Shortly after Berlin made a historic decision to send Leopard 2 heavy tanks to Ukraine and allow allies to make similar decisions, Moscow said in the voice of a Russian diplomat that the combat vehicles were “beasts” equipped with armor-piercing shells with a calibrated armor-piercing mechanism. with a uranium core. He warned that their use against the Russian military would be regarded as the use of “dirty bombs”, reported “Ukrainian Pravda” and the independent Russian publication The Moscow Times.

• “We warn the Western sponsors of the Kyiv military machine not to encourage nuclear provocations and blackmail. We know that the Leopard 2 tank, as well as the Bradley and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, are armed with subcaliber armor-piercing shells with a uranium core, the use of which leads to the contamination of the area, as happened in Yugoslavia. and Iraq.
• If Kiev is supplied with such shells for NATO’s heavy military equipment, we will consider it the use of dirty bombs against Russia with all the consequences that follow,” said the head of the Russian delegation in Vienna at the OSCE Forum, Konstantin Gavrilov. on military security and arms control for the state-controlled Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Germany will send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and agree to re-export them to partner countries, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday.

Hours later, President Joe Biden announced that the US would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as part of a massive effort by European allies to show they are still united against the Russian invasion.

Western countries forced Germany to make a decision to transfer combat vehicles to Ukraine, Gavrilov said.

“At first, the Allies threatened Berlin with international isolation if it refused to hand over the Leopard 2 tanks. Then, none other than the spokesman of the US State Department, Ned Price, announced the “good news” about sending “to the German beasts in Kyiv. This is how transatlantic “solidarity” is forged, said the Russian diplomat.

The head of the Russian delegation at the OSCE Forum threatened to destroy these combat vehicles, as well as other NATO equipment.

Read also:

• What are Leopard tanks and why did Ukraine want them so much?

Berlin’s decision angered Moscow

Russia’s ambassador to Berlin, Serhiy Nechaev, said on Wednesday that Germany’s decision to transfer modern battle tanks to Ukraine will lead to an escalation of the conflict.

“This extremely dangerous decision brings the conflict to a new level of confrontation and contradicts the statements of German politicians who assured that they do not want to be drawn into the war,” Serhiy Nechaev said.

In total, Kyiv will receive more than a hundred modern battle tanks, including the German Leopard 2 and the American M1 Abrams.

Germany refuses to recognize its “historical responsibility” to the Russian people

Russia has said that such weapons will only prolong the war and the suffering of Ukrainians, and that the West is “deluding itself” into believing otherwise.

“The choice of Berlin means the final refusal of the Federal Republic of Germany to recognize its historical responsibility to our people for the terrible and eternal crimes of Nazism during the Great War for the defense of the Fatherland and to forget the difficult path of post-war reconciliation between Russians and Germans,” said Nechaev.

“With the approval of the German leadership, battle tanks with German crosses will again be sent to the “eastern front”, which will inevitably lead to the death of not only Russian soldiers, but also the civilian population.”

What is a dirty bomb?

Moscow said last fall that Kyiv would use “dirty bombs,” while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi accused Russia of seeking to justify escalating the conflict by using the kind of conventional bombs containing radioactive materials that disperse as dust when detonated.

The term “dirty bomb” or “radiological dispersal device” (RDD) generally refers to any explosive device that releases one or more toxic chemical or biological products (NRBC – nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical).

This type of bomb is not considered a nuclear weapon, the explosion of which is the result of fission (Atomic bomb) or nuclear fusion (Hydrogen bomb) and causes massive destruction in a large radius. The production of an atomic bomb requires the use of complex uranium enrichment technologies.

Much less difficult to make, the “dirty bomb” uses conventional explosives, and its main purpose is to directly contaminate an area and people through the ingestion or inhalation of radioactive materials.

“A dirty bomb is not a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ but a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ that is primarily intended to infect and frighten,” the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission sums up.

The main danger of a “dirty bomb” is the explosion, not the radiation. Only people very close to the blast site will be exposed to enough radiation to cause immediate serious illness.

However, radioactive dust and vapors can become airborne and pose a health hazard if the dust is inhaled or ingested in contaminated food or water.

Radioactive materials required for the manufacture of such an explosive device are used in hospitals, research institutions, industrial or military facilities.

Although both camps accuse each other of using such munitions, there have been no reports of the use of “dirty bombs” so far.

Read here the most important information from 337th day of the war in Ukraine