Russia destroys more than 90 percent of its chemical weapons in accordance with UN convention - Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/. Russia has destroyed by now more than 90 percent of its chemical weapons stockpiles accumulated since the Soviet era and intends to fully eliminate the remaining arsenals over the next five years, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Mikhail Ulyanov told TASS. "Russia is steadily approaching the fulfillment of its obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction," he said. "Russia has already destroyed nearly 92 percent of the arsenals that have remained since the Soviet era, when they were just beginning to develop the Convention. We are to completely destroy our chemical arsenals no later than in 2020." Ulyanov noted though that the total elimination could occur earlier. "Tremendous work has been done, especially by Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, which is our national agency overseeing the compliance with the obligation under the Convention," he noted. "We reached the stage where six of seven facilities to destroy chemical weapons built earlier have performed their tasks and are to be redesigned." One of them is the Maradykovsky facility in the town of Mirny [in the Volga Federal District], the diplomat noted. On Friday, October 30, a solemn ceremony on the occasion of completion of its work will take place at the facility with the participation of the Director-General of the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the ambassadors of several countries to the organization in the Hague who will come to Russia too. Read more