Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, said on Wednesday that Russia would supply Belarus with munitions containing “genuine uranium” if Britain provided depleted uranium armor-piercing shells.

• “Russia will supply us with real uranium ammunition. If they are crazy, they will force us into this process. This is the scariest and most dangerous thing. Therefore, it is necessary to retreat from this madness. As soon as this munition explodes on the positions of Russian troops, you will see a terrible response, it will be a lesson for the whole planet,” he told reporters in a video clip.
• “Russia doesn’t only have depleted uranium, you know very well… That’s why this trend of escalating the conflict cannot be started and we must go, as Putin and Xi Jinping discussed, to a peaceful settlement.”

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said on Wednesday there was no nuclear escalation in the war in Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Britain for supplying depleted uranium munitions to Ukrainian forces.

Britain confirmed on Monday that it is supplying ammunition containing depleted uranium to Ukraine.

Read also: British tanks received by Ukraine have special ammunition: armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium

The heavy metal is used in weapons because it can more easily penetrate tanks and armor due to its density, among other properties.

But Putin on Tuesday condemned British plans to send such munitions to Ukraine, saying Moscow would be forced to respond accordingly because such weapons had a “nuclear component”.

Reasonably said that Russia was the only country that spoke of increased nuclear risks and that the munitions were conventional.

• “There is no nuclear escalation. The only country in the world that talks about nuclear issues is Russia. There is no threat to Russia, it is only about helping Ukraine defend itself,” Cleverly said, according to Reuters.
• “It’s worth making sure that everyone understands that just because the word uranium is in the name of depleted uranium munitions, they are not nuclear munitions, they are purely conventional munitions.”

Britain has used depleted uranium in its armor-piercing projectiles for decades and does not consider these projectiles to be nuclear. It is also known that Russia has ammunition containing depleted uranium.

Depleted uranium, used for decades

“The British military has used depleted uranium in its armor-piercing projectiles for decades,” the British Ministry of Defense added.

“Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to misinform. “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact on personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be negligible,” the British Ministry of Defense emphasized.

Former British Army tank commander and chemical weapons expert Col. Hamish de Breton-Gordon called Putin’s comments “classic disinformation.”

The depleted uranium ammunition used in the Challenger 2 tanks contained only trace amounts of uranium, he said.

He added that it is “ludicrous” to suggest that depleted uranium projectiles are somehow related to nuclear weapons that use enriched uranium.

Depleted uranium is what remains after natural uranium has been enriched to make weapons or reactor fuel.

In its solid form, it is slightly radioactive. But it is a very heavy substance, 1.7 times denser than lead, and is used to strengthen projectiles so they can penetrate armor and steel.

When a weapon made with a tip or core of depleted uranium strikes a solid object, such as the side of a tank, it passes through it and then erupts in a cloud of burning vapor.

The vapors settle as dust, which is poisonous and also slightly radioactive.

The chemical toxicity of depleted uranium is a more significant problem than radioactivity

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that sending depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine would mean that Britain is “ready to violate international humanitarian law, as it did in 1999 in Yugoslavia.”

“There is no doubt that this will end badly for London,” Lavrov added.

“One more step has been taken, and fewer and fewer steps remain,” said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, quoted by the official Russian news agency TASS.

He also said that the supply of depleted uranium projectiles to Ukraine would force Russia to think seriously about how Moscow might respond, News.ro reported.

“This makes us think seriously about the further course of events, about how we can respond,” said the Minister of Defense in an interview with the show “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” on “Russia-1”, an excerpt was published by journalist Pavlo. Zarubin in his Telegram channel. “Of course, Moscow has something to answer for,” Shoigu said.

On Tuesday evening, a Pentagon spokesman said that the US would not send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine.

Depleted uranium projectiles have been used in Iraq and the Balkans, where some claim they are linked to birth defects.

The report of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for 2022 states that depleted uranium is an environmental problem in Ukraine.

“Depleted uranium and toxic substances in conventional explosives can cause skin irritation, kidney failure and increase the risk of cancer,” it said.

“The chemical toxicity of depleted uranium is considered a more important problem than the possible effects of its radioactivity,” he added.

In fact, depleted uranium does not pose a potential danger to the population

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium and is characterized by high density and strength.

Depleted uranium is the waste of natural uranium enrichment plants. Wikipedia explains that during the enrichment process, fissile uranium isotopes are concentrated in a useful product, and the waste loses most of its radioactivity. For this reason, depleted uranium poses no potential danger to the public, as it is 3 million times less radioactive than the radium used in the past in watch dials and 10 million times less radioactive than fire alarms.

Depleted uranium is a very dense metal, and the denser the projectile, the more impact for a given size. This metal is almost twice as dense as lead, making it very suitable for military use.

Uranium is “pyrophoric”: at the point of impact, it burns and turns into steam, so the projectile remains sharp. Penetrating the armor, the flaming projectile turns the interior of the car into an inferno of gas and flames, reports The Guardian.

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