"Recognize the malice, cunning, and hypocrisy that power produces, and the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from 'good families.'" - Marcus Aurelius
A few weeks ago, quite a bit of ink was spilled over the Brit's announcement that they would be sending Depleted Uranium munitions to Ukraine. Most of the content of these nearly identical articles was to military-splain that these weren't nuclear weapons, as well as a thin attempt to justify their use. A few examples are provided below.
I'm not clear on why there are press releases every time a decision is made to send new or more weapons to Ukraine: Bradley and Leopard tanks. F-16 jets. Missile systems. Cluster munitions, etc,etc,etc.
One would think such things would be better kept secret. Maybe the point of these announcements is to further provoke the situation. That seems like unstable and neurotic behavior - unlikely to sway a very stoic, nuclear-armed nation.
In any event, the Russians were not pleased about the announcement that Depleted Uranium munitions were headed to Ukraine from elsewhere to be used against them. They stated in no uncertain terms that they would respond accordingly. Bear in mind that Russia with near-certainty has the ability to monitor any shipments of these things in real-time via satellite, so why make an announcement???
Before continuing, let's discuss what Depleted Uranium is, become knowledgeable about it, and understand what makes it desirable as a munition, and undesirable in other ways.
First of all, what does the term "Depleted" mean with respect to Uranium? Depleted Uranium is what remains after the fissile Uranium 235 has been stripped from naturally occurring Uranium. I made a post a while ago about the Manhattan Project, and how the Uranium enrichment process tediously segregates the tiny fraction of desirable U-235 from the much more plentiful (but undesirable) U-238. Depleted Uranium is the mountains of waste U-238 left over from the enrichment process.
Why is Depleted Uranium (DU from now on) useful as a projectile? First off, DU is a very dense metal. It's about 70% more dense than Lead, and very similar in density to Tungsten. Tungsten has a density of 19.35g/cm^3, while DU is just a bit less dense, at 18.95g/cm^3. There are a few other elements that have similar or greater density, but they are somewhat rare and much more expensive. DU is quite plentiful and cheap, as a waste by-product of manufacturing nuclear reactor fuel.
The kinetic energy equation for a projectile is KE=1/2MV^2. If you can increase mass or velocity you get more Kinetic Energy (and damage) delivered to the point of impact of the target. A 70% mass advantage over Lead is why density is a desirable characteristic. Higher velocity is also very important.
The reason that dense materials are required is for armor piercing. These shells are used to punch holes in armored vehicles, such as tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers.
You might be asking yourself 'why not use Tungsten instead?' And the answer is: Tungsten *is* more commonly used. The armor piercing rounds fired from a tank are long rods, about an inch (2-3 cm) in diameter, and they can be as long as 31 inches (80 cm). They are fired as a sabot round to greatly increase velocity, and hence increase their Kinetic Energy.
DU has advantages over Tungsten alloy. It has a slight advantage with respect to the depth it can penetrate steel armor, but more importantly, it is pyrophoric. This means that the Uranium ignites during impact - causing a secondary fire within the armored vehicle - potentially igniting fuel or ammunition inside.
DU also has significant disadvantages: It is chemically toxic ( as most heavy metals are), and also because U-238 is radioactive - U-238 is the start of a long series of radioactive decays. The U-238 decay chain consists of several radioactive isotopes that mostly decay by alpha emission. As a result, any internal contamination via inhalation will cause a great deal of biological damage to the lungs - leading to lung cancer. I discussed this situation with greater detail on a post about the hazards of Radon gas.
Below is the decay chain for U-238. Keep in mind that all of these decay products are present in U-238, as it is constantly decaying.
It is important to remember that Alpha radiation is the most damaging to living cells - if one becomes internally contaminated - due to the large charge and mass of the particle. Below is a table showing the ability of different types of radiation to cause biological damage to living tissue.
To recap before going further: 21 March 2023, Britain announced they would be sending DU shells to Ukraine. Russia in turn announced that this would be dealt with. We have now reached the topic of this post, and at this point I'll be doing some guesswork.
There has been a constant stream of air cargo arriving from all over the western world, into the airport at Rzeszow, Poland. One might safely assume much of this cargo to be weapons and munitions. Rzeszow is very close to the border with Ukraine, and just 90 miles (150km) from the major city of Lviv, Ukraine - with a good highway between.
You can watch the cargo planes fly into Rzeszow from military bases in England and the US, using Flightradar24. Below is a cargo flight from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, landing at Rzeszow, Poland. What could this aircraft be carrying from a military base in Germany to an airport near Ukraine?
The window at the upper left of Flightradar 24 shows the most-watched flights, which are frequently military surveillance and heavy cargo transport aircraft. Below, an unmanned US surveillance drone flies a pattern over the Black Sea, between Istanbul and Sevastapol. A similar drone was recently downed when it flew into contested airspace.
Back to DU. The assumption is that the DU munitions (along with many other other weapons and shells) were transported to a friendly and safe NATO-country airport, and then delivered by ground into Ukraine. After crossing into Ukraine along that highway in the direction of Lviv, the munitions traveled to various depots in other parts of Ukraine for staging, before heading east to the battle front.
One of those staging depots appears to have been near the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi - don't ask me how to pronounce that - a bit further east than Lviv.
