The International Atomic Energy Agency finds no evidence of a “dirty bomb” in Ukraine

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported this Thursday that its inspectors they have not found traces that in Ukraine there has been an attempt to make a “dirty” atomic bombafter inspecting three specific places in the attacked country: “Our technical and scientific evaluation of the results we have so far has not shown any sign of undeclared nuclear activities and materials in these three places”, said, in a statement, the Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi.

Grossi recalled that, in recent days, experts from the UN nuclear agency he directs have carried out “verification activities on the ground in three places in Ukraine, at the request of the Government of this country.” According to Grossi, the inspectors have been able to carry out “all the activities that the IAEA had planned to carry out, and they have had unlimited access to the sites.”

The note recalls that “Ukraine’s written requests for the IAEA to send teams of inspectors were issued after the Russian Federation presented allegations about the activities in the three places.” Those sites inspected They have been the Nuclear Research Institute in kyiv, the Oriental Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Kody and the Production Association of the Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro, the IAEA specifies.

After receiving the request, “I immediately sent inspectors to the three places, to carry out their indispensable technical and independent function of verifying the facts on the ground,” Grossi recalled, stressing that the international experts went to those places ” in a few days”, and “have carried out their control activities in difficult circumstances, during the current conflict in Ukraine”.

In addition, they have collected environmental samples to be analyzed in the laboratories of the agency, which is based in Vienna. Environmental sampling is a measure that can provide information on past and current activities related to the handling of nuclear materials, the note specifies.

Grossi stressed that the agency “remains willing to carry out more verification activities of this type in Ukraine, to verify the absence of undeclared activities and materials and thus deter any misuse of them.”

The Russian government had denounced that Ukraine was trying to create and use an atomic “dirty bomb” on its own territory, blaming Moscow for using weapons of mass destruction and generating a harsh response from the West, an accusation that kyiv has rejected. Also known as a radiological weapon, the dirty bomb is a conventional explosive, such as dynamite, enriched with radioactive material that spreads when the explosive explodes, following a doctrine of use similar to that of chemical weapons.