Dirty Bomb Attack: Russia -Ukraine War

Subject: Science and Technology

Context-

Russia intends to raise at the United Nations Security Council its accusation that Ukraine is planning a “dirty bomb” attack.

Key Highlights:

Russia has warned that the use of the “dirty bomb” by Ukraine will be regarded as an act of nuclear terrorism.
Earlier, the General Assembly voted to condemn Russia’s “ illegal annexation” of four partially occupied regions in Ukraine.

Dirty Bomb:

A dirty bomb combines radioactive material with explosives.
Aim:
- To cause harm by spreading radioactive material that can contaminate an area and poison the human body.
- Different from a nuclear bomb which utilises radioactive materials to create an explosion.

Material used in Dirty Bomb:

Details:

Dirty bombs do not create city-flattening atomic explosions but are designed to spread toxic waste.
Security experts have worried about them mostly as a form of terrorist weapon to be used on cities to cause havoc among civilians, rather than as a tactical device for use by warring parties in conflict.
Immediate health impact would probably be limited since most people in an affected area would be able to escape before experiencing lethal doses of radiation.
But the economic damage could be massive from having to evacuate urban areas or even abandon whole cities.
A bomb using radioactive caesium from a misplaced or stolen medical device might require the evacuation of an area of several city blocks, making it unsafe for decades.
A piece of radioactive cobalt from a food irradiation plant could, if blasted apart in a bomb in New York, contaminate a 380 square mile (1,000 square km) area and potentially make the island of Manhattan uninhabitable.
In a joint statement, the United States, Britain and France called the Russian allegations “transparently false” and warned Moscow against using them as a “pretext” for escalation.