[CPEO-MEF] URANIUM, GLOBAL: "Radioactive ammo? A look at the uranium-based munitions Britain is sending to Ukraine"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Radioactive ammo? A look at the uranium-based munitions Britain is sending to Ukraine


BY TARA COPP
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARCH 23, 2023 

WASHINGTON —  Russia threatened to escalate attacks in Ukraine after Britain announced this week that it would provide a type of munition to Ukraine that Moscow falsely claims has nuclear components. 
The British Defense Ministry confirmed Monday that it would provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium. Such rounds were developed by the U.S. during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine now faces in its push to break through a stalemate in the eastern Donbas region.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium-enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds retain some radioactive properties, but they can’t generate a nuclear reaction the way a nuclear weapon would, Rand nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist said. 

That didn’t stop Russia from issuing a full-throated warning that the rounds were opening the door to further escalation. In the past, Moscow has suggested that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a nuclear conflict. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-23/uk-sending-uranium-based-ammunition-ukraine

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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