President Vladimir Putin ordered the destruction of the last of Russia’s chemical weapons on Wednesday in a televised broadcast in which he slammed the United States for failing to decommission its chemical stockpile.

Russia’s 39,967 metric ton cache of chemical weapons, inherited from the Soviet Union, was enough to "destroy all life on earth multiple time,” Putin said Wednesday.

“I believe Russia’s efforts in liquidating its chemical weapons will serve as an example for other countries,” the president said on the state-owned channel Rossia-24.