Russia chemical weapons

The earliest information on Russia s novichok chemical weapons program which was codenamed "Foliant," carne just prior to Moscow s signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) from two Russian chemists. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Russia produced several new agents that were reportedly made from chemicals not controlled by the CWC. 

The usual method for disposing of pesticides in the USSR was walling them into spent quarries and mine shafts. For example, more than 3000 tons of pesticides were walled into unfitted vertical boreholes in the Krasnodar Krai. The complete destruction of pesticides has become a large environmental problem, comparable in scale to the problem of destroying chemical weapons stocks. About 40,000 tons of unused pesticides (banned or too old to be used) had accumulated in the countries of the former Soviet Union, about half of which are located in Russia. 

Pakistan, India and China were among several states that adamantly disclaimed a chemical weapons capability before joining the CWC, but India and China have now opened their chemical weapons programmes to the scrutiny of inspectors following the CWC s activation. The CWC differentiated between two different types of offensive capabilities poison gas arsenals and production facilities. India and South Korea declared both chemical weapons plants and stockpiles. Two other countries also made the same declarations, the United States and Russia, which were known chemical weapons possessors before the CWC entered into... 

Amy E. Smithson and Maureen Lenihan, The Destruction of Weapons Under the Chemical Weapons Convention , Science and Global Security, 6 (1996), p. 93 Jonathan B. Tucker, Russia s Plan for Chemical Weapons Destruction, Arms Control Today (July-August 2001). 

In the chemical sector, the most prominent example of demand for chemical weapons knowledge is Syria, where General Anatoly Kuntsevich, head of Russia s chemical weapons program, built a chemical weapons infrastructure. ... 

Diversions from state-approved activities may provide significant opportunities for proliferation that equal or exceed the danger posed by illicit acquisition from the FSU. Extensive government-sponsored cooperation between FSU states, especially Russia, and regional states such as Iran, India, Libya, and Syria provides channels for officially approved and illicit transfer of critical weapons knowledge. Furthermore, secondary proliferation from China, Pakistan, and North Korea is another significant channel for the transfer of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons expertise. 

Averre, Derek, and Igor Khripunov, Chemical Weapons Disposal Russia Tries Again, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 57, No. 5, September/October 2001, pp. 57-63. 

The majority of inspections conducted so far by the OPCW inspectorate have been associated with verifying the destruction of chemical weapons. There are two major reasons for this situation. The first is that the United States and Russia never concluded the bilateral destruction agreement that had been envisaged during negotiations on the CWC, which would have seen the bulk of the verification of destruction of the US and Russian CW stockpiles being conducted by bilateral inspection teams, with OPCW inspectors providing only complementary verifica-... 

Statement by the Russian Federation at the First Session of the Conference to Review the Functioning of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The 1 per cent destruction represents the target for the first intermediate destruction deadline, which, according to Part IV(A) of the CWC s Verification Annex, should have been met three years after entry into force. Russia was granted an extension to this deadline by the Executive Council in 2000. 

Russia inherited the world s largest declared stockpile of chemical weapons, over 40,000 metric tons, from the Soviet Union. The Russian government has identified chemical weapons destruction as one of its two priority areas of concern for the G-8 Global Partnership accord against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Although issues of economics have often dominated what has been said and written about the disposal programme, lack of local community support is also cited as a major political obstacle. Many of the same concerns detailed extensively by US citizens are also asserted by Russian citizens. Foremost is concern about the detrimental effects of chemical weapons destruction on public health and the environment . ... 

On a more cautionary note, opposition from citizens groups could embolden those who seek to limit the effectiveness of the CWC or other international agreements. If there is strong, vocal and well-established opposition at home that is already blaming the CWC, such sentiment could be co-opted as a tool to erode its effectiveness. One can imagine homeland opposition incorporated as part of the litany of motives for decreasing funding for cooperative threat reduction to aid Russia s chemical weapons destruction efforts. 

V. S. Polozov, Approach to the CWD Problem of the Deputy of Area Assembly (of the Deputies) , The Third Pubhc Hearings on Chemical Weapons Destruction, Kurgan region (1997) Anatoly A. Fominykh, Implementation of Russia s Obligations to Destroy Chemical Weapons in Udmurtia Repubhc , in Kolodkin and Ruck, eds. Ecological Risks Associated with the Destruction of Chemical Weapons. 

Seth Brugger, Russia Approves New Chemical Weapons Destruction Plan , Arms Control Today 31 7 (2001), pp. 15-16. 

Vadim Petrov, Safety in the Destruction of Chemical Weapons in Russia , Common Sense (July 1998), p. 9. 

Tucker, Russia s New Plan for Chemical Weapons Destruction , p. 46. 

Petrov, Safety in the Destruction of Chemical Weapons in Russia . 

Paul F. Walker, The Demilitarization of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Russia The Case of Chemical Weapons - From Architecture to Implementation , Green Cross Discussion Paper, presented at the Forum for Destruction of Chemical Weapons, Geneva, Switzerland, 26-27 June 2003 ([Pg.149]

NATO countries has all but vanished. The United States, and to a limited extent Russia, have begun destroying their chemical weapons stockpiles. As for biological weapons, no conclusive evidence is available to indicate that these are currently possessed by Russia. The United States long ago (1969) renounced offensive biological... 

At the end of WWII, many Allied nations seized the chemical weapons. Most of the CW manufacturing plants in Germany were taken over and moved to Russia to new sites, e.g. the military area of Shikhany. This takeover prompted other states to begin even more research on CWs. Despite the Allies own research into CWs, very important technologies and know how were obtained from Nazi Germany for both the USA and the former Soviet Union. 

Smithson, A.E., Mirzayanov, V.S., Krepon, M. (1995). Chemical weapons disarmament in Russia problems and prospects, 75 pp. The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC. 

DOD has identified Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, North Korea, and Russia as countries of concern with respect to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capability. See Office of the Secretary of Defense. 2001. Proliferation Threat and Response, 3rd ed., Washington, D.C., January. Available online at . 

Chemical weapons accounted for a relatively small number of these casualties. On the western front, where gas was most heavily used, it killed or injured about 650,000 people. Gas weapons claimed most of their casualties in the last year of the war, when mustard was introduced. The numbers of casualties from the German use of gas in Poland and Russia are unknown. 

Mirzayanov, V. S., Dismantling the Soviet/Russian Chemical Weapons Complex an Insider s View, in Chemical Weapons Disarmament in Russia Problems and Prospects Report No. 17, Smithson, A. E., Ed., The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington D.C., 1995, 21. 

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