Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced the arrest of a Russian citizen by Georgia last year for trying to sell enriched uranium as “a provocation,” Russian news agencies reported.
“Based on the facts available to me, I can say that this is a provocation,” Lavrov said while speaking with reporters in Russia’s eastern city of Vladivostok on January 26.
“We would prefer problems of this kind to be tackled by experts… It happened a year ago. A Russian citizen was arrested, as far as I understand, with the participation of the U.S. special services,” Lavrov said.
He dismissed Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili’s allegations that Moscow was not cooperative in investigating the case, which involved an attempt to smuggle 100 grams of weapons-grade uranium from Russia into Georgia via breakaway South Ossetia.
Russian citizen Oleg Khintsagov and three of his Georgian accomplices were arrested by the Georgian police in Tbilisi last January and are now serving their prison terms in Georgia.
“Our experts from the FSB [Federal Security Service] and Rosatom [Russia’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy] visited Tbilisi and met with this citizen [Khintsagov], but he failed to say anything intelligible,” Lavrov said.
He also said that the Russian side failed to receive additional samples of the smuggled material from the Georgian side, which prevented the Russian experts from doing a comprehensive investigation.
Igor Shkabura, deputy director of the Bochvar Inorganic Materials Institute at Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said at a news conference on January 26 that although Georgia sent samples of uranium to Russia, it was such a small amount that it was impossible to identify the origins of the material.
“We even approached the U.S. Department of Energy with a request to help us obtain more samples of the material,” Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said.
“I hope this case is not an attempt to stage a political provocation. If they [the Georgian side] want to clarify the situation, we are more than ready to assist,” Lavrov said.
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