Forces loyal to the regime in Kiev may be preparing to detonate a “dirty bomb” – a conventional explosive device laden with radioactive material designed to contaminate environment – as part of Ukraine’s campaign of provocations against Russia, Russian military correspondents report.
According to these reports, “special warheads” prepared to carry out this attack have already been delivered to the Dnepropetrovsk Region.
The attack may involve strikes against spent nuclear fuel rods storage areas either at Kursk or at Zaporozhye nuclear power plants.
The veracity of these reports, however, is yet to be confirmed.
Russian military-civilian administration for the Kharkov Region also reported that several captured Ukrainian militants claimed Ukraine plans to attack Russian nuclear facilities. Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant were named as possible targets for these attacks.
A Russian security source told Sputnik that Ukrainian forces plan to attack Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant using munitions with “warheads containing radioactive material.”
The attack planned by the Ukrainian forces on the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants is being supervised by Western intelligence services, mainly Britain, Sergei Lebedev, coordinator of the pro-Russian underground, told Sputnik.
"According to operational data, which are confirmed from various sides, Banderites are planning to carry out a missile attack with NATO weapons on the Kursk and Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plants in the near future. Western intelligence agencies, mainly UK ones, are supervising the terrorist attack. Long-range missiles do not fly to targets without their knowledge," Lebedev said, adding that a large number of Western journalists have come to the Sumy and Zaporozhye regions.
A large number of Western journalists have traveled to Sumy and Zaporozhye amid Kiev's preparation of an attack on the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants, Lebedev highlighted.
The personnel of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant are fully ensuring the safety of the facility's operation amid reports of a possible attack, Communications Director Yevgeniya Yashina said.
"We are fully ensuring the safe operation of the nuclear power plant," Yashina said.
Russian political analyst Rostislav Ishschenko suggested this week that a nuclear provocation would be the only option left for Ukraine and its Western sponsors, since a provocation involving biological weapons can easily spiral out of control and a chemical weapons provocation lost its “potential” after being used too often by the US in Syria.
According to Ishchenko, Ukraine is unlikely to use a dirty bomb for this sort of provocation to implicate Russia as trying to accuse a country that controls one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world of using such “ersatz-weapon” would simply be absurd.
Thus, he suggests, this provocation could involve “American tactical low-yield” warheads detonated in one of Ukraine’s large cities - Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk or Odessa – in order to blame this attack on Russia.
“This nuclear strike would cause death and destruction sufficient to make a most negative impression on the world,” Ishchenko said.
Another possibility, the analyst noted, would be using several half-kiloton warheads to destroy the dams and bridges on the Dnepr River, in order to claim that Russia thus tried to cut off the Ukrainian forces on the left bank of Dnepr.