The Defense Ministry said Monday that production of chemical weapons had not completely stopped, responding to criticism from scientists and the environmental group Greenpeace.


Asked whether Russia was still testing and storing chemical weapons, a Defense Ministry spokesman said: "It depends where and what exactly you are referring to. The question is too general. We cannot say that all chemical-weapons production and testing has stopped altogether."


Former chemicals factory worker Lev Fyodorov had earlier told a Greenpeace news conference that Russia was destroying chemical weapons at the Shikhany plant in southern Russia without taking proper precautions to protect the environment.


He called on parliament to ratify international agreements on the nonproliferation of chemical weapons and put an end to such activities at the secret plant.