The linguistic element has spread like wildfire in Moscow. Since this weekend, Russian leaders have been spreading the word and criticizing world opinion. According to the Kremlin, Kyiv is about to use a “dirty bomb” on the front lines.
First it was the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, who launched the anathema on Sunday, taken up this Monday by General Igor Kirillov, in charge of radioactive substances in the Russian army, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, or the Chief of Staff, Valery Gerassimov.
“You find them easily in Ukraine”
On the contrary, nobody believes in the reality of this threat. NATO on Monday night defended Russia from making such an accusation the “pretext” for an “escalation of the conflict”. And the first interested party, Ukraine, denies having such an intention. As proof of its good faith, the country even seized the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Therefore, the IAEA will visit two sensitive sites in the coming days. But as murky as the Russian accusations may seem, the nature of these “dirty bombs” is itself no less murky. And to better decipher the communication of Vladimir Putin’s regime, BFMTV.com takes stock this Tuesday of the latter.
Hybrid
In the great typology of weapons, the “dirty bomb” -or “radiological dispersion device” according to its official name- has a hybrid status. If it is not an unconventional weapon, however, it is difficult to attach the opposite qualification to it.
“It’s a classic bomb, with dynamite, a projectile or other types of explosives, to which you add radioactive elements. These radioactive elements come from radioactive waste, and you can easily find them in Ukraine,” explains General Jérôme Pellistrandi, our consultant for Defense Matters, with BFMTV.com.
If the officer wants to emphasize that “there is no clandestine military nuclear program in Ukraine,” he continues: “We know that there are nuclear power plants, Zaporizhia in particular, but also radiology facilities, so there is necessarily radioactive material, such as tools. Even an MRI contains some.” “All this is guarded very seriously,” however insists the general.
an instrument of terror
Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between the two dimensions of the problem. On the one hand, there is no sign indicating the production of such a bomb by Ukraine, on the other hand, its manufacture is unfortunately easy.
Its performance is not surprising either. Once thrown or thrown, the “dirty bomb” does what bombs do: it explodes. The explosion releases a cloud of radioactive dust, the spread of which depends both on “the power” of the explosion “and on the weather, whether there is wind, rain or not”, continues General Jérôme Pellistrandi.
According to the latter, the dirty bomb has no military value. Olivier Lepick, research associate at the plussoie Strategic Research Foundation: Your power to bother lies elsewhere. “You make the affected area uninhabitable. And furthermore, if this radioactivity hits unprotected populations, you provoke fear and terror in that population and we see very serious pathologies appear”, he said entrusted to our antenna.
no state precedent
Symptoms that return terrible echoes. However, there are very few precedents. It is true that one thinks of the bombs filled with sarin and chlorine that Bashar al-Assad’s regime used in particular in the north of his own country. We are then on the wrong path: because, Strict sense, these death machines belonged to another family. “What is called a ‘dirty bomb’ essentially refers to the nuclear rather than the chemical. However, what was used in Syria are chemical weapons”, this is how General Jérôme Pellistrandi reformulates.
This, however, points to suspected use by Chechens in the late 1990s and attempted manufacture by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. “But there has never been any use of a ‘dirty bomb’ by an established state,” the official concludes.
It must be said that at the time of the collapse of a USSR particularly gifted in the atomic field, Americans and Europeans saw as milk to the fire the distribution and repatriation to Russia, from the former satellite republics, of orphaned nuclear warheads.
Furthermore, geopolitical logic does not advocate that Ukraine inaugurate a tradition in this area. Indeed, the use of a “dirty bomb” would put him in difficulty on the international stage. Maybe even to banning nations.
Source: BFM TV
