Tag: dirty bombs

Ukrainians face nuclear threat with grit and dark humor

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KYIV, Ukraine — Dmytro Bondarenko is ready for the worst.

He’s filled the storage area under his fold-up bed and just about every other nook of his apartment in eastern Kyiv with water and nonperishable food. There are rolls of packing tape to seal the windows from radioactive fallout. He has a gas-fired camping stove and walkie-talkies.

There’s even an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun for protection, along with boxes of ammo. Fuel canisters and spare tires are stashed by his washing machine in case he needs to leave the city in a hurry.

“Any preparation can increase my chance to survive,” he said, wearing a knife and a first-aid kit.

With the Russian invasion in its ninth month, many Ukrainians no longer ask if their country will be hit by nuclear weapons. They are actively preparing for that once-unthinkable possibility.

Over dinner tables and in bars, people often discuss which city would be the most likely target or what type of weapon could be used. Many, like Bondarenko, are stocking up on supplies and making survival plans.

Nobody wants to believe it can happen, but it seems to be on the mind of many in Ukraine, which saw the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986.

“Of course Ukraine takes this threat seriously, because we understand what kind of country we are dealing with,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to Russia.

The Kremlin has made unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine is preparing a “dirty bomb” in Russian-occupied areas — an explosive to scatter radioactive material and sow fear. Kyiv strenuously denied it and said such statements are more probably a sign that Moscow is itself preparing such a bomb and blame it on Ukraine.

MEMORIES OF CHERNOBYL

The nuclear fears trigger painful memories from those who lived through the Chernobyl disaster, when one of four reactors exploded and burned about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kyiv, releasing a plume of radiation. Soviet authorities initially kept the accident secret, and while the town near the plant was evacuated, Kyiv was not.

Svitlana Bozhko was a 26-year-old journalist in Kyiv who was seven months pregnant at the time of the accident, and she believed official statements that played it down. But her husband, who had spoken to a physicist, convinced her to flee with him to the southeastern Poltava region, and she realized the threat when she saw radiation monitors and officials rinsing the tires of cars leaving Kyiv.

Those fears worried Bozhko for the rest of her pregnancy, and when her daughter was born, her first question was: “How many fingers does my child have?” That daughter, who was healthy, now has a 1-year-old of her own and left Kyiv the month after Russia invaded.

Still living in Kyiv at age 62, Bozhko had hoped she would never have to go through something like that again. But all those fears returned when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent in his forces on Feb. 24.

“It was a deja vu,” she told AP. “Once again, the feelings of tragedy and helplessness overwhelmed me.”

The capital again is preparing for the release of radioactivity, with more than 1,000 personnel trained to respond, said Roman Tkachuk, head of the capital’s Municipal Security Department. It has bought a large number of potassium iodide pills and protective equipment for distribution, he added.

CASUAL TALK AND DARK HUMOR ABOUT NUKES

With all the high-level talk from Moscow, Washington and Kyiv about atomic threats, Ukrainians’ conversations these days are studded with phrases like “strategic and tactical nuclear weapons,” “ potassium iodide pills,” “radiation masks,” “plastic raincoats,” and “hermetically sealed food.”

Bondarenko said he started making nuclear survival plans when Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest in Europe — was affected by Russian attacks.

The 33-year-old app designer figures he’s got enough supplies to survive for a couple of weeks and more than enough fuel to leave the country or move deep into the mountains if nuclear disaster strikes.

He moved from the Donetsk region several years ago after it was threatened by pro-Moscow separatists. He hoped for a calm life in Kyiv but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a more isolated life in his apartment, and the war accelerated his survival plans.

His supplies include 200 liters (53 gallons) of water, potassium iodide pills to protect his thyroid from radiation, respirator face masks and disposable booties to guard against contaminated soil.

Bondarenko said he can’t be sure he would be safe from a Russian nuclear strike but believes it’s better to be prepared because “they’re crazy.”

Websites offer tips for surviving a dirty bomb while TikTok has multiple posts of people packing “nuclear luggage” to make a quick getaway and offering advice on what to do in case of a nuclear attack.

October has seen “huge spikes” of Ukrainian visits to NUKEMAP, a website that allows users to simulate an atomic bomb dropped on a given location, according to its creator, Alex Wellerstein.

