CNS Branch Office: Washington, D.C.
December 6, 2000
Alexander Pikayev, Moscow Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Co-sponsored by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Jonathan Tucker and Alexander Pikayev (l to r)
Dr. Pikayev's briefing focused on Russian compliance with and implementation of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Although the new Kremlin administration of Vladimir Putin is committed to chemical disarmament, Moscow has had several long-standing problems with implementing the CWC. Most notably, Russia failed to meet the treaty requirement to destroy one percent of its chemical weapons (CW) stockpile by April 29, 2000, the third anniversary of the CWC's entry into force. Russia appealed to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, which oversees CWC implementation, and was granted an extension of the one percent deadline that will probably be met. Even so, it is extremely unlikely that Moscow will comply with the April 2007 deadline for destroying the entire Russian stockpile.
The main obstacles are budgetary and bureaucratic. For the past several years, the Russian economy has been in poor condition, although there was surprisingly rapid growth in tax revenues last year, mainly because of rising oil prices. As a result, the Russian government received an additional $10 billion in revenues over the $30 billion that had been expected. This windfall has enabled Moscow to increase spending on CWC implementation to $100 million, twice the previous year's expenditures. Furthermore, the Russian State Duma did not vote to cut funds for CWC implementation. Although these developments are encouraging, Russia will need to spend a total of $5-6 billion to destroy the entire stockpile by 2007, as required by the CWC. At the current rate of spending, it would take 50 to 60 years to meet that goal.
Until recently, bureaucratic responsibility for the task of CW destruction was divided between two federal agencies, the Fifteenth Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (MOD) and the Presidential Committee on Problems of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. But the Presidential Committee was bureaucratically weak and ineffective, and the MOD was implicated in gross mismanagement of resources for CWC implementation. In 1999, the Presidential Committee was dissolved, and lead responsibility for chemical disarmament was transferred from the MOD to a separate directorate under the Federal Munitions Agency. This agency is led by Zinovy Pak, who is a capable and experienced bureaucrat. As a result, the recent reorganization appears to be a positive development.
Another set of implementation challenges stems from the environmental movement of the late 1980s, when Russian citizens protested the destruction of chemical weapons at Chapayevsk and prevented a CW destruction facility there from opening. These protests also led in the mid-1990s to legislation requiring that chemical weapons be destroyed in situ at each of the seven CW storage facilities in Russia. To obtain the agreement of regional authorities to build CW destruction facilities at each of these sites, however, the federal authorities had to offer attractive social infrastructure projects, such as roads, housing, and utilities. The resulting costs have rendered the entire CW destruction program unaffordable.
In response to these problems, the Federal Munitions Agency is examining the following alternative policies:
Q. What is the current status of the conversion of former CW production facilities into destruction facilities?
Q. How does the Russian government regard the 1979 Sverdlovsk incident, in which anthrax spores were allegedly released from a biological weapons production plant? Q. What is the Russian government's view about the decontamination of Vozrozhdeniye Island, the former open-air biological weapons testing site in the Aral Sea? Have Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan been informed what type of contamination occurred there? Q. Why is Russia performing R&D to increase the pathogenic capacity of microbial disease agents? Q. Does President Putin understand the negative impact on U.S.-Russian relations of Moscow's lack of transparency on BW matters? Q. What do you foresee as the prospects for CW disarmament funding in the future? Do you expect it to increase?
Q. What type of public acceptance exists for reducing the number of CW storage facilities and consolidating the stockpile at fewer sites for destruction?
Q. Can other countries help to fund CW destruction in Russia or is it strictly an internal problem?
Q. Which Russian government agency is responsible for biological weapons issues?
Q. What about environmental and public safety in terms of mobile destruction units?
Prepared by Nikki Lawhorn
1. Consolidate the chemical stockpile and reduce the number of CW destruction facilities. For this option to be feasible, the State Duma must first amend the law requiring that chemical weapons be destroyed in the same location where they are stored.
2. Chemically neutralize bulk CW agents to reduce their toxicity level, so that they can be stored safely until complete destruction occurs.
3. Make greater use of mobile CW destruction facilities designed to operate in emergency situations. This scenario would require modifying the mobile units to reduce the risk of accidents.
Questions and Answers
A. Currently there exists the potential to do so, but it would contradict existing law requiring that CW destruction facilities be built at the seven CW storage sites.
A. There is no official agreement to what occurred, and therefore no official position.
A. Due to budgetary constraints, Russia does not want to set the precedent that it owes compensation to former Soviet republics for environmental damage on their territory dating back to Soviet times. Moscow fears that by providing information about the contamination on Vozrozhdeniye Island, it could be drawn into negotiations with the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan over compensation.
A. The Russian government officially denies such activities. Although Moscow admits that the former Soviet Union engaged in illegitimate R&D on biological weapons, it claims that all current work is peaceful. The Russian government even hesitates to admit that it has a defensive BW program, although there is no question it exists.
A. President Putin is not enthusiastic about transparency because of his background in the KGB. He perceives a need for opaqueness in areas deemed sensitive for national security.
A. Given the Duma's commitment, federal agency interest, and the Kremlin's stance, there are positive grounds to believe that budgetary allocations for CW destruction will increase. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the $10 billion windfall in tax revenues last year will occur again this year. Another problem is that Russian owes $17.5 billion in foreign debt. A move by Western creditors to forgive some of that debt if it is earmarked for CW destruction would be particularly welcome.
A. Transporting chemical weapons will not be easy, as there is bound to be resistance from regional legislatures. Success in pursuing this policy would depend on the strength of the Kremlin and the presidential mandate from the Russian people.
A. Yes. To the extent the United States provides financial support for Russian CW destruction, it will be able to exert great deal of influence.
A. Currently there is no formal authority over biological weapons issues, but the Federal Munitions Agency would like to take control.
A. Mobile destruction units pose a safety concern, but so do leaking chemical weapons in storage. The longer these weapons remain in storage, the greater the environmental and health risks they pose.