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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia Opens Weapons Destruction Plant |
| 2006-09-09 |
| MARADYKOVSKY, Russia (AP) - Engineers covered in head-to-toe protective gear inserted a neutralizing solution Friday into bombs filled with a nerve agent, officially starting the work of Russia's first plant for destroying the deadly chemicals. The opening of the Maradykovsky plant accelerates Russia's campaign to eliminate the world's largest arsenal of the toxins. The plant, 450 miles northeast of Moscow, holds 6,900 tons of nerve agents stored in aerial bombs and missile warheads - more than 17 percent of Russia's stockpile. The destruction facility, on the site of one of Russia's seven former chemical weapons production plants, will become a focal point of the push to meet an April 2007 target for Russia to destroy 20 percent of its stockpile. To date, Russia has eliminated just 3 percent, as opposed to 39 percent destroyed by the United States, which is home to the second-largest stockpile. Besides the Maradykovsky plant, Russia has two other chemical weapon destruction facilities, both built with generous foreign funding. The Maradykovsky plant is the only one for destroying nerve agents as opposed to blister agents. Construction of another plant that was to have been the biggest - Shchuchye, with chemical weapons stored in millions of artillery shells - has bogged down in disputes between Russia and the United States, the main funder. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 What? capacity filled in Iran? Iraq out of business? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-09-09 02:03 |