MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia earmarked RUB107.9m (USD3.45m) for the storage and destruction of chemical weapons in 2003, a source in the Russian State Chemical Disarmament Commission told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"The safety of the storage of chemical weapons in special arsenals and their destruction are a top priority, and therefore the funding of this expense item is increasing based on the principle of guaranteed sufficiency," the source said.
An estimated RUB107.9m (USD3.45m) will be allocated for the safe storage and destruction of chemical weapons from the Russian state budget in 2003, the source said. In 2002, RUB103.1m (USD3.3m) was spent on this goal.
"Conditions of storage and measures of registration and control over the state of war gases in storehouses are regulated by appropriate documents which are followed inviolately," the source said.
"Special attention is paid to assets whose service life is about to expire. They are checked thoroughly and destroyed, if necessary," he noted.
"In particular, over 200 ammunition pieces in emergency condition with a total weight of over 4,000t have been destroyed to increase safety of storage of poisonous gases. Special mobile systems were involved in the destruction of sub-standard chemical munitions," the source went on.
The work was carried out at the storehouses in the village of Kizner in Russia's internal republic of Udmurtia, in the town of Shchuchye in the Kurgan region, and in the village of Maradykovsky in the Kirov region.
"During the destruction of chemical weapons of Category Two, disassembly of chemical munitions and extraction of phosgene was performed at the facility in Shchuchye and the processing of a total of 10t of chemical substances at the Perm-based affiliate of the Prikladnaya Khimia (Applied Chemistry) research center," the source said.
The state budget for 2003 allocates about RUB60m (USD1.92m) for the state environmental monitoring. Last year's allocations for this purpose amounted to about RUB42m (USD1.34m).
The United States spent USD16m on maintaining safety of chemical weapons storage at the Kizner and Shchuchye facilities in 2002. The European Union spent about EUR400,000 on deactivating structural constructions of former chemical weapons production facilities at the Kaprolaktam enterprise in the town of Dzerzhinsk.