DISINFO: Ukraine plans a provocation using a "dirty bomb" to portray Russia as a nuclear terrorist

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

AI translations:

DISINFO: Ukraine plans a provocation using a "dirty bomb" to portray Russia as a nuclear terrorist

SUMMARY

According to the information available to us, two Ukrainian organisations have been given specific tasks to create a "dirty bomb". The works are at the final stage.

Ukraine, with the "dirty bomb" provocation, hopes to intimidate the local population, as a result of which the flow of refugees to Europe will increase, and Russia will be showcased as a nuclear terrorist.

RESPONSE

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about false flag operations, claiming that Ukraine is staging a false-flag attack on its own territory in order to blame Russia. Such claims are a part of a broader pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign accompanying the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, trying to place the blame for the war's atrocities on Ukraine.

Moscow has a history of falsely accusing its opponents of staging "provocations" which either never happened at all or were subsequently carried out by themselves or their allies.

There is no evidence to back the claim that Ukraine is preparing a dirty bomb. Оn the contrary, diplomats from France, Britain and the United States called Russia’s allegation a pretext that Moscow has concocted for escalating the war.

In the statement, the governments of France, UK and US confirmed that their Defence Ministers had each spoken with the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and rejected “Russia’s transparently false allegations” about a dirty bomb.

Russia has not publicly offered evidence to back up the accusations and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has called the statements “lies.”

NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned Russia over its "false" claim that Kyiv might use a "dirty bomb" - conventional explosives laced with radioactive material. Stoltenberg tweeted that the NATO allies "reject this allegation" and "Russia must not use it as a pretext for escalation".

Ukraine asked the IAEA to "immediately send experts to peaceful facilities in Ukraine, which the Russian Federation falsely describes as sites for the development of a 'dirty bomb'."

Оn the contrary, the West has real concerns’ Russia could use nuclear weapons. It is Russia who is making irresponsible hints and statements about the possibility of using nuclear arms in its war against Ukraine. For several years now the Russian infosphere has seen nuclear threats being made against the west by figures like Dmitry Kiselyov or Vladimir Zhirinovsky are famous for this. Other Russian officials to make such statements are Dmitry Medvedev, Ramzan Kadyrov, Margarita Simonyan or even Vladimir Putin who specified that “it was not a bluff”.

Ukraine has been a nuclear-free country since 1994 when the Budapest memorandum was signed.

Read similar cases claiming that Kyiv prepares chemical attacks to blame the Russian army, that Ukraine is under control of the West and staged fakes about Bucha, Mariupol and Kramatorsk, that West needs provocations to accuse the Russian military of using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Ukraine and that Ukraine aims to use Turkish Bayraktars for chemical attacks.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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