West rejects Kremlin’s claim that Kiev wants to use a nuclear device to simulate an abnormal detonation of a Russian warhead
A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) travels to Ukraine to analyze Russia’s complaint that the Kiev government is finalizing the manufacture of a ‘dirty bomb’. The agency has accepted an offer from the Zelensky Executive to “rule out on the spot” Moscow’s “misleading” allegations, Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba said Monday.
The IAEA limited itself to confirming that it is “analysing” the situation and the conflicting statements of both parties. The Kremlin claims that the Ukrainian government orchestrated the detonation of a low-level radioactive device on its own territory in order to blame Russia and unleash a strong international response. Kiev believes the complaint is a “pretext” for Vladimir Putin – “the only one who can do such a thing,” Zelensky said – to launch a limited nuclear strike on his troops. If the date of the expedition is announced, it will be the second IAEA mission in the former Soviet Republic since the invasion began due to a radiological threat.
The purpose of the previous one was to inspect the factory in Zaporizhia, subjected to crossfire from the two armies and surrounded by a belt of mines that have caused several incidents in the facilities. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu is convinced that Kiev’s attacks aim to turn the nuclear power plant into a different kind of “dirty bomb”.
The international convulsion is now capitalized. ‘Dirty bomb’ is not an easy term to digest. And yet it has been dormant for months in the heart of the war. It’s a relatively inexpensive artifact and not too complicated to make if the radioactive element is available: that source and a few sticks of dynamite will suffice. In 1987 it was used once in the Iran-Iraq war. Then it was discontinued. While it may seem gross, it killed little in wartime compared to a thermonuclear explosion. However, it has always been a feared weapon in the hands of terrorists. Hence the special effort of international security services to prevent the illegal trade in nuclear waste.
The United States, France and the United Kingdom rejected the Kremlin’s “obviously false” version on Monday, hours after Shoigu spoke with his colleagues in those countries on Sunday. Turkey, with whom the minister also spoke, is the only interlocutor who has not spoken. The head of Ukrainian diplomacy contacted these and other governments to deny the complaint, demand the condemnation of Russia for its “lie” and urge Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO as a shield against a hypothetical nuclear aggression.
The Kremlin, for its part, insisted on his statement, assuring it has evidence to prove it. “Distrust of information shared by the Russian side does not mean that the threat does not exist. The threat is clear,” spokesman Dimitri Peskov warned. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added that he will file a complaint with the UN, saying that “we have information, which we have re-examined through the appropriate channels, that it is not an empty suspicion.”
What information is that? The Russian government confirms that two Ukrainian radiological laboratories are in the final stages of manufacturing the device. The scientists allegedly used treated uranium from the Zhjovty Vody mines — the country’s most important — or remnants of the fuel basins of three nuclear power plants under their control or a small portion of the 50,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste stored at Chernobyl. The material was allegedly transferred to the Pridniprovskiy chemical plant, in the Dnepropetrovsk region,
To what extent can this sequence of details be credible or be a story stitched together from general data? The West does not value it, despite the fact that the head of the radiological, chemical and biological defense forces of the Russian armed forces, Igor Kirillov, took the trouble on Monday to explain that such an artifact could be “masked as a explosion”. “. of a low-power warhead. In his opinion, an explosion, even a very light one, would make it possible to detect radioactive isotopes on the ground and blame the Kremlin for firing an atomic missile. Kirillov was in May the author of a theory later completely forgotten that several pharmaceutical companies were working with the consent of the United States to produce biological weapons for the Kiev army.
Experts believe that a low-intensity “dirty bomb” will kill people in the area of the blast, while long-term cancers can develop in remote areas. The aim is to spread radioactive particles that could contaminate the country and, according to the IAEA, the aim is to sow “panic and social unrest”.
The two known cases of the use of these weapons occurred in 1995 and 1998. First, a Chechen terrorist group placed a device loaded with Celsium-135 in a Moscow park to blackmail the Russian government. He didn’t detonate it. Three years later, another cell left a similar bomb in Grozny. Now the ‘dirty bombs’ are causing fear and alarm again. Like after 9/11, when millions of people wondered what kind of criminal terror could be more cruel than the gruesome demolition of the Twin Towers, and the answer was nuclear.
Source: La Verdad
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