What became of Chernov's arsenal?

NURZHAN — Since 1993 a story has gone round Nurzhan that the heavy equipment the Soviet army left in the depots outside the city, and that Vasily Chernov's forces held until the surrender of 1992, was flown down the air corridor to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and that the rows of tanks seen from the air were decoys. Russian television has repeated it, and so did Chernov in his memoir of 2001.

The tanks were not decoys. When the United States handed the depots to the emergency administration in July 2007, the T-72s, armoured vehicles, guns and helicopters were there, and the State Defense Corps is now overhauling them. The Herald has compared the handover lists with the Soviet inventory of 1992. The heavy equipment matches, within a few vehicles.

The small arms ammunition does not. A US depot inventory of 2005, seen by the Herald, lists far less small-arms and machine-gun ammunition than the 1992 lists: by our count, about a third of the 1992 total is not accounted for. The inventory gives no explanation.

A US official, asked about the difference, said that unstable munitions had been routinely destroyed during the territorial period and that the records "would reflect normal disposal". He did not say where those records were. Veterans of the Labor Party in Nurzhan said the figures proved them right. "The tanks were too big to hide," one said. "The bullets were not."