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Putin: Russia Will be Forced to React if West Starts Using Weapons With Nuclear Components

© Sputnik / Aleksey Nikolskyi / Go to the mediabankRussian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin - Sputnik International, 1920, 21.03.2023
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UK Minister of State for Defense Annabel Goldie said on Tuesday that London would provide Ukraine with armor piercing shells for the Challenger 2 main battle tanks it has decided to send to Kiev, including depleted uranium ammunition.
“Today it became known that the United Kingdom, through its deputy head of the ministry of defense, announced not only the supply of tanks to Ukraine, but also shells with depleted uranium," Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that "it seems that the West really decided to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, not in words, but in deed."
"I would like to note in this regard that if all this happens, then Russia will be forced to react accordingly - I mean that the Collective West is already starting to use weapons with a nuclear component," Putin added.
His comments came after meetings with a delegation of high-level Chinese officials, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Later in the day, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu warned the United Kingdom that there would be few red lines left uncrossed if it delivered on its promise to give Ukraine depleted uranium weapons.
"I can only say this: We are running out of red lines … Another line has been crossed and there are fewer and fewer of them left," he told reporters in Moscow.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium refining process composed of uranium-238, which is not useful for generating nuclear chain reactions but which is extremely dense and used to make armor-piercing ammunition. However, it still possesses radioactive properties that can be very harmful to humans and is highly toxic, making it a dangerous weapon long after the engagement in which it was fired.
Specialists inspecting radiation levels in Kosovo in 2001, two years after the 1999 NATO bombings. Screengrab from archival video. - Sputnik International, 1920, 23.07.2022
Serbs Bombed by NATO in 1999 Show Levels of Uranium in Bloodstreams Hundreds of Times Above Norm
Sites in Iraq and Yugoslavia which US forces used depleted uranium to attack have been associated with increases in birth defects and rare forms of cancer associated with exposure to radioactive materials, including depleted uranium and related radioactive isotopes.

While Moscow has repeatedly warned about the creeping danger of some kind of nuclear exchange as a result of NATO's support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, Western governments and media have tried to spin such warnings as being threats about the use of nuclear weapons. Putin has since made it explicitly clear that Moscow intends to maintain its no-first-use policy regarding nuclear weapons.

Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine in February 2022 after months of negotiations with Kiev and NATO failed to yield a situation that respected Moscow's security red lines, most especially regarding Ukraine's prospective membership in the alliance and the possibility of NATO weapons being stationed on Russia's borders. The operation aims to neutralize that possibility.
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