What's going on, what's it about? Threat number one

What's going on, what's it about? Threat number one

And both sides deny the allegations. What kind of weapon is that? Who uses it? And why would it be pointless to use it now?

For now, it's just part of the propaganda war: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Ukraine of wanting to use "dirty bombs." Kiev, he says, plans to carry out such an attack, only to blame it on Russian forces and discredit the Russian leadership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several Western governments strongly reject the accusations. From Kiev's point of view, the matter is exactly the opposite, Zelensky pointed out: it is obvious that Moscow itself has such plans.

"Dirty bombs" are not atomic bombs

"Dirty bombs" are conventional weapons filled with radioactive material that are used under controlled conditions in radiotherapy, food preservation or testing of industrial materials.

"It is not an atomic bomb. It means that a nuclear chain reaction that has enormous explosive power is not started," emphasized Wolfgang Richter, a former Bundeswehr colonel and member of the security policy research group at the German Science and Policy Foundation (SWP), in an interview with DW.

Deadly waves of heat, pressure and suction that spread far, as well as extremely dangerous neutron radiation that can also be carried over long distances by wind and rain - all this happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. But not with a dirty bomb, says Richter. The immediate danger of a dirty bomb hardly outweighs the danger of the explosive charge itself, says a former German colonel. In the long term, however, radiation is at the very least harmful to health, and depending on the amount of radiation a person absorbs, it can be fatal. Depending on the strength of the blast and the level of radioactivity, fairly large areas could become life-threatening for a period of time.

Suppress the fear of radioactive terror

Dirty bombs are nothing new. Until now, however, they have primarily been treated as a terrorist threat. For example, in 2003, police in Tbilisi, Georgia, and their counterparts in Bangkok, Hong Kong, seized two illegal shipments of radioactive cesium and strontium that could have been used to make a dirty car bomb in short order.

Such an explosive device would require a large-scale evacuation of a densely populated area and remediation that would cost billions of dollars, Gebhard Geiger, a researcher at the SWP, wrote at the time. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. lawyer and journalist Stephen Brill reflected on the topic in his article entitled "Are We Safer" (2016) for the political magazine "The Atlantic".

He writes there that in 2013 and 2014 alone, as many as 325 cases of lost or stolen radioactive material were reported - undetected or concealed losses are not included. Brill accuses politicians of not paying adequate attention to this danger.

Psychological effect greater than physical?

An attack in downtown Washington with a dirty bomb, the kind terrorists would likely use, could radioactively contaminate 40 apartment blocks and cost billions to decontamination, Brill writes.

However, according to Brill, experts estimate that, even without evacuation, only slightly more than 50 people would have died from the effects of radiation. "That's the number of casualties that could probably be offset by an anti-smoking campaign in one or two Washington office buildings," Brill writes.

The greatest danger from such a terrorist attack could therefore be the panic it causes. Politicians must therefore inform the population in order to remove the fear of the threat of a "dirty bomb".

Dirty bombs comparable to Chernobyl

However, a professionally made dirty bomb of military design could be much larger. "You can think of it as the release of radiation in a nuclear power plant accident, for example in Chernobyl," says SWP researcher Richter.

In 1986, one of the reactors failed at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. Since then, there is a prohibited zone in a radius of 30 kilometers around the place of the accident.

A dirty bomb attack would be 'pointless' for Russia

However, for different reasons, former Bundeswehr colonel Wolfgang Richter believes that it is unlikely that Russia is planning such an attack. First, it would contradict mobilization: "Russia is counting on intensifying the war by conventional means." Second, there is a risk that the wind will blow radioactive radiation in the direction of Russian units. And third, it would contaminate in the long term the areas and parts of the population that the Kremlin attributes to Russia: "That's why I think that the use of such a bomb is not only irresponsible, but also quite senseless."

Richter sees the danger of escalation primarily in speculations about the use of dirty bombs - and that from both sides: "Ukraine has already talked about a preventive strike against a possible nuclear attack by Russia."