The Russian Defense Ministry warned on Sunday that Ukraine could be planning a provocation with the use of a radioactive device, in a false flag attack to blame Moscow. In telephone conversations with his counterparts in the United States, Britain, France and Turkey, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued the warning about “possible Ukrainian provocations with a dirty bomb.” They are devices that use conventional explosives to spread radioactive waste. They do not have the devastating effect of a nuclear explosion, but can expose large areas to radioactive contamination.
Citing reliable sources from several countries, including Ukraine, the RIA Novosti agency assures that, under the direction of Western supervisors, work began on the production of these artifacts, which are already in their final phase and would be in charge of the Research Institute kyiv nuclear and uranium enrichment plant in the city of Zhióltye Vody, Dnepropetrovsk region.
According to the information provided by the media, Ukraine’s purpose in resorting to these practices is to blame Russia for the use of weapons of mass destruction in the framework of its special operation in that territory.
That situation would further undermine confidence in Moscow and sharpen the anti-Russian campaign from the West, where they raise the possibility of depriving Russia of the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow will raise the issue of Ukraine’s preparations to create a dirty bomb at the UN.
“We have concrete information about those scientific institutes that have technologies that allow the creation of this dirty bomb. We have information, which we have re-examined through the appropriate channels, that it is not an empty suspicion, that there are serious reasons to believe that this kind of thing may be planned,” Lavrov said during a press conference in Moscow.
The head of Russian diplomacy affirmed that Moscow has already taken “the necessary steps” to address the matter in international organizations, after the telephone conversations that the Russian Defense Minister held on Sunday with his counterparts from France, the United Kingdom, Turkey and USA
He also maintained that Russia expects an “interested” and “professional” debate about this threat.
The Russian Defense Ministry warned of the possible consequences of a provocation with a dirty bomb explosion. If that scenario were to materialize, thousands of square kilometers would be contaminated by radioactive substances.
According to the Russian military body, the Ukrainian authorities would plan to sow fear in the civilian population, causing new flows of migrants to Europe and presenting Russia as a “nuclear errorist”. The head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces, Igor Kirillov, assured on Monday that kyiv has both the potential and the motives to use a dirty bomb. He stressed that two entities in Ukraine are in charge of manufacturing the explosive and that the work is in its final phase.
Kirillov specified that Moscow has information regarding contacts between the Ukrainian presidential office and representatives of the United Kingdom on the possibility of obtaining technologies to create nuclear weapons. Kirillov stressed that kyiv has the production capacity and scientific potential in this field.
Specifically, he mentioned three nuclear power plants under the control of kyiv with nine pools with spent nuclear fuel. Likewise, he referred to the nuclear waste that is preserved in the Chernobyl plant. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste may be moved to the Pridniprovskiy chemical plant in the Dnepropetrovsk region for possible use in a dirty bomb.
Kirillov stressed that, according to kyiv’s plans, the explosion of such an explosive could be “masked as an abnormal detonation of a low-power Russian nuclear warhead using highly enriched uranium as a charge.”
He added that the presence of radioactive isotopes would be registered by the trackers of the international monitoring system installed in Europe, which would allow Moscow to be accused of resorting to its tactical nuclear arsenal.
Ukraine denied Russia’s accusations in talks with the United States and France.
“The fact that there is distrust of the information provided by the Russian side does not mean that the threat of the use of a dirty bomb does not exist. The threat is real”, said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov.
Information war based on the experience of the White Helmets
From the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces they recalled that “similar information warfare technologies” had already been used by the West in Syria through the controversial organization of the White Helmets, which filmed stagings on alleged uses of chemical weapons by the country’s army.
Kirillov alluded to the provocation perpetrated by this group on April 4, 2017 in the city of Khan Sheikhun. The military official drew attention to the photos taken at the site, in which the White Helmets are seen taking soil samples without wearing any protection. “But that doesn’t seem to confuse anyone,” he said.
Turkey and Russia start bilateral trade in their national currencies
Trade between Russia and Turkey using their respective national currencies has started “at full speed”, said the head of the Turkish Patriotic Party’s Economic Policies office, Hakan Topkurulu.
All trade between the two countries is conducted in Russian rubles, and the system works “smoothly through the established network,” Topkurulu wrote in an article published in the Aydinlik daily on Saturday.
According to the author of the text, the US dollar has been expelled from Russian-Turkish bilateral trade and the US “has no chance to intervene” in the system. In addition, he considered that, with its sanctions policy, Washington is “cutting the branch on which it is sitting.”
“The dollar, accepted as the world reserve currency, no longer exists in trade between Turkey and Russia,” he added.
The politician emphasized that Ankara will promote a “liraization” policy to strengthen the Turkish lira and “deactivate the dollar, which has established itself in Turkey’s economy like the tentacles of an octopus.”
Other countries like China and Iran also use their respective currencies in trade with Russia and other nations.
(With information from RT in Spanish, AP and EFE)