The technicians of the UN nuclear agency will check on the ground if kyiv diverts nuclear material to make a dirty bomb, as the Kremlin denounces
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear agency, has confirmed that it will send a team to Ukraine to verify whether, as Moscow maintains, the kyiv government is building a dirty bomb, the radiological weapon that could raise the military escalation and turning the war into a nuclear conflict. The objective will be to carry out an “independent investigation” of two locations to check if there is any diversion of nuclear material that could be used to manufacture the fearsome device.
The director general of the agency, Rafael Grossi, explained, after a closed-door meeting with the members of the UN Security Council, that the IAEA technicians will travel to two locations that are regularly controlled. One of them, moreover, was inspected a month ago but they found nothing. “No undeclared nuclear activities or materials were found there,” Grossi said.
The step taken by the IAEA comes after a week of crossed accusations between kyiv and Moscow about the dirty bomb. It is a nuclear device whose objective is not to cause the catastrophe of an atomic explosion, but a more contained destruction through the dispersion of radioactive material. First it was the Kremlin who accused Ukraine of preparing it. kyiv quickly denied the claim and accused Moscow, in turn, of preparing the ground for a false-flag attack justifying a nuclear escalation.
In a context in which propaganda plays an important role in the war, and in which it is very difficult to discern who is lying and who is telling the truth, both sides have requested the inspection of the United Nations nuclear agency. Putin himself did it in a speech on Thursday, but so did Zelensky. The IAEA said in a statement that it is going to the field in response to the Ukrainian request.
The European Union denounced, through the spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, what they consider to be yet another maneuver by the Kremlin. Nabila Massrali recalled that the Russian authorities have previously accused others “of their own actions”, seeking a framework to “justify” their aggression against Ukraine.
For his part, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, responded to Putin’s speech, in which he charged against the West and rejected the use of nuclear weapons because “it would not make political or military sense.” “If he has no intention of using them, why does he keep talking about it?” the Democratic leader asked. “Putin is dangerous in the way he talks about nuclear weapons,” he settled.
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