Putin accuses Ukraine of preparing a Dirty Bomb. What is it and why is it much less powerful than an actual nuclear weapon?
No, a Dirty Bomb is not a nuclear weapon, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin tells otherwise. We will get into the differences between the two devices later in the article, focusing first on Putin’s baseless claims.
Initially, it had been the Kremlin to accuse the United States and Ukraine of preparing a dirty bomb to be launched in their own territory. Yesterday, however, Vladimir Putin joined the band-wagon and accused the United States of using Ukraine as a testing ground for military experiments. A claim that both Washington and Kyiv rejected as “absurd”.
Putin launched this provocation at the Commonwealth of Independent States meeting. This is an international organization made of ex-soviet countries still politically close to Russia. The two European members (other than Russia) are Belarus and Moldova, while the rest are all Central Asian countries.
At the summit, Putin mirrored the words initially said by Kremlin’s high officials. “The purpose of this provocation is to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction in the Ukrainian theater of operations and thereby launch a powerful anti-Russian campaign in the world aimed at undermining confidence in Moscow,” said army chief Igor Kirillov.
Russian claims, therefore, are that Ukraine would launch a dirty bomb into their own territory and blame Moscow for it. This, always according to the Kremlin, would be done colluding with US military forces. Launching a self-inflicted dirty bomb is, however, highly unlikely to happen. To understand why, we first have to see what a dirty bomb is.
What is a dirty bomb and how is it different from a nuclear weapon
Both a nuclear weapon and a dirty bomb have atomic tools built within it, with one major difference. A nuclear weapon uses radioactive elements as fuel, meaning that the explosion is caused by them. In a dirty bomb (whose technical name is radiological dispersal device), the explosion is caused by conventional dynamite.
An atomic explosion is immensely more powerful than the one caused by a dirty bomb. An atomic bomb will literally make every object in its vicinity disappear. Every building, natural element and human being within a certain radius of the nuclear explosion would be literally vaporized. Then, the nuclear bomb will also cause countless deaths due to its shock wave, its radioactive fallout and its heat wave.
In a dirty bomb, on the other hand, the radioactive elements are put next to the dynamite. The explosion disperses such elements into the atmosphere, and the damage is extremely limited. The death toll would remain in the tens of people, for short and long term damage (compared to the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons). While a nuclear weapon is extremely precise, a dirty bomb is subjected to winds and rains to make damage.
Given that both Ukraine and Russia have at their disposal much stronger weapons than a dirty bomb (even non-nuclear), why would one ever be used? Even if it was used by Ukraine to accuse Russia, it would hardly be considered an escalation by Moscow.
Therefore, Putin’s claim of the use of a dirty bomb are simply unsubstantiated.
