Russian security services confirmed on Monday media reports that a capsule believed to contain the extremely toxic nerve agent sarin had been discovered in the country’s western Bryansk region.
Media reports published over the weekend quoted sources in local ecological organizations saying a group of Bryansk residents had brought a capsule with the inscription “Sarin” on it to a local scrap metal recycling shop on April 7. The capsule was reportedly placed in a sealed box.
“The item has been seized by police, the situation is under control,” a Bryansk regional security services spokesman said.
Tests are under way to establish whether the capsule in fact contains the toxic chemical, he said.
He refused to speculate where the capsule could originate from. The Bryansk region hosts a chemical weapons destruction facility near the town of Pochepa, where aviation chemical bombs filled with organophosphorus toxins, including sarin, have been stored.
A colorless, odorless liquid which is 500 times more poisonous than cyanide, Sarin has been outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. The countries known to have possessed Sarin stockpiles include Russia, the United States, Iraq and Libya.
In 1995, members of Japan’s cult Aum Shinrikyo launched five coordinated sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway, in which at least 10 people were killed and thousands injured. The attacks were the most serious to hit Japan since the end of World War II. Aum Shinrikyo is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States and Canada.
