In the UK, on March 21, they announced that they would supply Ukraine with depleted uranium shellsTASS-DOSSIER.
On March 21, British Deputy Defense Minister Baroness Annabel Goldie announced that the United Kingdom would supply Ukraine with shells containing depleted uranium and having increased efficiency in destroying armored vehicles. On March 22, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said on Sputnik radio that the use of depleted uranium ammunition is genocide against the population of the territories where this type of weapon is used.
About this metal, its properties and the potential risk of its use - in the TASS material.
Basic information
Depleted uranium (OU) is a toxic heavy metal, the main by-product of the manufacture of fuel for a number of types of nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. In the manufacture of such fuel, natural uranium is enriched by increasing its content of the isotope U-235, which provides nuclear fission. After receiving enriched uranium, a mixture remains - depleted uranium, which contains reduced amounts of isotopes U-235 and U-234. This mixture is 60% less radioactive than natural uranium. Chemically, the OP behaves in the same way as natural uranium. It is a very high density metal - twice the density of lead. It can be used as ballast in ships and aircraft, as well as for the manufacture of multilayer armor (in particular, in modifications of American Abrams tanks) and cores for armor-piercing sub-caliber shells. A thin, heavy and heavy-duty arrow-the core of such a projectile does not meet much air resistance in flight and can penetrate armor, releasing large kinetic energy. When ammunition collides with an op-amp with armor, uranium oxide dust is released.
Ammunition with OU began to enter service with the US Army in the 1970s and was first used in a combat situation by the US military in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. Later, they were used by NATO forces in the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and other military conflicts. Ammunition with OU is in service with the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, and the armies of other countries. Open data on stocks of such shells is not published.
The British Ministry of Defense calls depleted uranium a standard component of armor-piercing ammunition that has "nothing to do with nuclear weapons."
Potential danger
Various government officials, public figures and doctors in different countries have repeatedly expressed concern that, due to its chemical and radiological properties, depleted uranium from ammunition left in conflict areas can be dangerous to people and the environment. A number of veterans of military conflicts from the United States and the United Kingdom attribute their health problems to the effects of ammunition with OU. Several military personnel who were part of the NATO contingent in Yugoslavia were diagnosed with leukemia. Also, in areas where shells with OU were used during conflicts, a number of studies revealed a significant increase in the number of oncological diseases and malformations in children.
Depleted uranium is poorly radioactive (the half-life of U-238 exceeds 4.5 billion years). According to the estimates of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ammunition with OU "does not seem to pose a significant risk to health from a radiological point of view." According to the calculations of the IAEA, in the case of inhalation of an OU aerosol - for example, when a projectile from an OU hits a military vehicle - the effective dose of radiation exposure can reach several millisieverts, m3. According to the International Basic Safety Standards, the limits of the annual radiation dose for persons from the population and for workers with access to radioactive materials are 1 mSv and 20 mSv, respectively. The agency clarifies that only "limited studies" were carried out in conflict areas where ammunition with OU was used. The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has concluded that no clinically significant deviations associated with exposure to radioactive radiation of the OP have been recorded by available scientific research. In the resolution on the use of depleted uranium, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018, the threat in case of contamination of the territory with small particles of OU is also called insignificant. At the same time, the UN makes a reservation about the incompleteness of the studies carried out and believes that there is still a "potential" danger of radiation exposure to people who are in contact with fragments or whole ammunition from the OP. The US Environmental Protection Agency warns citizens about the dangers of OU if it enters the human body.
