Ukraine: Mr. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has issued a warning that if the United Kingdom gives Ukraine depleted uranium-tipped armour-piercing tank ammunition, Russia will be “forced to react.”

Mr. Putin reacted to reports that Challenger 2 battle tanks and ammunition containing depleted uranium were being transferred to Ukraine as part of a military aid package, according to the UK’s state secretary for defence, Ms. Annabel Goldie.

“The United Kingdom… announced not only the supply of tanks to Ukraine but also shells with depleted uranium. If this happens, Russia will be forced to react,” Mr. Putin told reporters after talks with China’s leader Mr. Xi Jinping at the Kremlin.

A by-product of the nuclear enrichment procedure used to create nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons is depleted uranium. Its weight makes it ideal for use in armour-piercing bullets since it makes the steel easier for them to easily penetrate.

Such ammunition has been referred to be “chemically and radiologically toxic heavy metal” by the United Nations Environment Program. Mr. Putin’s threat was downplayed by the UK Ministry of Defence, which claimed that the armour-piercing shells had been a normal issue for decades and had “nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities.”

The description of the ammo as “weapons with a nuclear component” by Russia, the ministry claimed, was intentional misinformation. The ministry claimed that despite knowing this, Russia was actively trying to mislead. Putin had described the ammunition as “escalatory in order to deter Western security assistance despite the shells not containing any fissile or radiological material,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based research tank.

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