Tokyo and Moscow will finalise the agreement on November 21, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.

Japan already spent about 700 million yen (5.9 million dollars) to demolish an obsolete Russian submarine last December.

Japan will likely pay a similar amount for each of the five, whose demolition work is aimed for the end of next year, the paper said.

Some 30 nuclear submarines that have been retired from the country's Pacific Fleet are still moored at ports in the Russian Far East.

Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, concern has been spreading that the country's sinking of old submarines will contaminate the ocean.

Another concern is that nuclear materials on board will be stolen.

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