MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry has branded as farfetched reports by an American media outlet claiming the Russian military were responsible for removing 380 tonnes of high-explosives from Iraq just before the U.S.-led military operation in that country began.
"Such reports cannot be called anything other than farfetched and ridiculous," Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Vyacheslav Sedov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structural divisions could not have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because Russian servicemen were not in Iraq long before the beginning of the American-British operation in that country," Sedov said.
The Washington Times reported on Thursday, citing John Shaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, that Russian troops working with Iraqi intelligence "almost certainly" removed several hundreds of tonnes of explosives from a military facility in Iraq.
The newspaper claimed this happened several weeks before the U.S. launched its military operation in Iraq in March 2003.