The space testing center at Plesetsk in northern Russia is to become Russia's main rocket-launching site, replacing the cosmodrome at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, a Defense Ministry official said Monday.


But Russian television reported Monday that authorities had turned off the power to the space center because of a critical electricity shortage, according to Reuters.


Ivan Safronov, a spokesman for the Military Space Forces, said President Boris Yeltsin has signed a decree giving the official status of the main Russian cosmodrome to Plesetsk, in order to maintain Russia's "absolutely independent space policy."


"With Baikonur now belonging to Kazakhstan, Russia, as a great space power, needs to have an official main cosmodrome," he said. "No matter for how long we leased Baikonur launching site from Kazakhstan, it is not ours and we must think about the future."


Arkhangelsk regional governor Pavel Valashin gave the order to cut off electricity supplies to the center because the local power station only had two days' fuel left, Russian television reported.


Plesetsk is situated near the closed city of Mirny in Arkhangelsk region, 800 kilometers north of Moscow.


Russia will lease the Baikonur space launching site for the next 20 years at a cost of $115 million a year.