Russia says foreign spies seeking WMD data: RIA

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's domestic security service said on Friday it had foiled several attempts by foreign spies to obtain technology for weapons of mass destruction, RIA news agency reported.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said Western and Asian spy services had tried to obtain information about nuclear enterprises in Siberia and from scientists working on secret high technology projects.

One Chinese citizen had been expelled and several other foreigners were refused further entry into Russia for seeking information on weapons of mass destruction, the FSB head in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia said, RIA reported.

"They were interested in the developments made by the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences," Sergei Savchenkov, the local FSB chief, was quoted as saying by RIA.

Russian security services have frequently claimed to uncover foreign spying and planned attacks by rebels, but rarely give details on attempts to steal secret data on weapons of mass destruction.

"We discovered that foreign intelligence agencies from the West and Asia were interested in nuclear energy, biological information and cutting-edge scientific developments in the field of nanotechnology," he was quoted as saying by RIA.

Russia, which has the second biggest store of nuclear weapons in the world after the United States, says its weapons arsenals are carefully guarded.

When contacted by Reuters, staff at the Novosibirsk office of the FSB were unable to confirm the RIA report.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Janet Lawrence)