Push to guard arms in Russia at risk

MOSCOW -- In 2002, the United States and other leading industrial nations announced ''a global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction" and with it, an unprecedented $20 billion pledge to help Russia prevent its nuclear, chemical, and biological materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Two years later, tons of lethal Russian stockpiles remain as vulnerable as ever, and the global partnership is in danger of collapse, Russian and Western weapons specialists warn.

Only a fraction of the funding pledged by the Group of Eight nations in June 2002 has materialized, the specialists said over the weekend. Much of the money has been held up by legal disputes, bureaucratic hang-ups, Russia's reluctance to allow access to sensitive sites, and public resistance in Russia to cooperation with the United States and the West.

As a result, Russians, many of whom think Western assistance in securing and eliminating weapons of mass destruction is just a pretext for spying, are considering doing without the aid.

''The partnership is on the verge of a breakup," said Vladimir Orlov, a nonproliferation specialist at the Center for Policy Studies in Moscow. ''It is high time for Russia to start thinking about how to get off the habit of dependence on donors."

The trouble is how to pay for the security upgrades that Orlov said are required immediately at some 30 highly vulnerable nuclear sites across Russia. Other facilities containing as much as 600 tons of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium are protected ''by little more than a chain-link fence and a guard," said Laura Holgate of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US group dedicated to securing the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Russia has said it cannot pay for these upgrades alone, despite President Vladimir V. Putin's statement at the G-8 summit in 2002 that terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction are ''the main security threat of the 21st century." The G-8 responded by pledging to contribute $20 billion over 10 years.

But Orlov said that in the first two years only $48 million has been spent in Russia.

''We cannot put off upgrades to physical security," Orlov said a Moscow conference aimed at raising the issue before G-8 leaders meet next month in Sea Island, Ga. ''Terrorists don't think in terms of 10-year programs."

Terrorist networks were seeking out ''facilities with lower levels of security," Orlov said. Two years ago, Chechen rebel fighters were discovered spying on supposedly top-secret nuclear sites.

Moscow and Washington link Chechen separatists to Al Qaeda, and rebel leaders have warned that they might attack a nuclear facility. Two years ago 41 heavily armed Chechens were able to seize a Moscow theater -- a force that could easily overwhelm any of Russia's remote and poorly protected nuclear sites, said Maxim Shingarkin, a former major in the force that guards Russia's strategic arsenal.

Since 1992, Washington has spent more than $7 billion to secure nuclear materials and destroy thousands of missiles in the former USSR. The G-8 partnership was intended to broaden efforts and let leading European nations and Japan accept a share of the burden.

But of the $200 million Japan pledged, it has provided less than $2 million, Orlov said. France, which promised $750 million, has yet to donate any money.

Alain Mathiot of France's Atomic Energy Commission said ''if 2003 was the time of thinking, for us 2004 will be the time of action."

British funding to help build a Siberian chemical weapons destruction facility, which Russia needs to eliminate its 40,000-ton arsenal, cannot begin until disputes that have held back US funding are resolved, said James Harrison of the British Defense Ministry.

A $25 million Canadian project to build an 11-mile railway to carry chemical weapons to the same facility has been on hold for five months over ''a procedural impasse" with Moscow, said Canada's ambassador, Christopher Westdal. Russia's inability to deliver ''extensive information" about project sites is holding up Canada's overall $750 million contribution.

A dispute over whether Russia should protect Washington from liability in the unlikely event of sabotage by a US worker has stalled programs to dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium for four years.

''Bureaucracy -- not a shortage of resources -- is thwarting attempts to reduce the spread of weapons of mass destruction," Holgate said.

Disputes over access to sites have delayed the installment of half of the security upgrades the United States has pledged to implement at Russian nuclear facilities. As a result, multilayer fencing and intrusion detectors intended for dozens of sites have been lying in warehouses since they were delivered to Russia four years ago.

''It's essential, at the outset of a project, for the host nation to be completely open and tell us about the full scope of the project," said Rear Admiral John Byrd, head of the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency. ''Revealing these details has not always been the case."

Moscow has also been reluctant to open its military sites to US visitors unless Washington permits equal access for the Russians, said Colonel General Yevgeny Maslin, who from 1991 to 1997 commanded Russia's strategic arsenal.

The sides are seeking a compromise under which US contractors would designate a trusted Russian firm to represent it at sensitive sites.

But choosing Russian subcontractors can be tricky. A US-funded project to transport SS-18 ''Satan" intercontinental ballistic missiles to a dismantling facility that was to begin yesterday has been delayed ''because the firm that got the contract is simply incapable of doing this kind of work," said Nikolai Shumkov of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency.

The use of Russian subcontractors has not eliminated suspicions that US aid in Russian disarmament is somehow intended to harm, not help.

''There is public opinion, environmental activists, . . . and especially politicians, who play up these concerns, saying, 'They are shipping who-knows-what from America, something that Americans aren't using at home but are giving to us,' " Shumkov said.

Public protests halted US funding for a program to dispose of rocket fuel, he said. Similar concerns have held up the construction of chemical weapons destruction sites.

''Half the people think this is all a plan to spy on Russian sites," Holgate said.

Security concerns have led Russia to ban donor countries from sharing any information they obtain about Russian military sites.

But this has sometimes led to donor countries weakening one another's projects, Holgate said.

In one recent case, Russia wanted the United States to build a fence around a nuclear facility, but could not guard the barrier around the clock. The United States refused, saying an unguarded fence could provide shelter for possible attackers. Another donor country, unaware of the US concerns, built the fence.

''Now, as a result, you might have a reduction in physical security," Holgate said.