All news

Russia identifies Ukrainian websites that spread fakes on NPP accident near St. Petersburg

The hoax that came on the eve of the voting on amendments to Russia’s Constitution was meant to sow panic, according to the senior prosecution official
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office Mikhail Pochuyev/TASS
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office
© Mikhail Pochuyev/TASS

MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Russian prosecutors identified the Ukrainian websites that spread fake news on an accident at the nuclear power plant near St. Petersburg, Deputy Head of the Department for Supervision over Compliance with Legislation on Federal Security, Inter-Ethnic Relations and Combating Extremism and Terrorism of the Prosecutor General’s Office Alexei Zhafyarov said on Monday.

"On the eve of the vote [on amendments to Russia’s Constitution], we identified the Ukrainian Internet resources that actively spread false information on an accident at the nuclear power plant near St. Petersburg, which pursued the goal of creating panic sentiments," he said in the upper house of Russia’s parliament.

The identified website demonstrated photos and video materials from other places, Zhafyarov said. "This was clearly fabricated information," he stressed.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 3 that the Russian radiation monitoring system had registered no emergencies. He thus commented on reports of increased radiation levels over Northern Europe. He redirected the question of whether heightened radiation level was registered at all to specialists.

On June 26, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization announced that on June 22-23 its international monitoring system detected exceedance of cesium-134, cesium-137 and ruthenium-103 isotopes over the northeastern part of Europe. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) underscored that the observed concentration of radioactive particles in the air was very low and posed no danger for human health and the environment.

On June 25, the IAEA announced that the elevated radiation level might be connected to works at a nuclear reactor but the source’s geographic location was still undetermined.