SARATOV, Russia. Oct 25 (Interfax) - Part of a launch unit for an intercontinental ballistic missile has been stopped by Russian customs from being smuggled out of Russia, a customs spokesman said on Thursday.
The 15-tonne unit, found in the hold of a ship by customs inspectors in Saratov, was registered in the customs declaration as scrap metal and was on its way to Turkey, Anatoly Poluboyarov, a spokesman for the Saratov Customs office, told Interfax.
"Military specialists who were invited examined the product and came to the conclusion that it was part of the protective device for a silo for an intercontinental ballistic missile used in the Strategic Missile Forces of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The unit is used purely for military purposes," Poluboyarov said.
He said licenses from the Federal Service for Military Technological Cooperation are needed to export such products. No such license had supplemented the declaration on the silo unit.
Customs officials came to the conclusion that "an organized group of persons" had made a deliberate attempt to smuggle the unit out of Russia.