THE HAGUE, March 18. /TASS/. About 86%, or 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons produced mainly in the 1940s have been eliminated in Russia, Ahmet Uzumcu, the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told TASS on Wednesday.

"For the past 18 years those stockpiles of weapons have been destroyed under the verification of OPCW experts and considerable progress has been achieved," Uzumcu said.

"Forunately, none of them [chemical weapons] was ever used," Uzumcu said.

"We expect that out of five facilities which are now operational four of them will complete their destruction by the end of this year and only one facility will continue for the next four years," he added.

Uzumcu said it would be "a much welcomed developement for the OPCW and its member states."

Russia earlier planned to destroy all stockpiles of chemical weapons by April 2012 but the process was delayed till 2020.