be a difficult and expensive problem, which will take
additional years to fully address (NTI 2011, Russia/
Chemical). Further, the management of cleanups
overseen by Russian authorities has raised some con-
troversy. Environmental and human rights activists
have raised concerns that Russia’s chemical disarma-
ment program funds were being mismanaged, cutting
safety measures and thus endangering lives (Yabloko
Party, citing AP 2004).
Clean up of nuclear contamination has continued
in the Medvedev-Putin years, at least partially subsi-
dized by other nations. In 2009, Japan committed $40
million for Russia to dismantle their decommissioned
nuclear submarines in the Far East, and the United
States and Canada helped finance the dismantling
and disposal of a nuclear submarine decommissioned
the previous year. In 2010, Russia shut down its last
plutonium-producing reactor, and it completed de-
commissioning and return of the first industrial-scale
nuclear facility to green-field status, which means
it can be used for industrial or social purposes (NTI
2011, Russia/Nuclear Chronology, 5/5/09, 8/114/09,
4/15/10, and 6/30/10). Though clean up of existing
materials from the Soviet era has not been complet-
ed, Russia agreed to accept nuclear waste from other
states. Russian state officials denied a report that de-
pleted uranium from French power plants was stored
in an open-air site in Siberia in October 2009. In Febru-
ary 2010, there was a report of a contract with a French
nuclear energy group to store French uranium waste
at a waste facility on the Baltic Sea. This kind of waste
can, according to international standards, be trans-
formed into fuel for nuclear power stations (NTI 2011,
Russia/Nuclear Chronology 10/13/09 and 2/1/10).
Efforts to secure weapons facilities, increase safety
within the plants, and safely destroy the weapons
sharon
(sharon)
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