Russian President Vladimir Putin has handed top state awards to the widows of five scientists killed in an accident while testing what he called an advanced weapons system without equal in the world. The five men died on Aug. 8 in what their employer, state nuclear agency Rosatom, said was an accident during a rocket test on a sea platform off northern Russia, an incident which caused radiation levels in the surrounding area to briefly spike. Thomas DiNanno, a senior U.S. State Department official, said last month that Washington had determined that the explosion was the result of a nuclear reaction which occurred during the recovery of a Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile after a failed test.
