Moscow says it has detained several people it claims are linked to Ukraine who were trying to buy radioactive material and smuggle it out of the country to cause an incident "to discredit Russia," just days after Kyiv said it had received information showing Russia was considering carrying out a "terrorist" attack involving the release of radiation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you the latest developments on Russia's invasion, Western military aid, the plight of civilians, and territorial control maps. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on June 23 that it took into custody five members of a "criminal group" that was coordinated by Ukrainian nationals as they tried to smuggle 1 kilogram of highly radioactive Caesium-137 worth $3.5 million out of Russia.
According to the FSB, the suspects planned to use the radioactive material during ongoing clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and occupying Russian troops in "staged acts with the weapons of mass destruction to discredit Russia."
There was no way to independently verify the FSB statement.
The Kremlin has denied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's accusations over a possible attack using radioactive materials. Zelenskiy said he had passed on the intelligence information to Western allies, details of which have not been made public.
Since launching its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has accused Kyiv several times of making plans to use a so-called "dirty bomb," though no evidence has been presented to back up the claim.
Kyiv has denied the Russian accusations, while some Ukrainian and Western officials have accused Moscow of making the allegation to give itself cover to detonate its own "dirty bomb" and blame Kyiv for it.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in early November that its experts had found no sign of undeclared nuclear activity at three sites in Ukraine that it inspected at Kyiv's request in response to Russian allegations it was working on a "dirty bomb."