Russia accuses Ukraine of planning to present ‘dirty bomb’ explosion as unintended Russian nuclear detonation

The Russian Defense Ministry insists that Ukraine is planning a false-flag strike using a “dirty bomb.” According to the Russian ministry’s Telegram post, the explosion will be presented as an unintended detonation of a low-capacity Russian nuclear warhead.

According to the scenario described by the Defense Ministry, radioactive isotopes would be detected by the International Monitoring System’s sensors in Europe. This would trigger accusations against Russia and its supposed use of a nuclear weapon. Ukraine, the Defense Ministry went on, stockpiles radioactive waste and other substances needed for a “dirty bomb.” Ukraine also, the Russian ministry points out, has the necessary scientific base — namely, the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which conducted nuclear research during the Soviet era.

This amounts, the Defense Ministry says, to a case against Ukraine, in which it has both the “motive” and the “means” for attempting to present Russia as a nuclear terrorist. The provocation, says the Russian side, is intended by Ukraine to terrorize its own civilians, increasing the influx of refugees into Europe.

In the past, Russia already accused Ukraine of planning to develop nuclear weapons. It found a pretext in the words of Ukraine’s President Zelensky when he said, days before the war, that in 1994 Ukraine “gave up nuclear weapons for the sake of security” and then found itself “without weapons and without security.” Kyiv denies any plans to construct a “dirty bomb.”

Since early October, Russian authorities began to spread the idea of Ukraine’s allegedly planned “dirty bomb” provocation. Maria Zakharova, the Interior Ministry’s spokesperson, said, for example, that Kyiv intended to use the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as a radiation weapon.

On October 23, the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu called his counterparts in four NATO states, to alert each of them individually to the impending Ukrainian “provocation.” In turn, authorities in Ukraine immediately requested an international inspection of Ukrainian energy objects by the IAEA.

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