NEAR KHERSON FRONTLINE, Ukraine—Russia on Tuesday took its case to the U.N. Security Council that Ukraine is preparing to use a “dirty bomb” on its own territory, an assertion dismissed by Western and Ukrainian officials as misinformation and a pretext for intensifying the war.
Moscow sent a letter detailing the allegations to the United Nations on Monday, and Russia raised the issue at a closed meeting with the Security Council.
“We’re quite satisfied because we raised the awareness,” Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “I don’t mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn’t happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth.”
He said the evidence was in intelligence information that had been shared with Western counterparts with the “necessary level of clearance.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday repeated Russia’s allegations and said the West was foolish to dismiss them.
They follow hints from Moscow that it might be forced to use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the dirty bomb allegation showed Moscow was planning such an attack and seeking to blame Kyiv.
With Ukrainian forces advancing into Russian-occupied Kherson province, Russian officials phoned their Western counterparts on Sunday and Monday to air their suspicions.
Russia accused the Kyiv government of ordering two organizations to create a dirty bomb, an explosive device laced with radioactive material, without giving any evidence.
France, Britain and the United States said the allegations were “transparently false” and Washington warned Russia there would be “severe consequences” for any nuclear use.
Inspectors
Britain’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador James Kariuki told reporters: “This is pure Russian misinformation of the kind of we’ve seen many times before and it should stop.”Russia’s defense ministry said the aim of a dirty bomb attack by Ukraine would be to blame Moscow for the radioactive contamination, which it said Russia had begun preparing for.
In an apparent response to Moscow’s allegation, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it was preparing to send inspectors to two unidentified Ukrainian sites at Kyiv’s request, both already subject to its inspections.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters the inspectors would receive full access, and he called on Moscow to demonstrate the same transparency as Ukraine.
Russia’s state news agency RIA has identified what it said were the two sites involved—the Eastern Mineral Enrichment Plant in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not spoken publicly about the dirty bomb allegations but on Tuesday said Russia needed to streamline decision-making in what it calls its “special military operation” to rid its neighbor of extremists. Ukraine and its allies accuse Moscow of an unprovoked war to grab territory.
More Help for Ukraine?
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday on his first visit since Russia invaded on Feb. 24 as Berlin hosted what it said was a conference on a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Ukraine, a reference to the U.S. initiative to rebuild Western Europe at the end of World War Two.Steinmeier said Berlin was working to help Ukraine with air defense equipment and would focus on assisting with repairs to infrastructure such as power grids before winter arrives.
Zelenskiy told the Berlin conference via video link that Russian rockets and Iranian-made drones had destroyed more than a third of his country’s energy sector, but that Kyiv had yet to receive “a single cent” for a recovery plan worth $17 billion.
The European Commission urged EU countries and companies to donate more to Ukraine’s energy sector.
In southern Ukraine, Russia has ordered civilians in Kherson to evacuate territory it controls on the western bank of the Dnipro River, where Ukrainian forces have been advancing this month after Russia claimed to have annexed the area.