The anxiety has prompted dark humor. More than 8,000 people joined a chat on the Telegram messaging service after a tweeted joke that in case of a nuclear strike, survivors should go to Kyiv’s Schekavytsia Hill for an orgy.

On the serious side, mental health experts say having a support network is key to remaining resilient during uncertain times.

“That’s often the case in Ukraine and also you need to have the feeling that you can cope with this. And there is this group feeling (that is) quite strong,” said Dr, Koen Sevenants, lead for mental health and psychosocial support for global child protection for UNICEF.

However, he said extended periods under threat can lead to a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and depression. While a level of normalization can set in, that can change when threats increase.

FRONT-LINE FATIGUE

Those living near the war’s front line, like residents of Mykolaiv, say they often are too exhausted to think about new threats, since they have endured almost constant shelling. The city 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Kyiv is the closest to Kherson, where battles are raging.

“Whether I believe it or not, we must prepare” for the nuclear threat, the head of regional administration, Vitalii Kim, told AP. He said regional officials are working on various scenarios and mapping evacuation routes.

More than half the prewar population of 500,000 has fled Mykolaiv. Many who stayed, like 73-year-old Valentyna, say they are too tired to leave now.

She sleeps in a windowless basement shared with about 10 other neighbors in conditions so humiliating that she asked not to be fully identified. Of the threat of a nuclear attack, she says: “Now I believe that everything can happen.”

Another woman in the shelter, who wanted to be identified only as Tamara for the same reasons, said that while trying to sleep at night on a bed made from stacked wooden beams, her mind turns to what fate awaits her.

“During the First World War, they fought mainly with horses. During the Second World War, with tanks,” she said. “No one excludes the possibility that this time it will be a nuclear weapon.”

“People progress, and with it, the weapons they use to fight,” Tamara added. “But man does not change, and history repeats itself.”

In Kyiv, Bozhko feels that same fatigue. She has learned what to do in case a missile hits, keeps a supply of remedies for various kinds of chemical attacks, and has what she calls her “anxiety luggage” — essentials packed in case of sudden evacuation.

“I’m so tired of being scared; I just keep living my life,” she says, “But if something happens, we will try to fight and survive.”

And she said she understands the difference between 1986 and 2022.

“Back then, we were afraid of the power of atoms. This time, we face a situation when a person wants to exterminate you by any means,” Bozhko said, “and the second is much more terrifying.”

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November 4, 2022
Russia reinforces military, expands Kherson evacuations

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia reinforced its fighting force Tuesday with an annual fall draft of 120,000 men, and doubled the number of civilians it’s trying to evacuate in anticipation of a major Ukrainian push to recapture the strategically vital southern port city of Kherson.

Russian military officials have assured that conscripts to be called up over the next two months will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, including to the Kherson region, three other Ukrainian areas that Russia recently illegally annexed or to Crimea, which the Kremlin made part of Russia in 2014.

However, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said the Russian Defense Ministry “is attempting to deceive the Russian population into believing that autumn conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, likely to prevent draft dodging.”

Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Ukrainian regions “means that all of the fighting is taking place in areas that the Kremlin claims as Russian territory,” the institute said, so “conscripts will almost certainly be deployed to Ukraine after their training is complete around March or April 2023, and could be deployed sooner in response to changes on the battlefield.”

This year’s fall draft was scheduled to start in October, but was delayed because of an extraordinary partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists that President Vladimir Putin ordered Sept. 21. While Russian officials declared the partial mobilization completed Monday, critics have warned that the call-up could resume after military enlistment offices are freed up from processing conscripts.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that 87,000 of the men called up in the partial mobilization were deployed for combat to Ukraine. Training them are 3,000 military instructors with combat experience gained in Ukraine, Shoigu said.

Activists and reports by Russian media and The Associated Press said many of the mobilized reservists were inexperienced, were told to procure basic items such as medical kits and flak jackets themselves, and did not receive training before they were sent off to fight. Some were killed within days of being called up. After Putin’s order, tens of thousands of men fled Russia to avoid serving in the military.

Some of the fresh troops have reportedly been sent to Kherson, on the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line. Russian-installed authorities in Kherson, fearing a major Ukrainian counterattack, on Tuesday reported relocating 70,000 residents and expanded an evacuation area they had announced last month to people living within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of the Dnieper River.

