Russia’s military minister said that Ukraine was getting ready to blow a “dirty bomb” on its own soil, but this was denied by Ukraine and a number of its allies, including the United States. In a series of phone meetings with defense officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented the allegations.
“We deny claims made by Minister Shoygu that Ukraine is prepared to deploy a dirty bomb on its own soil, which are obviously incorrect. Any effort to escalate using this accusation as justification will be exposed by the international community “said Adrienne Watson, a spokesman for the US National Security Council.
A “dirty bomb” releases radioactive elements into the air and contaminates the region around it using conventional explosives. The magnitude of the explosion would determine how large a polluted region would be.
Russian officials have often claimed that Ukraine may launch a dirty bomb in a false flag strike and attribute it to Moscow. In response, Ukrainian officials have charged the Kremlin with coming up with such a scheme.
Ben Wallace, the British defense secretary, sharply refuted Shoigu’s assertion and urged Moscow not to use it as justification for escalation.
In a call with Wallace, Shoigu allegedly “claimed that Ukraine was plotting acts assisted by Western countries, including the UK, to exacerbate the crisis in Ukraine,” according to the British Ministry of Defense.
According to the ministry, “The Defense Secretary denied these charges and stressed that such allegations should not be exploited as a justification for further escalation.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, indicated that Moscow was preparing to place a nuclear device on Ukrainian land in a speech broadcast on Sunday night.
“If Russia calls and claims that Ukraine is purportedly getting ready for anything, it just means that Russia has already gotten ready for everything,” Zelenskyy added.
The possibility of a dirty bomb assault was brought up in Shoigu’s calls, which appeared to suggest that it had reached an unprecedented degree.
According to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, Shoigu warned Sebastien Lecornu, his counterpart, that the situation in Ukraine was “moving towards unmanageable escalation” and was fast becoming worse.
The head of the Council for Foreign and Defense policies, a Moscow-based organization of leading foreign policy experts, Fyodor Lukyanov, who has ties to the Kremlin, said that there “appears to be a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all.”
Russian authorities have reported constructing defensive positions in Russia’s border regions and in Ukraine’s occupied territories. This is in response to concerns that Ukrainian forces may launch attacks along fresh stretches of the war’s 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, which will enter its ninth month on Monday.
Ukraine has mostly targeted the Kherson area with its counteroffensive in recent weeks. The Dnieper River, which divides the southern area, was cut off by their unrelenting artillery attacks, depriving Russian soldiers on the west side of supplies and making them susceptible to encirclement.
Since local authorities strongly advised all residents of the region’s capital and surrounding areas to evacuate by ferry to the river’s east bank on Saturday, Russian defensive lines “have been reinforced,” according to Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the regional administration that Russia has installed in Kherson.
Four regions, including this one, were unlawfully seized by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. On Thursday, martial rule was imposed there. Kherson city has been held by Russia since the beginning of the conflict, but Ukrainian troops have made progress in taking it back.
According to the regional government supported by the Kremlin, some 20,000 Kherson inhabitants have relocated to areas along the east bank of the Dnieper River. The Russian military also removed its commanders from the west bank, according to the Ukrainian military, leaving only recently mobilized, inexperienced men.
It was unable to independently verify the Ukrainian assertion.
Authorities in the western Russian regions bordering northeastern Ukraine seemed uneasy as the country moves south following last month’s liberation of the Kharkiv area in the north.
Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region, said on Sunday that two defense lines had been constructed and a third would be by November 5.
Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said that defensive lines had also been built in the Belgorod area.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rich Russian businessman who controls the Wagner Group, a mercenary military organization that has played a significant part in the conflict, said that more defensive positions were being created in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine.
Another Ukrainian province that Putin unlawfully acquired last month is the Luhansk area, where Prigozhin said his business was building a “Wagner line.” A stretch of recently constructed fortifications and trench systems southeast of the village of Kreminna were shown in pictures uploaded by Prigozhin last week.
The initiative “suggests Russia is making a substantial effort to develop fortifications in depth beyond the existing front line, likely to discourage any swift Ukrainian counteroffensives,” the British Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
Luhansk was taken by Russian soldiers many months ago. Eight years ago, pro-Moscow rebels proclaimed separate republics in the area and nearby Donetsk, and Putin set out to conquer both provinces at the commencement of the conflict.
A Washington-based think tank called the Institute for the Study of War stated on Sunday that Russia’s most recent strategy of attacking power plants appeared designed to weaken Ukrainians’ will to fight and force the government in Kyiv to spend more money protecting civilians and energy infrastructure.
The endeavor, it was said, would have a large economic effect but was unlikely to harm Ukrainian morale.
While acknowledging that it will take longer to provide warmth, President Zelenskyy said on Sunday that utility workers were well on their way to restoring electrical supplies that had been cut off by widespread Russian missile attacks on Saturday.
According to the general command of the Ukrainian army, fresh assaults on electricity and other important infrastructure occurred during the last day in nine areas of the country, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast. More than 100 missile and artillery attacks, totaling 25, were made by Russia near Ukraine.
Zelenskyy responded by pleading with mayors and other local authorities to make sure Ukrainians obey government requests for energy conservation. Bright stores and signage are most certainly not needed right now, he said.