The United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Thursday that it has found no signs to support Russia’s accusations that Ukraine is looking to use a “dirty bomb” amid rising tensions. The International Atomic Energy Agency made the remarks after visiting most of the nuclear power plants in the country and they concluded that there are no traces of materials that can be used in such a bomb.
The locations which were inspected were – the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv, Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Kody, and Production Association Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro.
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Earlier, Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using a bomb with nuclear materials in order to falsely implicate the Kremlin in the crisis. The Russian authorities made this appeal in front of several western countries and even took the issue to the United Nations security council for consideration.
“Over the past few days, the inspectors were able to carry out all activities that the IAEA had planned to conduct and were given unfettered access to the locations,” IAEA said in a statement.
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“Based on the evaluation of the results available to date and the information provided by Ukraine, the agency did not find any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials at the locations,” the official statement added after the conclusion of the official inspections.
The inspections were conducted on request of the Ukrainian government and after the IAEA statement, Kyiv said that it was Russia’s attempt to malign Ukraine’s name with the accusations.
