Moscow: Russia today said that there was no loss of any of nuclear and other strategic weapons in the wake of collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union in 90s and that "insinuations" by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates were unfounded.

"This is not for the first time that Americans have claimed that a significant portion of Russian nuclear weapons were lost or stolen in 1990s," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said claiming these accusations were baseless.

The statement said though Russia face a lot of hardships in the beginning of 1990s, the standards of ensuring security and physical protection of Russian arsenals of nuclear weapons remained at quite high level.

No leakage of nuclear weapons was allowed," it said.

It also reminded that in 2005 in their joint Bratislava statement on nuclear safety the presidents of the Russia and United States have stated that the protection of nuclear objects in both the countries was at the appropriate level.

The ministry added that on the backdrop of its own mishaps in protecting its nuclear stockpiles, including flight of US Air Force bomber over the country with live nuclear bombs, Washington has preferred to forget about this joint statement.
Source : PTI