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MOSCOW: A Russian intelligence agency on Tuesday claimed that the UK and France are covertly planning to transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) made this claim in a report it issued on Tuesday as Moscow’s military operation in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine entered its fifth year.Without providing any evidence to support its claims, the agency said: “The British and French realise that their designs imply a gross violation of the international law, first of all the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and carry the risk of destroying the global non-proliferation system.” “The Westerners’ main efforts are focused on making Kyiv’s possession of a nuclear weapon look like it was developed by Ukrainians themselves,” the report added.Reacting to the report, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov underlined that non-nuclear Ukraine is one of the conditions of the settlement of the crisis as Moscow strives for a negotiated end to fighting. “Undoubtedly, this information about Paris and London’s intention to arm Kyiv with a nuclear bomb is extremely important… We will certainly take this information into account during the ongoing negotiations. ..,” he said. The next round of peace talks with US mediation is expected in Geneva on Feb 27, according to local reports.The SVR did not include documentary evidence to back up its assertion, which the French embassy in Moscow told the RBC news outlet was “an outright lie.” There was no immediate comment from Britain. Ukraine too dismissed the report as “absurd”. “Russian officials, known for their impressive record of lies, are once again trying to fabricate the old “dirty bomb” nonsense,” Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said. “For the record: Ukraine has already denied such absurd Russian claims many times before, and we officially deny them again now. We urge the international community to reject and condemn Russia’s dirty information bombs.”
