A Russian oceanographer denied media reports on Tuesday that Mir deep submersibles had plunged deep into the Gulf of Mexico to determine the circumstances of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"This is complete nonsense. We haven't been there. The Mir [mini-subs] have been working at Lake Baikal for three years, where a scientific expedition is under way," Anatoly Sagalevich told RIA Novosti.

In June and July U.S. and Mexican media discussed Sagalevich's alleged secret report to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the April 22 oil spill.

According to media reports, Sagalevich and his colleagues allegedly dived into the Gulf of Mexico immediately after the accident and claimed that the only way to contain the spill was by the use of nuclear weapons.

Russia's Mir-1 and Mir-2 self-propelled deep submersibles are currently involved in the third stage of explorations of the world's deepest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, in Siberia. The expedition will run until September 5.

MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti)