Russian military stalls on reports Ukraine sold warheads to Iran

Russian military stalls on reports Ukraine sold warheads to Iran

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060403/45107320.html

MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - The chief of Russia's General Staff said Monday he could neither confirm nor deny reports that Ukraine had sold 250 nuclear warheads to Iran. "Russia's General Staff has no information about whether Ukraine has given 250 nuclear warheads to Iran or not," General Yury Baluyevsky, also deputy defense minister, said in response to an article in Novaya Gazeta newspaper Monday.

"I do not comment on unsubstantiated reports." The newspaper said that Ukraine had failed to return 250 warheads to Russia in the 1990s when the former Soviet republic declared itself a nuclear-free zone. The paper suggested the warheads could have been sold to a third country, including Iran

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An additional snippet from another source

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/04/03/noukriran.shtml

Former top official of Russia’s Defense Ministry Yevgeny Maslin quoted by Interfax news agency refuted the information regarding “lost” warheads. He called such reports “nonsense caused by the journalists’ hunt for a cheap sensation.” “All the nuclear ammunition that was in the Ukraine before the collapse of the USSR was removed to Russia.”

The ministry directorate led by Maslin was in charge of nuclear ammunition safety during the period when it was passed from Ukraine to Russia. He said he had personally controlled the ammunition removal.