The Kremlin-appointed governor of the region, Vladimir Saldo, said the evacuation of an additional 70,000 residents would be completed this week and claimed it was ordered “due to the possibility of the use of prohibited methods of war by the Ukrainian regime.” He repeated claims that “Kyiv is preparing a massive missile strike on the Kakhovka hydroelectric station,” which he said would flood Kherson.

Ukraine’s General Staff on Tuesday described the new evacuations as “forced displacement,” saying that those residing along the banks of the Dnieper “are forcibly evicted from their homes.”

Elsewhere, concerns about radiation figured in two developments.

Experts from the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency inspected two sites in Ukraine on Tuesday that Russia identified as involved in its unfounded claims that Ukrainian authorities planned to set off radioactive “dirty bombs” in their own invaded country. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said the inspections for evidence of a so-called dirty bomb would be completed soon.

The Russians, without providing evidence, allege the Ukrainians planned to make the purported bomb look like Russia’s doing.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, claimed in a letter to Security Council members last week that Ukraine’s nuclear research facility and mining company “received direct orders from (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime to develop such a dirty bomb.”

Western nations have called Moscow’s repeated claim “transparently false.” Ukrainian authorities dismissed it as an attempt to distract attention from alleged Russian plans to detonate a dirty bomb as a way to justify a further escalation of hostilities.

A second radiation concern involves fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The IAEA has stationed monitors at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where a radiation leak could have catastrophic consequences.

The Ukrainian president’s office said Tuesday that cities and towns around the plant experienced more heavy shelling between Monday and Tuesday. In Nikopol, a city which faces the plant from across the wide Dnieper, more than a dozen apartment buildings, a kindergarten, and various businesses were damaged, the office said.

Elsewhere on the battlefront, Russian strikes targeting eight regions of southeastern Ukraine killed at least four civilians and wounded four others in 24 hours, Zelenskyy’s office said.

Russian shelling hit 14 towns and villages in the eastern Donetsk region Monday and Tuesday, destroying sections of railway track, damaging a power line and taking down mobile communications in some areas.

The shelling killed three civilians, the region’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said. Donetsk is one of four regions Moscow illegally annexed last month, and continues to see fierce clashes as Russian forces press their grinding attack on the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

Another woman was killed after Russian rockets hit apartment buildings and a school in the southern city of Mykolayiv, its mayor reported Tuesday.

Ukraine was still grappling Tuesday with the consequences of Monday’s massive barrage of Russian strikes, which disrupted power and water supplies. Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, said seven regions would experience rolling blackouts to protect the system.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said authorities restored electricity and running water in the capital’s residential buildings but that rolling power outages would continue. Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said Tuesday that 20,000 apartments remained without power.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, subway service was suspended again on Tuesday, according to the subway’s Telegram page. No reason was given.

Separately, ships loaded with grain continued to depart Ukraine on Tuesday despite Russia’s suspension of its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal to deliver critical food supplies to countries facing hunger. The U.N. said three ships carrying 84,490 metric tons of corn, wheat and sunflower meal left through a humanitarian sea corridor.

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November 1, 2022
Ukraine alleges Russian dirty bomb deception at nuke plant

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator said Tuesday that Russian forces were performing secret work at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, activity that could shed light on Russia’s claims that the Ukrainian military is preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made an unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was preparing to launch a so-called dirty bomb. Shoigu leveled the charge over the weekend in calls to his British, French, Turkish and U.S. counterparts. Britain, France and the United States rejected it out of hand as “transparently false.”

Ukraine also dismissed Moscow’s claim as an attempt to distract attention from the Kremlin’s own alleged plans to detonate a dirty bomb, which uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror.

Energoatom, the Ukrainian state enterprise that operates the country’s four nuclear power plants, said Russian forces have carried out secret construction work over the last week at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

Russian officers controlling the area won’t give access to Ukrainian staff running the plant or monitors from the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog that would allow them to see what the Russians are doing, Energoatom said Tuesday in a statement.

Energoatom said it “assumes” the Russians “are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at” the plant. It said there were 174 containers at the plant’s dry spent fuel storage facility, each of them containing 24 assemblies of spent nuclear fuel.

“Destruction of these containers as a result of explosion will lead to a radiation accident and radiation contamination of several hundred square kilometers (miles) of the adjacent territory,” the company said.

It called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to assess what was going on.

