MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti) - Five Russian companies and the chemistry faculty of Moscow State University hold licenses to deal with substances containing polonium-210, the national nuclear watchdog said Thursday.
After a lethal dose of the radioactive isotope was found in the body of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London two weeks ago, extensive investigations have been under way to detect the origin of the toxic substance; Moscow has flatly denied that the Po-210 used to kill Litvinenko could have come from Russia.
Enterprises at the Federal Nuclear Center in the Volga city of Samara hold three licenses to handle Po-210, a uranium by-product, and two others are owned by Techsnabexport, the state-controlled uranium supplier and provider of uranium enrichment services, as well as one private company, Nuklon.
According to Nuclon's Web site, the company supplies medical preparations and radioactive and stable isotopes, and provides transportation services.
In the course of Scotland Yard-led investigations into Litvinenko's poisoning, radiation has been found at a dozen sites in the UK and on two British Airways aircraft that flew the London-Moscow route. British investigators arrived in Moscow Monday to interview the former FSB agent's contacts.
Konstantin Pulikovsky, the head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of the Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management, said earlier that no nuclear materials storage or transportation violations had been revealed during checks at enterprises that the agency monitors.
"When the subject began to be discussed in the press, we carried out additional checks everywhere. I can say with complete certainty that no deviations from the rules on storage and transportation of nuclear materials, including polonium, have been discovered at any structures of our fuel and nuclear complex," he said.
