Ukrainians are trained on depleted uranium

The UK announced on Monday that Ukrainian soldiers trained on Challenger 2 tanks have finished the course and returned home. British instructors spent weeks training Ukrainians how to use the main battle tanks, and London pledged to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev. The US has promised several of its M1 Abrams MBTs, while continental NATO members have already delivered German-made Leopards. All Western tanks require a crew of four, including a manual loader, and these loaders will have to handle the standard NATO armor-piercing rounds, which are made with depleted uranium rods. DU penetrators have been linked to skyrocketing rates of cancer and birth defects in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, and when DU penetrators strike a target, they fragment and burn, generating chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate that poses an inhalational risk to people.

The MoD told reporters last week that the impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low, but a researcher at the government-funded Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank admitted that DU is toxic. The UK announced last week that it would send depleted uranium (DU) ammunition to Ukraine, which the Russian Foreign Ministry called a sign of "absolute recklessness, irresponsibility and impunity." The Russian military does not seem concerned about the potential effects of DU in combat, but Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov warned that DU dust will contaminate the soil and wreck Ukraine's agriculture for decades, while causing "irreparable harm" to the health of Ukrainians, civilian and military alike.