The U.N. Security Council held closed-door consultations Tuesday about the dirty-bomb allegations at Russia’s request.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia sent a five-page letter to council members before the meeting claiming that according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ukraine’s Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv and Vostochniy Mining and Processing Plant “have received direct orders from (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime to develop such a dirty bomb” and “the works are at their concluding stage.”

Nebenzia said the ministry also received word that this work “may be carried out with the support of the Western countries.” And he warned that the authorities in Kyiv and their Western backers “will bear full responsibility for all the consequences” of using a “dirty bomb,” which Russia will regard as “an act of nuclear terrorism.”

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky was asked by reporters after the council meeting what evidence Russia has that Zelenskyy gave orders to develop a “dirty bomb.” He replied, “it is intelligence information.”

“We shared it in our telephone conversation with counterparts who have the necessary level of clearance,” he said. “Those who wanted to understand that the threat is serious, they had all the possibilities to understand that. Those who want to reject it as Russian propaganda, they will do it anyway.”

Polyansky said the IAEA can send inspectors to investigate allegations of a “dirty bomb.”

Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador James Kariuki told reporters after the meeting that “we’ve seen and heard no new evidence” and the U.K., France and the U.S. made clear “this is a transparently false allegation” and “pure Russian misinformation.” He said, “Ukraine has been clear it’s got nothing to hide” and “IAEA inspectors are on the way.”

In a related matter, Russia asked the Security Council to establish a commission to investigate its claims that the United States and Ukraine are violating the convention prohibiting the use of biological weapons at laboratories in Ukraine.

Soon after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, its U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, claimed that secret American labs in Ukraine were engaged in biological warfare — a charge denied by the U.S. and Ukraine.

Russia has called a Security Council meeting Thursday on Ukraine’s biological laboratories and its allegations.

The Kremlin has insisted that its warning of a purported Ukrainian plan to use a dirty bomb should be taken seriously and criticized Western nations for shrugging it off.

The dismissal of Moscow’s warning is “unacceptable in view of the seriousness of the danger that we have talked about,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Speaking during a conference call with reporters, Peskov added: “We again emphasize the grave danger posed by the plans hatched by the Ukrainians.”

At the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden was asked Tuesday if Russia is preparing to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon after making its claims that Ukraine will use a dirty bomb.

“I spent a lot of time today talking about that,” Biden told reporters.

The president was also asked whether the claims about a Ukrainian dirty bomb amounted to a false-flag operation.

“Let me just say, Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake if it were to use a tactical nuclear weapon,” Biden said. “I’m not guaranteeing you that it’s a false-flag operation yet … but it would be a serious, serious mistake.”

Dirty bombs don’t have the devastating destruction of a nuclear explosion but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.

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October 25, 2022
Putin scrambles to boost weapons production for Ukraine war

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing military production delays and mounting losses, urged his government Tuesday to cut through bureaucracy to crank out enough weapons and supplies to feed the war in Ukraine, where a Western-armed Ukrainian counteroffensive has set back Russia’s forces.

In other developments, Ukrainian authorities asked citizens not to return home and further tax the country’s battered energy infrastructure, and Western countries mulled how to rebuild Ukraine when the war ends.

The Russian military’s shortfalls in the eight-month war have been so pronounced that Putin had to create a structure to try to address them. On Tuesday, he chaired a new committee designed to accelerate the production and delivery of weapons and supplies for Russian troops, stressing the need to “gain higher tempo in all areas.”

Russian news reports have acknowledged that many of those called up under a mobilization of 300,000 reservists Putin ordered haven’t been provided with basic equipment such as medical kits and flak jackets, and had to find their own. Other reports have suggested that Russian troops are increasingly forced to use old and sometimes unreliable equipment and that some of the newly mobilized troops are rushed to the war front with little training. Last week, Putin tried to show all is well by visiting a training site in Russia where he was shown well equipped soldiers.

To substitute for increasingly scarce Russian-made long-range precision weapons, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate Ukrainian air defenses. Russia’s “artillery ammunition is running low,” the British report said Tuesday.

The Institute for the Study of War, in Washington, added that “the slower tempo of Russian air, missile, and drone strikes possibly reflects decreasing missile and drone stockpiles and the strikes’ limited effectiveness of accomplishing Russian strategic military goals.”

