RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia is destroying its last supplies of chemical weapons.
By SOPHIE WILLAIMS
The move has been hailed as an historic event and comes some three years ahead of schedule.
Following the announcement, President Putin slammed the US on Russian TV complaining that America had not fulfilled its own obligations to destroy their chemical weapons.
He said: “Unfortunately the US is not observing the deadline for disposing of its chemical weapons. They have pushed the date back three times, citing a lack of funding. This, frankly, sounds strange.”
President Putin called on other nations to follow suit.
Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 and launched the program to dispose of its chemical weapons in 1996. At the time the agreement was signed, Russia had 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons agents.
Both Russia and the US had agreed to destroy their weapons by 2012 but neither country met the deadline.
Russia then moved the goalpost to 2020.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We are fulfilling our obligation under the Chemical Weapons Convention to fully destroy our chemical weapons arsenal, and we do it ahead of schedule.”
