MOSCOW - Russia has destroyed more than half of its stockpiles of chemical weapons and should have the remainder gone by 2015, a senior official said Wednesday.

So far some 21,000 tons of chemical weapons had been destroyed, Vasily Bogomolov, deputy director of the Federal Special Construction Agency, told reporters.

In line with its international obligations, Russia is supposed to destroy 40,000 tons of its chemical weapons by 2015, said Bogomolov who is responsible for construction of facilities for destroying chemical weapons in Russia.

There are at least six chemical weapon destroying facilities in Russia.

According to the international convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons, Russia should destroy all its chemical weapons by April 29, 2012. But it postponed the deadline to 2015 due to a lack of funding.