Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba calls Russia the "world's top liar" after investigators disprove Moscow's "dirty bomb" allegations against Kyiv.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have finished their verification activities at three locations in Ukraine following a request from the Ukrainian government. They said that they did not find any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials, as revealed in a statement by IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi on Thursday.
No Evidence of "Dirty Bombs"
The Ukrainian government made the request following Russia's accusations that there were activities relating to the possible production of "dirty bombs" in the said three locations. These areas were: the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv; the Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Vody; and the Production Association Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro.
The IAEA's statement wrote that in the past few days, the inspectors were able to carry out all of the activities that the agency planned to conduct. Furthermore, the investigators were given unfettered access to all of the locations they needed to survey, as per CNN.
Furthermore, the agency said that based on its investigators' evaluation of the results available to date and the information that Ukraine provided, there was no indication or evidence of dirty bombs or undeclared nuclear materials.
In a Thursday tweet, Kuleba said that IAEA has successfully checked three Ukrainian facilities and expressed his gratitude to Gross for the agency's excellent and prompt cooperation. A so-called dirty bomb is a weapon that combines conventional explosives such as dynamite and radioactive material such as uranium.
According to Aljazeera, the IAEA inspectors also took environmental samples that would later be sent off for lab analysis and report back on the results. The Russian claims of Ukraine's dirty bomb came after Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's UN ambassador, sent a letter to members of the UN Security Council last week.
The Use of Nuclear Weapons
The Russian official claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky handed direct orders to his country's nuclear research facility and the mining company to develop such a weapon. Despite Nebenzia's claims, Moscow has not provided evidence to support the allegations of a dirty bomb.
The situation has prompted several Ukrainian and Western officials to accuse Moscow of making the allegation to shield itself from suspicions that it could detonate its own dirty bomb and blame Kyiv.
It also comes as United States authorities said that Russian military leaders were discussing the use of nuclear weapons in their war on Ukraine. There have been concerns that senior Russian military officials were talking about when and how they would use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine.
The talks contributed to rising concerns in Washington and allied capitals regarding the lengths that Moscow would go to claim victory. It was thought that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not part of the talks, which were held against the backdrop of Russia's intensifying nuclear rhetoric and battlefield setbacks.
However, the idea that Russian military leaders even had such discussions caused worry for the Biden administration. This is because the talks showed that frustrated Russian generals were not satisfied with their failures on the ground, the New York Times reported.
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