpile, the Russian Munitions Agency said.
“In this context, Shchuchye is the most important facility allowing us to fulfill this task,” Russian Minister of Industry Viktor Khristnko said.
But the facility significantly boosts destruction capacity. Russian officials claim it will allow the country to meet its treaty obligations of destroying all chemical weapons by 2012, although Lugar said that goal probably won’t be met.
Nonetheless, the opening — which follows preliminary destruction work that began in March — is significant because of the dangers posed by the weapons. Lugar said some of the shells at Shchuchye could kill 80,000 people if deployed in a stadium.
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