Russia’s Putin blasts UK move to send depleted uranium tank ammunition to Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned British plans to send tank ammunition that contains depleted uranium to Ukraine, saying Moscow would be forced to respond accordingly. Speaking in London on Monday, Minister of State for Defence Annabel Goldie said some of the ammunition for the Challenger 2 battle tanks that Britain is sending to Ukraine includes armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. “Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles,” Goldie said. “If all this happens, Russian will have to respond accordingly, given that the West collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component,” Putin said in remarks after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow. He did not elaborate. In reaction, a UK Defence Ministry spokesman said: “The British Army has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades. It is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities. “Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to disinform.” Ukraine says eastern town could become ‘second Bakhmut’ The spokesman added that independent research had assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions was “likely to be low”. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the nuclear enriching process used to make nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. It is around 60 per cent as radioactive as natural uranium. Its heaviness lends itself for use in armour piercing rounds as it helps them easily penetrate steel. It is a particular health risk around impact sites, where dust can get into people’s lungs and vital organs. The United Nations Environment Program has described it as a “chemically and radiologically toxic heavy metal”. Anti-nuclear organisation CND condemned the decision to send the ammunition, calling it an “additional environmental and health disaster for those living through the conflict” as toxic or radioactive dust can be released on impact. “CND has repeatedly called for the UK government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons and to fund long-term studies into their health and environmental impacts,” said CND general secretary Kate Hudson. The munitions were used in conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, and were suspected of being a possible cause of “Gulf War syndrome”, a collection of debilitating symptoms suffered by veterans of the 1990-91 war. Russian politicians and commentators have made a series of combative remarks since the invasion of Ukraine last year, suggesting Moscow would – if necessary – be prepared to deploy its vast nuclear arsenal. Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the British decision left fewer and fewer steps before a potential “nuclear collision” between Russia and the West. ‘I really feel great anger’: Japan PM visits Ukraine’s Bucha massacre site “Another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left,” he told reporters in remarks cited by domestic agencies. “Naturally, Russia has something to answer this with,” Shoigu told reporters when asked about the ammunition. Meanwhile in the United States, a Pentagon spokesman said the Biden administration will speed up delivery of American M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine by nine months, with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces now expected to receive them by autumn. In coordination with Kyiv, Washington “made the decision to provide the M1A1 variant of the Abrams tank,” Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told journalists. This “will enable us to significantly expedite delivery timelines and deliver this important capability to Ukraine by the fall of this year”. Ryder said the tanks would give Ukraine “a very similar capability to the M1A2” that Washington had originally intended to provide, but declined to go into specifics about differences between the variants. M1A2s were expected to take more than a year, Ryder said, a timeline that would have put deliveries sometime in 2024. Ukraine will also receive advanced Patriot air defences sooner than originally anticipated. “We’re confident that we’ll be able to get the Patriots there on an expedited timeline,” Ryder said, noting that Ukrainians being trained on the system “went faster than expected, just given their propensity and their eagerness to do the training”. The United States has spearheaded the push for international support for Ukraine, quickly forging an international coalition to back Kyiv and coordinating aid from dozens of countries. Reuters, Agence France-Presse and dpa

Russia’s Putin blasts UK move to send depleted uranium tank ammunition to Ukraine

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Britain says the armour piercing ammunition is highly effective in defeating modern tanks Putin’s warning comes as the US aims to speed up Abrams deliveries to the Ukraine war zone

Britain says the armour piercing ammunition is highly effective in defeating modern tanks

Putin’s warning comes as the US aims to speed up Abrams deliveries to the Ukraine war zone