Putin: Russia will react to the West's use of weapons with a nuclear componentMOSCOW, 21 Mar — RIA Novosti.
Russia will be forced to react if the collective West starts using weapons with a nuclear component, President Vladimir Putin said after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Head of State made such a warning after information appeared about Britain's plans to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium shells.
"Today it became known that the United Kingdom, through the mouth of the deputy head of the Ministry of Defense of the country, announced not only the supply of tanks to Ukraine, but also depleted uranium shells. It seems that the West has really decided to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, not in words, but in deeds," Putin said.
American troops used depleted uranium shells during Operation Desert Storm, during the bombing of Yugoslavia and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As experts have noted, this can lead to outbreaks of cancer. According to military expert Konstantin Sivkov, the use of such projectiles should be considered as a "dirty weapon": uranium dust settling on the ground is radioactive, extremely toxic and not susceptible to decontamination.
According to the president, if all this turns out to be true, Russia will be forced to react accordingly.
On Tuesday afternoon, British Deputy Defense Minister Annabel Goldie said that in addition to sending a squadron of Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, London will also transfer ammunition to the APU, including armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium.
As the head of the Russian delegation at the talks in Vienna on military security and arms control Konstantin Gavrilov noted, in January Moscow had already warned that the Leopard 2 tanks, Bradley and Marder armored personnel carriers supplied by the AFU could have subcalibre armor-piercing shells with uranium cores. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in turn, stressed that Russia "has something to answer with."
