MOSCOW. Feb 4 (Interfax-AVN) - Although the number of countries assisting Russia in chemical disarmament increased to 14 over the past few years, the amount of financing they provide is considerably less than what they promised, an expert said.
"We have to look at the realities of the day. For example, existing intergovernmental agreements state that by today, (the donor countries - Interfax-AVN) should have allocated up to USD1.9bn, but, in fact, the amount of financing received since 1992 is a little over USD286m," the Director General of the Russian Munitions Agency, Viktor Kholstov, reported at a State Commission on Chemical Disarmament meeting on Wednesday.
Kholstov said that "the intensity of the financing does not comply with the actual demands of the Russian chemical disarmament program."
The state commission decided to analyze the financial support to Russia for chemical disarmament and develop a system of measures aimed at raising additional off-budget finances for the chemical disarmament program before March 15.