Canadian Military Intelligence Says No ‘Radioactive Cloud’ Over Europe: ‘Russian Disinformation’

A “radioactive cloud” is drifting towards Europe and has been detected over Poland, Russia claimed last week. Now Canadian military intelligence says they debunked the claim, calling it a “Russian disinformation campaign”.

Russia is attempting to take advantage of the fact average members of the public don’t understand what depleted uranium ammunition is and whether — beyond its obvious purpose of busting tank armour — it is a danger to health and the environment to undermine public support for the West arming Ukraine, Canada has said.

Published online, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command said in a communication that’s part of their work “with international partners to detect, correct, and call out the Kremlin’s state-sponsored disinformation” that there is “no radioactive cloud or any unusual radiological activity in Ukraine”.

This, the Canadian armed forces said, they knew because European governments and the European Union’s Joint Research Centre monitor radiation levels across the continent.

The Canadian denial follows claims by the Russian government that “a radioactive cloud that is now moving towards Western Europe” had been detected in Poland. This, Russia said, was caused by the use of depleted uranium ammunition by the Ukrainian army that had been supplied to them by Western partners.

The Kremlin also said “no excessive levels of radiation” had been detected over Russia.

The United Kingdom announced the depleted uranium rounds would be supplied for use with its donation of Challenger 2 tanks in March. Because depleted uranium is incredibly dense and it has special material qualities at the point of impact, it is an exceptionally well-suited metal for making tank-busting armour-piercing rounds.

As Britain’s defence secretary said at the time of the transfer, depleted uranium rounds are: “highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.”

Russia has objected to the use of such rounds by the West long before their deployment to Ukraine, claiming they caused death by cancer of NATO troops from the Yugoslavian and Iraqi wars. Vladimir Putin said this year that if the rounds were sent to Ukraine, Russia would “respond accordingly”.

Western countries that use depleted Uranium rounds like the United Kingdom and the United States deny these claims and say they are safe to use and don’t leave a radiation threat behind.

Russia’s claims about depleted Uranium are “part of an established Russian disinformation campaign that attempts to decrease support for Western aid to Ukraine. Russia will continue stating false information to support this campaign”, Canada said.

The radiation allegation was not the only unusual claim made by the Kremlin in the discussion. As well as the suggested nuclear cloud over Europe, the United States was also accused of “developing and already using chemical and biological weapons, including in Ukraine” and, bizarrely, “brainwashing the Japanese to make them think that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States, that used nuclear weapons against them”.