Russia accuses Kyiv of planning to stage nuclear incident

RUSSIA yesterday said Ukraine was planning to stage a nuclear incident on its territory to pin the blame on Moscow ahead of a UN meeting, without providing evidence for the accusation.

Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Russia has repeatedly accused Kyiv of planning “false flag” operations with non-conventional weapons, using biological or radioactive materials. No such attack has materialised.

Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement radioactive substances had been transported to Ukraine from a European country and Kyiv was preparing a large-scale “provocation”.

“The aim of the provocation is to accuse Russia’s army of allegedly carrying out indiscriminate strikes on hazardous radioactive facilities in Ukraine, leading to the leakage of radioactive substances and contamination of the area,” it said.

Ukraine and its allies have dismissed such accusations as cynical attempts to spread disinformation and has accused Moscow of planning incidents itself in a bid to blame Ukraine.

In other news France yesterday said it will begin delivering the armoured vehicles it has promised Ukraine.

The vehicles, of the AMX-10 type and sometimes described as “light tanks”, are used for armed reconnaissance and attacks on enemy tanks.

The first vehicles will be sent to Ukraine “by the end of next week”, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told Le Parisien newspaper’s Sunday edition.

He declined to specify the number of vehicles in the first batch, saying he did not want to give Russia any “strategic information”.

According to the French defence ministry, AMX-10S are highly mobile, “powerfully armed” and offer protection against light infantry fire.

Their combat weight is 20 tons, around a third of that of France’s Leclerc battle tanks.

The French armed forces have begun to replace AMX-10S, first developed in the 1970s, with more modern vehicles called Jaguars.

President Emmanuel Macron promised in early January that France would send AMX-10S, after months of hesitation because of fears that increased weapons deliveries could further escalate the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

Training of Ukrainian crews on the AMX-10 was now “nearly complete”, Lecornu said.

Overall training of Ukrainian military was “intensifying”, Lecornu said, both in France and Poland, a fellow Nato member.

Starting in March, 600 Ukrainian troops would undergo training every month, he said. Asked about possible fighter aircraft deliveries to Ukraine, an urgent request by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Lecornu said the question was “not taboo”.

But he said such military aid posed complex “logistical and practical questions”.

Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed three adult members of a family in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson yesterday.