MOSCOW, Oct. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia on Thursday denied a US newspaper report that its forces removed explosives from an Iraqi military base before the US-led invasion in March 2003.

    The denial came in response to a report in The Washington Times on Thursday alleging that Russian troops working with Iraqi intelligence "almost certainly" removed several hundreds of tons of explosives from a military facility in Iraq.

    Such reports were "far-fetched" and "ridiculous," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov was quoted as saying by the Interfax News Agency.

    "I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its divisions could not have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because Russian servicemen were not in Iraq long before the beginning of the American-British operation in that country," Sedov said.

    "I can understand when they try to make an elephant out of a fly, but this time there wasn't even a fly," he said.

    Russia's charge d' affaires in Iraq Ilya Morgunov also denied the report, saying there were no Russian special forces in Iraq at the time.

    The Washington Times story, based on an interview with John Shaw, US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense with responsibility for international technology security, claimed that the action happened several weeks before the United States launched its military operation in Iraq in March 2003.

    However, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was quoted by Interfax Thursday as saying that he had never come across information indicating that Russia helped the former Iraqi regime to transport explosives out of the country.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed recently that 380 tons of powerful explosives had gone missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. Enditem