The Russian military has still managed to inflict heavy damage and casualties, ruining homes, public buildings and Ukraine’s power grid. The World Bank estimates the damage to Ukraine so far at 350 billion euros ($345 billion).

Recent Russian attacks have focused largely on Ukraine’s energy facilities, especially electricity generation and transmission. Electricity shortfalls are so severe that Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk on Tuesday asked citizens living abroad not to return this winter to avoid placing further strain on the power supply.

“We need to survive the winter but, unfortunately, the (electricity) networks will not survive,” Vereshchuk said on Ukrainian television. “We understand that the situation will only get worse, and this winter we need to survive.”

In Berlin, European Union leaders brought together experts to work on a “new Marshall Plan” for rebuilding Ukraine — a reference to the U.S.-sponsored plan that helped revive Western European economies after World War II.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the meeting is addressing “how to ensure and how to sustain the financing of the recovery, reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine for years and decades to come.”

Scholz, who co-hosted the meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said he’s looking for “nothing less than creating a new Marshall Plan for the 21st century — a generational task that must begin now.”

On the diplomatic front, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Kyiv after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday that his country will continue to stand by Ukraine’s side in this war and support its people as long as it takes — by helping to rebuild the destroyed country and sending more weapons.

“Reconstruction is not waiting for the war to end. It must begin now,” the German president said, adding that “not only is Germany helping with the reconstruction, but we’re also helping Ukraine to prevent the brutal destruction, to make sure that the population is protected in the best possible way.”

He promised that Germany would help rebuild destroyed towns immediately and send two more MARS Medium Artillery Missile Systems and four type 2000 self-propelled howitzers.

On the battlefront, Russian missiles set a gas station on fire late Tuesday in the south-central city of Dnipro, killing at least two people and wounding at least three, Ukrainian news agencies reported.

In the southern city of Mykolaiv, residents lined up for water and essential supplies Tuesday as Ukrainian forces advanced on the nearby Russian-occupied city of Kherson.

One of Moscow’s allies on Tuesday urged Russia to step up the pace and scale of Ukraine’s destruction.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional leader of Chechnya who has sent troops to fight in Ukraine, urged Moscow to wipe off the map entire cities in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s territory. Authorities in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine have repeatedly reported Ukrainian shelling that has damaged infrastructure and residential buildings.

“Our response has been too weak,” Kadyrov said on his messaging app channel. “If a shell flies into our region, entire cities must be wiped off the face of the Earth so that they don’t ever think that they can fire in our direction.”

Kyiv wants to step up the fight, but says it needs more war materiel.

“We need more weaponry, we need more ammunition to win this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters in Berlin. He added: “We need tanks from our partners, from all of our partners; we need heavy armored vehicles, we need additional artillery units, howitzers.”

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October 25, 2022
US official says Russia’s purported fears of Ukraine using a dirty bomb are ‘transparently false’ | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Russia’s defense minister accused Ukrainians of planning to use a so-called dirty bomb – a claim that was strongly refuted by US officials on Sunday as a Russian false flag operation.

The allegation from Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu came during a phone call with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, the second call in three days between the two top officials.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the two discussed the situation in Ukraine but did not provide further details. It was Shoigu who initiated the phone call to Austin, according to a senior US administration official.

A second official familiar with the conversation said Shoigu made the claim about the planned usage of a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines conventional explosives and uranium. That claim, which the Kremlin has amplified in recent days, has been strongly refuted by the US, Ukraine and the United Kingdom as a Russian false flag operation.

Shoigu has made similar comments to his French and British counterparts as well.

“We reject reports of Minister Shoigu’s transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson told CNN in a statement. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”

The US is also watching very closely for any intelligence that Russia has a specific plan to blow up a major dam near Kherson where Russia has ordered citizens to evacuate, the official said.

Later Sunday, the US State Department released a joint statement with the foreign ministers of France and the UK that also called Shoigu’s allegations false and reiterated their unified support for Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

On Friday, Austin called Shoigu, the first call between the two in several months. Before Friday, the two had not spoken since May.

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October 23, 2022
Russia’s defense chief warns of ‘dirty bomb’ provocation

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s defense chief alleged Sunday that Ukraine was preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device, a stark claim that was strongly rejected by U.S., British and Ukrainian officials amid soaring tensions as Moscow struggles to stem Ukrainian advances in the south.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the allegations in phone calls with his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France and Turkey.

