Rashid Alimov, a senior nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace in Russia speaks to the Media in his office in St.Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017. (Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press)MOSCOW — Russian authorities on Tuesday confirmed reports of a spike in radioactivity in the air over the Ural Mountains while the suspected culprit, a nuclear fuel processing plant, denied it was the source of contamination. France’s nuclear safety agency earlier this month said that it recorded radioactivity in the area between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains from a suspected accident involving nuclear fuel or the production of radioactive material. Rosatom reaffirmed Tuesday that the Ruthenium emission registered by the state meteorological service hadn’t come from any of its facilities. The Russian meteorological office’s report, however, noted high levels of radiation in residential areas adjacent to Rosatom’s Mayak plant for spent nuclear fuel.

Source: Washington Post November 21, 2017 08:32 UTC