Russia broke germ weapons ban

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian Foreign and Defence Ministry officials admitted yesterday that the Soviet Union and later Russia had been violating a 1972 treaty banning germ warfare until at least last March.

Russian officials had denied accusations by the United States and Britain that Moscow had failed to shut down the former Soviet Union's bacteriological weapons programme. But yesterday, the Deputy Foreign Minister, Grigory Berdennikov, admitted that 'activities banned by the (1972) convention were in progress from 1946 until March 1992. They were discontinued by the decree of the Russian president'.