Russia to destroy all its chemical weapons

Moscow — A top Russian official says Russia will destroy all of its chemical weapons by the end of 2017, a year earlier than previously announced.

Colonel-General Valery Kapashin, a military official in charge of storage and elimination of Russia’s chemical stockpiles, told news agencies yesterday that the remaining weapons will have been disposed of by December 2017.

As a signatory of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, Russia already has destroyed about 93% of its chemical weapons, according to Russian officials.

Russia had to build several plants in the past two decades to dispose of the world’s largest chemical weapons arsenal.— AP.