Russia scares the world with a dirty bomb
2022.10.25 10:33
Russia scares the world with a dirty bomb
Budrigannews.com – Moscow has focused on accusations that Kyiv might be planning to use a so-called “dirty bomb,” which is a conventional explosive device laced with toxic nuclear material, in its most recent advocacy campaign for its invasion of Ukraine.
According to Kyiv and its Western allies, the accusation is completely false and the notion that Ukraine would poison its own territory is patently absurd. Moscow might, according to them, be making the claim to justify its own escalation.
A look at dirty bombs and how they might be used in Ukraine, either as a real threat or as the basis for propaganda, is provided in the following:
Rather than causing an atomic explosion that flattens a city, dirty bombs are designed to spread toxic waste. Security experts have been concerned about them more as a terrorist weapon intended for use in cities to wreak havoc on civilians than as a tactical weapon for conflicting parties.
The majority of people in an affected area would be able to escape before receiving lethal doses of radiation, so experts believe that the immediate impact on health would likely be minimal. However, the financial impact of having to leave urban areas or even entire cities could be significant.
Physicist Henry Kelly, then-president of the Federation of Scientists, gave testimony to the United States Senate during the Obama administration. In his testimony, Kelly outlined a wide range of possible outcomes based on the quantity, type, and spread of nuclear material.
A bomb made of radioactive caesium from a medical device that has been stolen or lost could necessitate the evacuation of several city blocks, making the area unsafe for decades.
Kelly stated that if a piece of radioactive cobalt from a food irradiation plant were detonated in a bomb in New York, it could contaminate an area of 380 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) and render the island of Manhattan inhabitable.
Moscow sent a letter to the United Nations late on Monday outlining its claims about Kyiv, and diplomats said Russia would bring the matter up in a closed meeting with the Security Council on Tuesday.
At a media briefing, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical protection forces, stated that Ukraine’s intention for such an attack would be to blame Russia.
“The aim of the provocation would be to accuse Russia of using a weapon of mass destruction in the Ukrainian military theater and thus to launch a powerful global anti-Russian campaign to undermine trust in Moscow,” the statement reads.
Moscow’s claim that Ukraine would intentionally make some of its own territory uninhabitable is absurd, according to Kyiv and its Western allies, especially at a time when Ukrainian forces are recapturing battlefield territory.
The United States, Britain, and France issued a joint statement in which they called the Russian allegations “transparently false” and urged Moscow not to use them as a “pretext” for escalation.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin issued a warning to the West that it was risky to disregard Moscow’s position.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, said that Moscow may be using the allegations as a cover for plans for a similar attack of its own: If Ukraine receives a call from Russia claiming to be preparing something, it indicates one thing: All of this is already prepared by Russia.
