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Moscow: Russian officials denied reports yesterday that highly toxic chemicals had accidentally spilled from a weapons reprocessing facility in central Russia.
Radio Liberty had quoted Tatyana Korolyovaya, an environmental activist in a town close to the Maradykovsky complex, as saying that several aviation bomb casings had ruptured during reprocessing and that toxic liquid had spilled onto the ground.
The Maradykovsky plant, located 725km northeast of Moscow, holds 6,900 tonnes of nerve agents stored in aerial bombs and missile warheads - or more than 17 per cent of Russia's chemical weapons stockpile.
"Information that depressurisation of several weapons and poisonous liquids spilled on the ground is completely disinformation," said Mikhail Manin, the official in the Volga region responsible for weapons-related issues.
In a statement released by the regional government, Manin said he had been in touch with Lt Gen Valery Kapashin, a top chemical weapons destruction official who was at the plant this week, and other officials who said there were no incidents at the plant.
The Interfax news agency reported that Kapashin had travelled to Maradykovsky to discuss the next phase of construction at the plant, but the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Manin as saying Kapashin had observed the extraction of materials from eight weapons.
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