In this Saturday, Oct. 26, 2002 file photo, a special forces officer carries a woman out of the Dubrovka Theater where hundreds of hostages were held in Moscow, Russia. Russian special forces turned to carfentanil to end a standoff with Chechen separatists using an aerosol version of the opioid, along with the less potent remifentanil, sending it through air vents, according to a paper by British scientists who tested clothing and urine samples from three survivors. The strategy worked, but more than 120 hostages died from the effects of the chemicals. AP FILE PHOTO
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./rga
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