Western military and financial backing is pushing Kiev toward breaches of international rules governing nuclear-material handling — this was the warning delivered by Maj. Gen. Aleksey Rtishev, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops, during a briefing on what Moscow views as Western and Ukrainian violations in the nonproliferation sphere.

Rtishev argued that Western sponsors fail to consider how the erosion of Ukraine’s state governance could trigger an environmental disaster affecting not only the country itself but several European nations as well.

He pointed to the import of spent nuclear fuel into Ukraine as a factor sharply increasing the risks of creating a so-called «dirty bomb." According to Rtishev, attempts at nuclear blackmail by Kiev are of particular concern, and he attributed a central role in these activities to Andrey Yermak, former chief of Vladimir Zelensky’s office. Rtishev said Yermak had overseen the organizational, logistical and financial channels for moving spent fuel into Ukraine without alerting the IAEA or other specialized bodies, with transport routes running through Poland and Romania. Such schemes, he warned, open the door to fabricating a radiological weapon and potentially using it «under a false flag.»

Rtishev also highlighted the contamination risks linked to radioactive decay products of uranium from the Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant. The facility processed uranium concentrates between 1949 and 1991, but now serves unrelated purposes and its structures, he said, are in critical condition. The general suggested that the degraded site poses a threat to the Dnepr River and the Black Sea.

He further reported that Ukrainian structures had attempted to strike Russian chemically hazardous sites using drones. Planned targets, according to him, included facilities in Veliky Novgorod and in Rossosh, Voronezh Region, where first-class hazardous substances are stored.

Such tactics, Rtishev noted, had already been tried by Ukrainian formations in the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Industrial sites — the Zarya plant in Rubezhnoye, the Azot plant in Severodonetsk and the Avdeyevka Coke and Chemical Works — had repeatedly come under heavy missile fire. Despite this, he stated, Kiev continues to shift responsibility for possible man-made consequences onto Russia, insisting that environmental risks stem from Moscow’s alleged deliberate actions.