Assistance to Russia with chemical weapon destruction
Chemical Weapons Destruction – empty sarin munitions being taken away as scrap, Shchuch’ye, Russia, May 2009
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), Russia is obliged to destroy its declared stockpile of some 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons no later than April 2012. Because of the scale and anticipated cost of constructing several facilities for destroying this stockpile, assistance with chemical weapons destruction has been a key Global Partnership priority since 2002.
The focus of the UK programme of assistance, managed by the Ministry of Defence, has been our contribution to the construction, at Shchuch’ye in the Urals, of a chemical weapon destruction facility for nerve agent munitions and its essential supporting industrial infrastructure. The UK chose to focus on Shchuch’ye because of the security and non-proliferation benefits accruing from destruction of the nearly two million artillery shells and missile warheads filled with lethal nerve agent located nearby at one of Russia’s seven chemical weapons storage sites.
The US has been the main donor at Shchuch’ye. A distinguishing feature of the UK’s contribution has been our willingness to manage assistance projects on behalf of other donors. This has enabled donors not in a position to run their own programmes to contribute to the UK programme. In total, over £90 million has been spent through the UK programme of which the UK has contributed £24 million and Canada around £50 million; the remainder has come from eleven other donors: Belgium, the Czech Republic, the European Union, Finland, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (a US non-governmental organisation), Norway and Sweden.
Almost all the projects implemented by the UK were successfully completed before the end of 2008, and made an essential contribution to the start of destruction operations at the Shchuch’ye facility on 5 March 2009. Most importantly, the UK procured all the key equipment for the first of two destruction process buildings, which had destroyed over 850,000 munitions containing approximately 1900 tonnes of Sarin by April 2011.
Projects managed by the UK have comprised both civil engineering projects outside the facility, and procurement of equipment for the destruction process. The final project was completed in January 2011. The UK has implemented the following main projects, with funding from the UK and other donors:
| Projects |
Donors |
|
Provision of water supply for the facility.
|
UK |
|
Procurement and installation of electricity supply equipment and related construction works.
|
UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, the European Union, Finland, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden |
| Construction of the 18km railway which carries munitions from the storage facility direct to the destruction facility. |
Canada |
| Construction and installation of a communications system linking the destruction facility and storage facility: provision of public warning system for local community in case of emergencies. |
Canada |
| Procurement of all major destruction process equipment for the first operational destruction building, including destruction process equipment which drains chemical agent from munitions and the metal parts furnace in which empty munitions are decontaminated. |
Canada, UK, France, the Netherlands and Ireland |
Shchcuch'ye: Canadian funded railway river bridge and flood defences
The UK is continuing to provide technical support to Canada, for the procurement of major destruction process equipment for the destruction facility at Kizner. This further cooperation with Canada makes good use of shared experience since the equipment is virtually identical to items procured though the UK programme at Shchuch’ye.
In addition to assistance with implementing construction and procurement projects, the UK has provided financial support to Green Cross Russia, a non-governmental organisation which has played a key role in helping local communities to understand the risks and benefits of the Russian programme to destroy chemical weapons. Through a network of local offices in Russia, the Green Cross helps to raise public and political awareness of chemical weapon destruction programmes.UK funding for Green Cross ended in 2010.
The UK also contributes both funding and management effort to the organisation and running of an annual international Chemical Weapons Demilitarisation Conference. The most recent Conference took place in Interlaken, Switzerland from 23 to 26 May 2011.
You can find more detail in the Global Threat Reduction Programme: annual progress reports in the Reports and Publications section.