Russian villagers say many sat abandoned near forest for months; Military disputes claim

Russians say many tanks sat derelict for months

MOSCOW — Residents of a Russian village say scores of modern battle tanks sat abandoned for months on the edge of a snowy forest, but the Russian military insists they were just in transit to a new base and had been guarded the whole time.

Amateur video footage posted on Russian Web sites over the weekend showed curious civilians clambering unhindered over the tanks and caught national attention.

The Kremlin has announced major military cutbacks and some officials say the army doesn’t need half of its 20,000 tanks. Observers wondered if this meant the tanks had simply been left to rust next to a railroad station in the obscure Urals village of Kamishlovsk.

But Lt. Gen. Dmitry Burdakov, a spokesman for Russia’s Volga Military District, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the tanks had arrived by rail in January and were awaiting pickup by trucks for delivery to a military base, which he said would be completed by mid-March.

He said the tanks were not dangerous because they contained no ammunition.

Burdakov also disputed contentions by locals who claimed in the videos that they had unhindered access to the tanks, which they said had been present since November. He also declined to say how many tanks there were. The videos said there were between 70 to 200 tanks.

One Web site, life.ru, also showed footage of fenced-off tanks being guarded by military officers. The site said officers arrived to protect the vehicles after the initial media reports surfaced.