The two incidents in 2002 and 2003 involved lone suspects caught while trying to enter sites "in the European part of Russia," General-Colonel Igor Valynkin told journalists in Moscow, without providing further details.

Valynkin said the two had been handed over to the Federal Security Service "and I do not know their further fate."

In sharp contrast to alarming reports from some Western nuclear security experts, Valynkin said that he was "100 percent" satisfied with levels of protection of the arsenal.

However, Valynkin acknowledged that the "human factor" was a problem in some cases.

"If you put a sentry at a site, then of course he is a defender, but also can be a person who himself violates, or aids a violation and possible penetration of the site.

"That is why we, with the United States and with our German partners, are using American and German money to strengthen our defences. ... This allows us to remove the sentinel and guard completely through technical means."

Valynkin named Chechnya, where tens of thousands of Russian troops are fighting the second war against separatists in a decade, as the most likely source of a plot to attack military nuclear sites.

"We have special information from the Federal Security Service about the plans of the terrorists for our sites," he said.

As chief of the 12th main directorate of the ministry of defense - which stores and maintains warheads - Valynkin is one of the top officials responsible for calming Western fears of nuclear materials reaching the black market.

Earlier this month, former US senator Sam Nunn, who heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said that "the gravest danger in the world today is the threat of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction."

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