The US Defense Department is rejecting Russian claims that depleted uranium munitions the US has announced it will send to Ukraine will cause cancer and other diseases to rise, after the Kremlin said the US would have to answer for the “very sad consequences” of its decision. he reports CNN.

“The CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has stated that there is no evidence that depleted uranium causes cancer, the World Health Organization reports that there has been no increase in the incidence of leukemia or other cancers after any exposure to uranium. or DU, and even the IAEA has stated unequivocally that there is no proven link between DU exposure and increased cancer rates or significant health or environmental effects,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday.

Singh said the munitions are “standard” anti-tank rounds used with the Abrams tanks the US is sending to Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the new US military aid package on Wednesday while in Kyiv.

This is the first time depleted uranium munitions have been part of a US military package, a US official told CNN.

The munitions are slightly radioactive because they are made of a dense metal, a byproduct of the production of fuel for nuclear power plants. They can be towed by American-made Abrams tanks, which will arrive in Ukraine this fall.

Russia fears ammunition with depleted uranium

Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said that NATO’s intensive use of such munitions during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 caused an increase in cancer and other related diseases.

“These consequences will be felt by the next generations of those who in some way came into contact with or were in the territory where these weapons were used,” he told reporters, declaring that the same will now happen in Ukraine.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday called the shipment of uranium munitions to Ukraine a “criminal” act, but Russia’s anger over the issue has more to do with the characteristics of the munitions than any radioactive danger.

“This is not just a step towards escalation, but a reflection of Washington’s outrageous disregard for the environmental consequences of using this type of ammunition in a conflict zone. This is actually a criminal act. I can’t give another assessment,” thundered Ryabkov, quoted by rosZMI.

Concerns about depleted uranium projectiles

The use of depleted uranium munitions is the subject of intense debate. The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons says that ingesting or inhaling even depleted uranium dust can cause cancer and birth defects. But a report by the United Nations Environment Program on the effects of depleted uranium in Serbia and Montenegro, then Yugoslavia, found “no significant and widespread contamination.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, states that studies conducted in the former Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Iraq and Lebanon “have shown that the existence of depleted uranium remnants dispersed in the environment does not pose a radiological hazard to the country’s population. affected regions”.

Some Serbian politicians denied this and reported an increase in the incidence and mortality of malignant tumors.

The British Royal Society said in a 2002 report that the risks to the kidneys and other organs from using depleted uranium munitions are very low, both for most soldiers in the field and for those living in conflict zones. In its guidance, the UK states that inhalation of depleted uranium dust sufficient to cause injury would be difficult.

During the enrichment process, fissile uranium isotopes are concentrated into 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.