Western officials have denied Russia’s latest claim that Ukraine is planning to use a dirty bomb within their borders, calling the accusation “transparently false.”
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The foreign ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, and France released a joint statement on Sunday evening explaining their country’s defense ministers all spoke with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday at his request.
“Our countries made clear that we all reject Russia’s transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory,” the statement added. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation. We further reject any pretext for escalation by Russia.”
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Shoigu’s conversation with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was the second one within the last couple days after the two went months without speaking directly. Austin “rejected any pretext for Russian escalation and reaffirmed the value of continued communication amid Russia’s unlawful and unjustified war against Ukraine,” according to a readout of the call by Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
The Russian defense leader, in his conversation with U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, alleged that Ukraine “was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the U.K., to escalate the conflict in Ukraine,” though Wallace “refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” according to a readout from the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
In furthering their claim, Russia is preparing to raise the issue of Ukraine’s alleged preparation of a dirty bomb at international forums, including the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference on Monday.
“We have also taken the necessary steps to raise this issue in international structures, first of all in the UN in New York, and today our representatives will do this hoping for an informed and professional discussion of the problems that we will touch upon,” he said, according to Tass. He also claimed that “this is not a groundless suspicion” but that “there are serious reasons to believe that such things could be planned.”
Throughout the eight-month war, Russian leaders have repeatedly shared falsehoods both about their own military operations and those of Ukrainian forces, including in their justification of the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin, and many others, have repeatedly accused the Ukrainian government to be overrun by “Nazis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the accusation in his nightly address and accused Russian military leaders of planning to do exactly what they claimed Ukrainian forces are preparing.
“It was Russia who blackmailed with the radiation disaster at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant … Russian troops who mined the dam and aggregates of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant are blackmailing with their detonation,” he said. “It is Russia that uses phosphorus munitions, banned anti-personnel mines, and the entire range of weapons against civilian infrastructure.”
“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this,” he said. “I believe that now the world should react in the toughest possible way.”
Late last week, the Ukrainian leader alleged that Russia is preparing a “false flag” operation to blow up the Kakhovka plant and blame it on the Ukrainians, though U.S. officials could not confirm the intelligence at the time.
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The Institute for the Study of War reported last week that the false flag operation may be designed to “cover their retreat from the right bank of the Dnipro River and prevent or delay Ukrainian advances across the river.”
Commander of Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine Army Gen. Sergey Surovikin claimed that Kyiv was intending to strike the dam, which the institute claimed was done “to set information conditions for Russian forces to damage the dam and blame Ukraine for the subsequent damage and loss of life, all while using the resulting floods to cover their own retreat further south into Kherson Oblast.”