A Russian missile attack seems to have destroyed an ammunition depot in a couple of spectacular explosions on 13 May, 2023. This was followed by a thick black mushroom cloud - not caused by a nuclear weapon. Below is video of the event from the Hindustan Times. That is a huge conventional explosion, and it is pretty clear that a lot of munitions detonated - potentially including pyrophoric Depleted Uranium - we simply don't know.
Below: What the spot looked like before the missiles hit it. You can see the walls intended to keep an explosion in one bunker from spreading to another.
After: The site was struck by at least 3 missiles.
One can certainly see the logic of destroying weapons and munitions before they reach the battle front, if the opposing country has the capability to do that. Here is the question though: Was the Depleted Uranium among the munitions destroyed in these explosions? If so, how would we know? Would radioactive DU particles rain out downwind, and could they be detectable?
Reports that firefighters were attempting to put out the blaze remotely would support the notion that they were trying to avoid inhaling airborne radioactive U-238 dust. There were also reports of higher than normal levels of radiation, which the news media quickly downplayed and minimized.
There has been a race to "debunk" reports of higher than normal radiation and declare it "misinformation" from most media. This sort of synchronized chorus of media 'debunking' often turns out later to be itself false information. It's not helpful when authorities say that radiation levels are "within acceptable limits.". That's not the same thing as "normal background levels", is it?
In any event, we are not worried about "radiation" from an external source, like an X-ray. We are worried about internal contamination of the lungs caused by what might have been effectively a "dirty bomb". A dirty bomb spreads radioactive contamination about - sort of a fallout situation. In this case the potential for fallout was U-238, which is an alpha particle emitter, as are its decay daughters.
We may find out what went up into the air over Ukraine some day, but right now it's difficult to find accurate data from a reliable source. NATO-allied news sources are just as suspect as Ukrainian and Russian sources. I attempted to use the GCM map to look at crowd-sourced historical radiation data, but didn't see anything unusual. I don't know which direction the wind was blowing that week.
Below is an EU map of airborne radioactivity. I've set the history range from 12 May to 19 May. At the bottom right, you can see a little blip on 13 May, the day of the explosion. There's also a much larger spike on 17 May, a day of massive missile attacks in and around Kyiv.
I wish the information environment was better, because I'd like to have my guesswork proven or disproven. Mostly though, I'd like to see the killing come to an end and for people to get along with one another. I guess that will happen when all the other possibilities have been exhausted... sigh.
UPDATE 10 June 2023:
I found a website that has the information. It's the Polish Nuclear Agency - Państwowa Agencja Atomistyki. There are monitoring stations set up across Poland, and each of the three that I checked showed spikes of radioactivity. Evidently the prevailing wind was blowing to the Northwest out of Ukraine, possibly carrying U-238 dust across portions of Europe.
Below is a map showing Ukraine and Poland. Poland is at the upper left, while the portion of Ukraine we are interested in is located at the lower right. Khmelnytskyi, the site of the missile strikes on the ammunition depot is the location of the pin furthest to the right. The three pins in Poland (minus Rzesow) are locations where it is possible to find charts of airborne radioactivity.
Have a look at the charts below. Lowest and highest readings for the time span are marked. I'm not sure what the wind blew in, but it wasn't good.
If these radiation spikes were due to Depleted Uranium dust in the air, then millions of people have now inhaled it, which is bad news. People won't be dropping dead in the next few weeks, but lung cancer may become elevated.
Below is a quote from information about Depleted Uranium from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Toxicological and Radiological concerns
In sufficient amounts, uranium that is ingested or inhaled can be harmful because of its chemical toxicity. Like mercury, cadmium, and other heavy-metal ions, excess uranyl ions depress renal function (i.e., affect the kidneys). High concentrations in the kidney can cause damage and, in extreme cases, renal failure. The general medical and scientific consensus is that in cases of high intake, uranium is likely to become a chemical toxicology problem before it is a radiological problem. Since uranium is mildly radioactive, once inside the body it also irradiates the organs, but the primary health effect is associated with its chemical action on body functions.
In many countries, current occupational exposure limits for soluble uranium compounds are related to a maximum concentration of 3 µg uranium per gram of kidney tissue. Any effects caused by exposure of the kidneys at these levels are considered to be minor and transient. Current practices, based on these limits, appear to protect workers in the uranium industry adequately. In order to ensure that this kidney concentration is not exceeded, legislation restricts long term (8 hour) workplace air concentrations of soluble uranium to 0.2 mg per cubic meter and short term (15 minute) to 0.6 mg per cubic meter.
Like any radioactive material, there is a risk of developing cancer from exposure to radiation emitted by natural and depleted uranium. The annual dose limit set by the IAEA for a member of the public is 1 mSv, while the corresponding limit for a radiation worker is 20 mSv. The additional risk of fatal cancer associated with a dose of 1 mSv is assumed to be about 1 in 20,000. This small increase in lifetime risk should be considered in light of the risk of 1 in 5 that everyone has of developing a fatal cancer. It must also be noted that cancer may not become apparent until many years after exposure to a radioactive material.
One should not take that final paragraph as a signal that dusting millions of people with U-238 soot is a safe event. It is not. If you multiply that 1 in 20,000 ratio by *just* the population of greater Warsaw, you still get an additional 150 lung cancers.
However, many more civilians were exposed than that, because the three monitoring stations are spread across Poland. Furthermore, the cloud would not stop at the Polish border - it quite likely spread to the Baltic and Nordic countries as well.
10,000 points were deducted from this blogger's social credit score for this post.
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