MOSCOW, 23 June. /TASS/. The Ukrainian government does not have a "dirty bomb" and has no intention of creating one, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said.
On June 19, the press office of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) told TASS that Kiev may have continued work on creating a "dirty" nuclear bomb, i.e. a piece of ordnance filled with explosives and radioactive substances, the detonation of which would lead to radiation contamination over a large territory. According to the agency, the Russian side also received data on the Ukrainian authorities' decision to send a batch of spent nuclear fuel from the Rovno Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) for reprocessing.
"Ukraine has never had, does not have, and does not plan to acquire ‘dirty bombs,'" Kuleba wrote on his Twitter page.
Earlier, former Ukrainian Presidential Aide Alexey Arestovich (listed as a terrorist and extremist by Russian financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring) said that Ukraine could create nuclear weapons on short notice. According to him, as a security guarantee, Kiev must either be admitted to NATO "in one day" or Ukraine will create its own nuclear weapons.
Interestingly, all of this is happening against the background of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's attempts to accuse Russia of allegedly preparing a terrorist attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Without any evidence, he had alerted the US, Brazil, India and China, as well as European, Middle and Far Eastern, and African countries about an alleged terrorist act being prepared by Russia at the Zaporozhye NPP involving the release of radiation. The video message was posted just hours after it was announced that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi would arrive in Russia on June 23. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed Zelensky's statement as "yet another lie.".