DISINFO: Westerns tank given to Ukraine could deliver nuclear warheads
SUMMARY
Leopard tanks are capable of transporting and delivering guns containing dirty bombs and nuclear warheads. The "second Cuban Missile Crisis" is maturing.
RESPONSE
New pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative, capitalising on fear of nuclear material and trying to accuse the West of providing weapons to Ukraine with the capability of nuclear strike.
The Russian disinformation campaign aims to discredit the German and American tanks about to be transferred to Ukraine.
German-made Leopard 2 tanks are neither using depleted uranium shells or armor. Even in case these rounds would be used in Ukraine, these are not nuclear weapons or dirty bombs as the article claims, and the health effects would be minimal, as these are armor-piercing rounds, using a more dense material designed to better penetrate main battle tanks by higher kinetic impact.
The radioactivity of depleted uranium is negligible. Under international agreements, munitions containing this isotope are considered neither nuclear nor chemical weapons. See here for further debunking by The Insider (in Russian).
The claim made by Russia about Ukraine’s plans to acquire or detonate a nuclear artifact have been made multiple times, but it had not been backed by any evidence, and some of them have been positively proven as false. Under the Budapest memorandum in 1994, Ukraine promised to remove all Soviet-era nuclear weapons from its territory, send them to disarmament facilities in Russia, and sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Ukraine kept these promises. In return, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States promised that none of them would ever threaten or use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. They specifically pledged they would refrain from making each other's territory the object of military occupation or engage in other uses of force in violation of international law.
Previously Western leaders have rejected Russia's 'dirty bomb' claim, and EU High Representative Josep Borrell dismissed the allegations as false. In addition, diplomats from France, Britain and the United States called Russia’s allegation a pretext that Moscow has developed for escalating the war. The West supports Ukraine with military and financial aid for the country’s efficient self-defence, in accordance with the UN Charter, to stop Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine is going to use a dirty bomb to accuse Russia of using tactical nuclear weapons, that Ukraine asked NATO for preemptive nuclear strikes against Russia, that Ukraine wanted to acquire nuclear weapons because of American pressure, or that Zelenskyy is pushing the world towards a nuclear war.