Russia’s defense ministry said Shoigu voiced concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb,’” a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste. It doesn’t have the devastating effect of a nuclear explosion, but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.

Russian authorities repeatedly have made allegations that Ukraine could detonate a dirty bomb in a false flag attack and blame it on Moscow. Ukrainian authorities, in turn, have accused the Kremlin of hatching such a plan.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace strongly rejected Shoigu’s claim and warned Moscow against using it as a pretext for escalation.

The British Ministry of Defense noted that Shoigu, in a call with Wallace, “alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the UK, to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.”

“The Defense Secretary refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” the ministry said.

The U.S. also rejected Shoigu’s “transparently false allegations,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”

In a televised address Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that Moscow itself was setting the stage for deploying a radioactive device on Ukrainian soil.

“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means only one thing: that Russia has already prepared all of it,” Zelenskyy said.

The mention of the dirty bomb threat in Shoigu’s calls seemed to indicate the threat of such an attack has risen to an unprecedented level.

The French Ministry of the Armed Forces said Shoigu told his counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, that the situation in Ukraine was rapidly worsening and “trending towards uncontrollable escalation.”

“It appears that there is a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the Kremlin-connected head of the Council for Foreign and Defense policies, a Moscow-based group of top foreign affairs experts.

The rising tensions come as Russian authorities reported building defensive positions in occupied areas of Ukraine and border regions of Russia, reflecting fears that Ukrainian forces may attack along new sections of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line of the war, which enters its ninth month on Monday.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has focused its counteroffensive mostly on the Kherson region. Their relentless artillery strikes cut the main crossings across the Dnieper River, which bisects the southern region, leaving Russian troops on the west bank short of supplies and vulnerable to encirclement.

Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration in Kherson, said Sunday in a radio interview that Russian defensive lines “have been reinforced and the situation has remained stable” since local officials strongly encouraged all residents of the region’s capital and nearby areas Saturday to evacuate by ferry to the river’s east bank.

The region is one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday. Kherson city has been in Russian hands since the early days of the war, but Ukraine’s forces have made advances toward reclaiming it.

About 20,000 Kherson residents have moved to places on the east bank of the Dnieper River, the Kremlin-backed regional administration reported. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russia’s military also withdrew its officers from areas on the west bank, leaving newly mobilized, inexperienced forces.

The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified.

As Ukraine presses south after liberating the Kharkiv region in the north last month, authorities in the western Russian provinces bordering northeastern Ukraine appeared jittery.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said Sunday that two defensive lines have been built and a third one would be finished by Nov. 5.

Defensive lines were also established in the Belgorod region, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

More defensive positions were being built in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire Russian businessman who owns the Wagner Group, a mercenary military company that has played a prominent role in the war.

Prigozhin said his company was constructing a “Wagner line” in the Luhansk region, another of the Ukrainian provinces Putin illegally annexed last month. Prigozhin posted images last week showing a section of newly built defenses and trench systems southeast of the town of Kreminna.

The British Defense Ministry said Sunday “the project suggests Russia is making a significant effort to prepare defenses in depth behind the current front line, likely to deter any rapid Ukrainian counteroffensives.”

Russia’s forces captured Luhansk several months ago. Pro-Moscow separatists declared independent republics in the region and neighboring Donetsk eight years ago, and Putin made controlling all of both provinces a goal at the war’s outset.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, said Sunday that Russia’s latest strategy of targeting power plants appeared aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing the government in Kyiv to devote more resources to protecting civilians and energy infrastructure.

It said the effort was unlikely to damage Ukrainian morale but would have significant economic impacts.

President Zelenskyy said Sunday that utilities workers were well on their way to restoring electricity supplies cut off by large-scale Russian missile strikes Saturday, but acknowledged that it would take longer to provide heating.

Nine regions across Ukraine, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast, saw more attacks targeting energy and other critical infrastructure over the past day, the Ukrainian army’s general staff said. It reported a total of 25 Russian airstrikes and more than 100 missile and artillery strikes around Ukraine.

In response, Zelenskyy appealed to mayors and other local leaders to ensure that Ukrainians heed official calls to conserve energy. “Now is definitely not the time for bright storefronts and signs,” he said.

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Aamer Madhani and Lolita Baldor in Washington and Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this report.

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October 23, 2022