Russia will not be able to meet the 2012 deadline for completely destroying its Soviet-era chemical weapons arsenal, due to financial and technical problems, dpa quoted the Interfax news agency reporting Tuesday. The country will need at least two to three years longer, partly because of missing international aid, the Russian foreign ministry was quoted as saying. Russia has so far destroyed some 19,500 tons of poisonous substances or about half of the chemical weapons that it inherited from the Soviet Union - the largest arsenal in the world. Russia has reportedly informed the other signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention of the delay. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had already warned in early 2009 that saving measures in Russia could lead to a significant delay.
