MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called upon Ukrainians to ponder on whether they want to ‘open the Pandora box,’ by using depleted uranium rounds supplied by their Western allies.
"I think that at the moment, the people who still remain in the state of Ukraine to ponder on the question of whether they want such weapons to be used. It is them who are opening the Pandora box. They are the ones doing it, not vice versa," the official said in an interview to Russian media and VKontakte users, answering to a question from TASS.
He said that although such munitions are not classed as nuclear weapons, they can still create nuclear waste.
Medvedev pointed to the experience of their previous use during the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999.
"There have been no final assessments and no ban on those weapons. But long-term consequences may be very severe, because the people of Serbia, residents of former Yugoslavia, are now reporting a significant increase in cancerous diseases on their territory," he said.
In his words, a depleted uranium core in those projectiles is extremely good at piercing tank armor.
"But the problem is that it still generates nuclear waste, and we have no information indicating precisely how dangerous it is," he said. "Why is it called ‘depleted uranium’? Because it is less radioactive than other [isotopes]. But it is still radioactive anyway, and it still produces radioactive waste.".