The UN nuclear agency has started probing Russia’s ‘dirty bombs’ claims on Ukraine. the UN nuclear chief said he is sending inspectors to two locations in war-hit Ukraine where Russia alleged that activities related to the possible production of ‘dirty bombs’ taking place, according to the news agency The Associated Press.According to Russia, these dirty bombs are about to reach a conclusion in days, very fast.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would be traveling this week to the two sites, which are under IAEA safeguards, following a written request from the Ukrainian government,” said Rafael Grossi, the UN nuclear agency chief.
In a letter to Security Council members this week, Russia’s UN ambassador alleged that Ukraine’s Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv and Vostochniy Mining and Processing Plant “have received direct orders from (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime to develop such a dirty bomb.”
The envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said that information was from Russia’s Ministry of Defense. He said the ministry reported that work on a dirty bomb, which uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror, is at its concluding stage, as per AP reports.Grossi said: “The purpose of this week’s safeguards visits is to detect any possible undeclared nuclear activities and materials related to the development of `dirty bombs.’”
He said the IAEA also inspected the nuclear research institute in Kyiv a month ago “and no undeclared nuclear activities or materials were found there. However, Grossi said the inspectors are going to revisit the facility with a different aim, AP reported.
Generally, inspectors look for nuclear material such as enriched uranium, plutonium, and thorium, he said, but in this case “there is mention of certain isotopes, cesium, and strontium. So, we are going to be performing a different kind of work to determine whether the fuel there has been reprocessed in some way to extract this.”
On the other hand, Russia’s Nebenzia told Grossi that “he should be vigilant” because the two sites are not the only places where dirty bombs can be produced. Grossi replied that he remains “extremely concerned” about the possibility of a nuclear accident.
He also said that in the coming weeks the IAEA is going to be deploying more experts at other nuclear power plants in Ukraine — Rivni, Khmelnytskyi South Ukraine, and Chernobyl. The latter was the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, and it was occupied by Russian forces soon after their February 24 invasion of Ukraine, though they left at the beginning of April, according to the news agency AP.
The nuclear issue was heightened by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was preparing to launch a dirty bomb in weekend calls to his British, French, Turkish, and U.S. counterparts. Britain, France, and the United States rejected the claim out of hand, calling it “transparently false.”Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated the unsubstantiated claim on Wednesday.
