Gary Crocker: Did Stepnogorsk have a weaponization side, or do we think of this only as a research... sort of... I mean obviously with the fermentation tanks you were producing things, but did it have a weaponization aspect to it?
Gennadiy N. Lepeshkin: That was... specific elements were being developed, technological ones, but it never functioned according to its intended purpose.
Crocker: Mm. So they... you didn't have like fuses and warheads, or anything like that here? I mean I'm not aware that they did there, but uh...
Slava Paperno (interpreting): So there were no warheads or anything like that?
Lepeshkin: No.
Crocker: No. No.
Lepeshkin: Essentially, the construction was never even completed. The funding was cut in the early 90s. That is, it... there were plans for additional construction, but they weren't carried out, we ran out of time.
Crocker: Hm. 1990 the funding stops; that's very close after the first defector in '89, our approach to Moscow. So, I guess I didn't know that it stopped that fast. That the funding stopped that quick.
Paperno: When specifically did the funding dry up? What year was it?
Lepeshkin: In '91...
In 1991. When the Soviet Union collapsed, funding more or less ended.
Crocker: Ah, aha. Hmm.