The August 8 nuclear incident that killed five Russian scientists was related to weapons development in response to the US withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.

“The nuclear accident that occurred had nothing to do with nuclear testing and is not under the purview of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty [adopted by the UN in 1996],” Aleksey Karpov, Russia’s deputy permanent envoy to international organizations in Vienna, said on Monday.

Karpov said the testing related to “retaliatory measures in connection with the US unilateral withdrawal” from the landmark 1972 arms control treaty to limit anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM treaty), which the US withdrew from in 2002.

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According to Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, the accident happened on board a sea platform in the Arkhangelsk region, while the scientists were working on an “isotope power source” for a “liquid-propellant engine.”

According to the Russian emergencies ministry, the radiation levels in the area are at a “natural, normal level” and there were “no accounts of ecological disaster, like some media are trying to portray.”

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