NEAR KHERSON FRONTLINE: Russia was expected to press its case at the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Ukraine is preparing to use a "dirty bomb" on its own territory, an assertion dismissed by Western and Ukrainian officials as a pretext for escalating the war.
Moscow sent a letter detailing the allegations to the United Nations late on Monday, and diplomats said Russia planned to raise the issue at a closed meeting with the Security Council on Tuesday.
"We will regard the use of the dirty bomb by the Kyiv regime as an act of nuclear terrorism," Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council in the letter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday repeated Russia's allegations and said the West was foolish to dismiss them.
They follow hints from Moscow that it might be forced to use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the "dirty bomb" allegation showed Moscow was planning such an attack and seeking to blame Kyiv.
With Ukrainian forces advancing into Russian-occupied Kherson province, threatening a major defeat for Moscow, top Russian officials phoned their Western counterparts on Sunday and Monday to air their suspicions.
Russia has alleged that Kyiv has ordered two organisations to create a dirty bomb - an explosive device laced with radioactive material, without giving any evidence.
France, Britain and the United States said the allegations were "transparently false" and Washington warned Russia there would be "severe consequences" for any nuclear use, while saying there were no signs of that yet.
Russia's defence ministry said the aim of a "dirty bomb" attack by Ukraine would be to blame Moscow for the resulting radioactive contamination, which it said Russia had begun preparing for.
In an apparent response to Moscow's allegation, the UN nuclear watchdog said it was preparing to send inspectors to two unidentified Ukrainian sites at Kyiv's request, both already subject to its inspections.
Russia's state news agency RIA has identified what it said were the two sites involved - the Eastern Mineral Enrichment Plant in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not spoken publicly about the "dirty bomb" allegations but on Tuesday said the country needed to speed up decision-making in relation to what it calls its "special operation" to demilitarise Ukraine.
Speaking at the first meeting of a new coordination council to manage the government's work on the home front, Putin said increased coordination of government structures and regions was necessary.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday on his first visit since Russia attacked on February 24 and was due to meet Zelenskiy, as Berlin hosted what it said was a conference on a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Ukraine.
Steinmeier said Berlin was working to help Ukraine with air defence equipment and would focus on helping to repair destroyed infrastructure, such as power grids, as fast as possible before winter arrives.
Zelenskiy told the Berlin conference via video link that Russian rockets and drones had destroyed more than a third of his country's energy sector, but that Kyiv had yet to receive "a single cent" for a recovery plan worth $17 billion. - Reuters
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