Image is from Slovenia
Kremlin uses fake photo for nuclear allegations against Kyiv
10/26/2022, 10:01 p.m
Russia accuses Kyiv of wanting to detonate a “dirty bomb”. As evidence, the Kremlin also cites a photo that is said to show nuclear material in Ukraine. The Slovenian government is now speaking up and correcting Moscow’s statements.
With apparently false photos, the Russian Foreign Ministry has tried to create the impression that it has evidence that a “dirty” — that is, nuclear-contaminated — bomb was being built in Ukraine. One of the pictures that appeared on the ministry’s English-language Twitter account belongs to the Slovenian Agency for Radioactive Waste and dates from 2010, the Internet newspaper Ukrajinska Prawda reported.
The Russian accusation that Kyiv is planning to use a radioactive bomb is interpreted in the West as a possible pretext for a further escalation of the war. Kyiv rejects the allegations. “Development of the ‘dirty bomb'” is the caption on the photo. It features items in plastic bags marked with the radioactivity warning symbol.
Nuclear experts from the Slovenian government were the first to recognize the picture: smoke detectors can be seen in the photo, it said. The Slovenian government announced on Twitter that it had been used for presentations. “Radioactive waste in Slovenia is kept safe and under surveillance. It will not be used to build ‘dirty bombs’,” the government quoted the head of the radioactive waste disposal authority as saying.
The Russian government has been warning of an alleged radioactive bomb in Kiev’s hands since the beginning of the week. Their use on Ukrainian territory should therefore be intended to discredit Moscow. Western governments reject the allegations as implausible.
Prelude to military escalation?
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has called for the allegations made by Russia to be taken seriously. The allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a nuclear-contaminated bomb on its own territory during the war could possibly be the prelude to a military escalation by Moscow, the chief diplomat of the Baltic EU and NATO country said on the radio on Tuesday.
“It’s very reminiscent of Russia’s statements leading up to February 24,” Landsbergis said. At the time, before the attack on Ukraine, Moscow had also spread false information about chemical plants that allegedly existed in Ukraine. “We thought it was just a campaign of lies by Russia, but we see what happened,” he said.
A “dirty bomb” consists of radioactive material released with conventional explosives. Unlike an atomic bomb, there is no nuclear chain reaction.