An Egyptian official has described as “utterly baseless” allegations in leaked Pentagon documents that Cairo planned to secretly produce and supply Russia with 40,000 missiles.

The denial, by an unnamed source, has been carried by several pro-government news channels.

The documents were obtained by the Washington Post from a leaked trove of US defence department papers.

As part of the denial, the official was quoted as saying Cairo did not take sides in the Ukraine war.

The Kremlin described the allegations as “just another canard”.

Source: BBC