Russia now says radiation levels higher

MOSCOW — Russian authorities on Tuesday confirmed reports of a spike in radioactivity in the air over the Ural Mountains while representatives for a nuclear fuel processing plant denied that it was the source of contamination.

The Russian Meteorological Service said in a statement Tuesday that it recorded the release of Ruthenium-106 in the southern Urals in late September and classified it as “extremely high contamination.” Russian authorities insisted, however, that the amount of Ruthenium posed no health risks.

France’s nuclear safety agency said earlier this month 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. It said the release of the isotope Ruthenium-106 posed no health or environmental risks to European countries.

Last month, when reports of a trace of Ruthenium over Europe first appeared, Russia’s state-controlled Rosatom corporation denied any leak. Rosatom reaffirmed Tuesday that the Ruthenium emission registered by the state meteorological service hadn’t come from any of its facilities.

Rosatom said it is committed to the highest standards of transparency and is working closely with international organizations to identify the potential source of the emission.