CBRN
In the shadow of the bomb
With the Russian invasion force in a stalemate and increasingly charged rhetoric around the possession of dirty bombs and biological weapons, the CBRN threat hanging over Ukraine grows by the day. Nicholas Kenny speaks with Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former UK and Nato commander of CBRN forces, and Antonella Cavallo, rescEU CBRN technical lead at the European Commission, to learn about why concerns are growing and what is being done to help protect the Ukrainian people from such an attack.
I
n April and May 1986, heavy rainfall across the hills of northern Wales would leave decades- worth of consequences for the local farmers. Alarming quantities of radioactive caesium and iodine were detected in the soil, resulting in authorities issuing a blanket ban on the sale of all farm animals in the affected area, threatening livelihoods and creating panic among the locals. This contamination had spread all the way from Ukraine, stemming from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April. This event is believed to have caused the deaths of at least 4,000 people, resulting in untold numbers of children born with abnormalities, and forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 Ukrainians and Belarussians. In total, 344 Welsh farms were put under restrictions, with their animals’ radiation levels monitored before they could be sold at market. The number of failing animals peaked in 1992, but some still recorded higher levels of caesium as recently as 2011. Roughly 300 farms were still under restrictions as late as 2012, when they were finally lifted. The continent-wide effects of the Chernobyl disaster come to mind when listening to the claims and accusations around the topic of CBRN threats coming out of the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has, at several points, issued claims directed at Ukraine over its supposed development of a ‘dirty bomb’. Needless to say, no evidence was provided. The Ukrainians, naturally, were outraged. “We neither have any ‘dirty bombs’, nor plan to acquire any,” said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in direct response to Putin. “Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves.” The escalation of this rhetoric around CBRN threats has, as Kuleba noted, created fears that Russia is planting the seeds for deniability over the use of its own CRBN capabilities.
40 Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
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