Russia to destroy all of its chemical weapons by end of 2017

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

Col.-Gen. Valery Kapashin, a military official in charge of storage and elimination of Russia's chemical stockpiles, told news agencies on Thursday 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 percent 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.