Russia is playing a new card in its war against Ukraine: Moscow accuses kyiv of developing a “dirty bomb”. The Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, multiplied the phone calls in Western capitals, Sunday, October 23, in order to propagate this thesis. His story was developed on Monday during a briefing by the Russian army. “Two Ukrainian organizations have specific instructions for making it”, said General Igor Kirillov, in charge of radioactive substances, chemical and biological products. According to the senior officer, this weapon designed by Ukraine would even have entered “in its final stage” of development.
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Charges swept away on Sunday by Volodymyr Zelensky. “If Russia claims that Ukraine is preparing something, it means only one thing: Russia has already prepared all this”replied the Ukrainian president, adding: “I believe that now the world must react as harshly as possible.” His Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, denounced “Russian fabrications”qualified as“absurd and dangerous”. This threat of a “dirty bomb” Ukrainian brand brandished by Vladimir Putin’s regime raises many questions.
“In Western intelligence doctrine, the concept of the ‘dirty bomb’ has so far been evoked in a ‘sub-state’ framework”explains to franceinfo Olivier Lepick, specialist in chemical weapons: they did not envisage its use by a State, but by more informal entities, such as terrorist groups. “This designates the possibility, for a terrorist entity, of getting their hands on a few kilos of cesium 137 or strontium 90 [des éléments radioactifs]packaging them in a conventional explosive device and detonating the charge, resulting in the dissemination of radioactive material on the target.”
Unlike an atomic weapon, the explosion of which results from nuclear fission (A-bomb) or fusion (H-bomb), there is no massive lethal effect, continues Olivier Lepick. The main danger comes from exposure or not to radiation. “The desired effect is above all psychological, in order to terrorize populations. Pathologies linked to exposure to radiation take several weeks, months, or even years before they appear, depending on the level of exposure.” According to Moscow, kyiv would seek to endanger tens of thousands of people on “an area of up to several thousand square kilometres”including in Poland.
Ukraine today does not have nuclear weapons. In 1994, within the framework of the Budapest memoranda, it had renounced its arsenal inherited from the Soviet era, in exchange for guarantees on its territorial integrity, including from Russia.
But the radioactive materials essential to the manufacture of a “dirty bomb” are used in hospitals, research establishments, industrial or military sites. Ukraine has the infrastructure and the scientific potential (within its physics institute in Kharkiv) necessary for the manufacture of such a device, says the Russian army. The latter has even devised a scenario in which the Ukrainian authorities would use spent fuel, in particular uranium oxide, available in the storage or pools of the three nuclear power stations in operation which remain under its control (that of Zaporijjia being occupied by the Russian army).
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“Ukraine wants to intimidate the local population, increase the flow of refugees to Europe and accuse the Russian Federation of nuclear terrorism”, writes the Russian Ministry of Defense to justify its scenario. The cabinet of Volodymyr Zelensky, adds Moscow, would have had exchanges with British officials, relating to the technology necessary for the design of such weapons. The Russian army says it is prepared for this scenario, and has forces capable of operating in a radioactive environment. It has also released several visuals to illustrate the threats, which merely cite known civilian installations.
The interest of such statements for Moscow is still unclear. “There is first of all a recurring process of demonization of Ukraine, accused of all evils by Russian public opinion”replies Olivier Lepick, for whom these remarks are above all intended for Russians. “Furthermore, and at a time when the civilian populations are being evacuated from Kherson, one could wonder – with a great deal of imagination – whether Russia would not itself be preparing a strike of the kind on the Ukrainian troops, to drive them out of the part of the oblast which is the object of a counter-offensive.”
Ukrainians and Westerners fear that these accusations hide the preparations for an attack carried out under a “false flag”. Russia could thus detonate such a bomb itself, in order to justify a military escalation in Ukraine, for example by employing a tactical nuclear weapon in retaliation. However, the United States has no “still no indication” that Russia has decided to use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, a senior US military official said on Monday, quoted by AFP, on condition of anonymity.
As if by mirror effect, Moscow declares that it suspects kyiv of wanting to use a dirty bomb on its own territory, in order to blame the explosion on its adversary. But this argument does not hold water, according to Olivier Lepick.
“Ukraine has no tactical or strategic interest in using [ces armes] against Ukrainian populations. She would lose her support and shoot herself in the foot.”
Olivier Lepick, chemical weapons specialistat franceinfo
The Russian accusations were greeted with caution and defiance in Western capitals. “No one would be fooled” if Moscow used this argument for an escalation of the conflict, reacted Washington, Paris and London, in a joint press release published on Sunday. For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he raised the issue with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi. In particular, he invited the agency to visit facilities in the country, in order to put an end to Moscow’s accusations. “We have nothing to hide”commented the Minister, “unlike Russia.”
The suspicions of “dirty bomb” have been qualified as “dirty blackmail” by Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Volodymyr Zelensky. The latter, in particular, recalls that Moscow has already accused kyiv of wanting to destroy the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, and of flooding entire territories. “Russia has waved many red rags since the start of the conflict, for example by arguing that US-Ukrainian laboratories were developing biological weaponscontinues Olivier Lepick. For fifteen years, after a turn taken by its diplomacy, the Kremlin has been unrolling fanciful narratives, and no longer even bothers to make its theories plausible.