On Saturday, Vladimir Putin spoke about the issue of transferring uranium-core shells from the United Kingdom to Ukraine.
He also acknowledged that the Russian Armed Forces possess bullets that contain depleted uranium. He stated on Rossiya 24 that Russia has hundreds of thousands of such shells, and they are not being deployed at the moment. Putin warned that these shells could pose risks to people because of radiation dust, citing studies from Iraq and the former Yugoslavia where depleted uranium munitions were used. He noted that weapons used in Ukraine could harm agricultural land as well as people.
Putin asked how such ammunition would be used against people who use it themselves, suggesting that residues would create dust in areas where they are employed and could pollute cultivated lands. He described these shells as among the most harmful and dangerous to humans.
TNW in Belarus
In this context, Putin warned that Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be deployed on Belarusian territory. He said that at the Belarusian side’s request, Russia would place its tactical nuclear weapons in the republic, just as the United States has long done in allied countries.
The president added that construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons would be completed soon in Belarus and that Belarusian aircraft and possibly Iskander missile systems transferred from Russia to the Belarusian army could be equipped with them. He noted that even outside these events, Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the question of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil. He reminded that U S nuclear weapons are located in Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and that there is a storage facility for nuclear weapons in Greece.
On March 22, Lukashenko said Moscow could supply real uranium ammunition to Minsk if Britain sent depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, and warned that the Russian reaction to their use would be a terrible lesson for the entire planet.
Question about uranium
The UK Ministry of Defence has previously announced plans to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium core armor-piercing shells alongside Challenger 2 tanks. The War Department said such shells have nothing to do with nuclear weapons. The United States backed its allies, calling these shells traditional, and asserted through its own research that depleted uranium does not pose a radioactive hazard.
Depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing sub-caliber projectiles and in cartridges for aircraft weapons. The United States military employed them during Desert Storm in 1991, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, notably in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Guardian reported that the United States used around 822,000 depleted uranium munitions during those conflicts. The use of depleted uranium shells is not regulated by any contract or treaty. The United Nations has described them as a class of weapons that are new, and the UN Disarmament Research Institute has argued that depleted uranium does not meet the legal definitions of nuclear, radioactive, toxic, chemical, or flammable weapons because solid-core bullets are not designed to kill or injure through chemical or radioactive action.
Residual damage from their use during hostilities remains controversial, with differing viewpoints on environmental and health consequences. Uranium itself is a highly toxic metal, though it is no more dangerous than mercury or arsenic when unenriched and not consumed. The main danger arises from dust released by the ammunition and its decay over time, which could theoretically contaminate the ground nearby.
The World Health Organization warns that inhaling depleted uranium particles can raise the risk of developing leukemia by up to 2 percent. The United Nations Environment Programme has reported that firing depleted uranium shells in Bosnia and Kosovo had no measurable effect on the environment, the population, or combatants in their view. Depleted uranium core ammunition was developed in the USSR during the Cold War for tanks such as the T-64, T-72, T-80 and T-90.
Environmental groups have repeatedly called for a ban on depleted uranium use. Serbian health officials have linked such bullets to higher cancer rates and have advocated prohibitions. A Serbian official cited experiences near the Albania-Montenegro border as associated with cancers, infertility, autoimmune issues, and pregnancy problems among those exposed to the material. In 2001 the BBC reported that leading experts briefed UK Parliament on the dangers of depleted uranium. A professor from the University of Jacksonville argued that the claim of no hazard from depleted uranium was unfounded, pointing out that much of the uranium entering the lungs dissolves and reaches the bloodstream.