Eventually, the bombs may be destroyed at a new facility here, but there are no plans for cleaning up the abandoned dump. Residents are uneasy. Russia has promised to liquidate the declared arsenal of 40,000 tons of chemical weapons. It signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 and ratified it in 1996. The treaty, which took effect last year, calls for abolishing the development, production, stockpiling and transfer of chemical weapons and outlaws their use.
Most experts agree that Russia's aging stocks have outlived any military utility.
Under the treaty, Russia and other nations agreed to destroy the weapons over 10 to 15 years. But Russia's government is chronically short of cash, and the military establishment is collapsing for lack of money. But in the last two years, he said, the government delivered only 2 or 3 percent of what was budgeted for the program, which is falling behind schedule. Russia is left alone. People cannot say that just because Russia synthesized this 50 years ago, so they must destroy it themselves.