MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. Two Ukrainian organizations have received concrete instructions to create a ‘dirty bomb’, and work on the bomb is nearing completion, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov told journalists on Monday.
"According to the information we have available, two Ukrainian organizations have concrete instructions to create a so-called dirty bomb. Work is at the final stage," the top brass revealed.
The Russian Defense Ministry has data on contacts of the Ukrainian presidential office with the UK on the issue of potentially obtaining these nuclear technologies, Kirillov told a news briefing.
The Kiev regime has sufficient research and production potential to make a dirty bomb, including three active nuclear power plants and large amounts of spent nuclear fuel, he went on to say.
"Thus, Ukraine has nuclear industry enterprises with stockpiles of radioactive substances that can be used to make a dirty bomb. They are three active nuclear power plants: Yuzhno-Ukrainskaya, Khmelnitskaya and Rovnenskaya, which have nine spent fuel pools that contain up to 1,500 tons of uranium oxide enriched to the level of 1.5%," Kirillov said.
In addition, according to Kirillov, there are 22,000 spent fuel assemblies containing uranium-238 at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It also contains products related to operation: uranium-235 and plutonium-239, which are the main components of the nuclear charge, the lieutenant general stressed.
On Sunday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu held telephone conversations with his British, French and Turkish counterparts, as well as with the Pentagon chief. Shoigu conveyed to his colleagues concerns about Ukraine’s possible use of a dirty bomb. For her part, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova spotlighted Ukraine’s nuclear blackmail. According to her, Kiev was planning to turn the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant into a dirty bomb.