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One of the main obstacles preventing the use of nuclear weapons, in addition to the devastating power of the bombs themselves, is the fact that they render the area where they were fired impractical and unusable for years, if not decades, due to radioactivity, and beyond dangerous . .
Here the “dirty bombs” have the same effect as conventional bombs, despite their similar explosive power. In recent days, the Russians have accused Ukraine of wanting to use such weapons, an accusation the sender of both Kyiv and NATO dismissed as unfounded.
As the Treccani site explains, a dirty bomb is a “device constructed by combining a conventional explosive and a highly radioactive material derived from nuclear equipment: for example, a fuel assembly discharged from a nuclear reactor”.
How a dirty bomb works
A dirty bomb is therefore a conventional device that does not use nuclear or fission energy to detonate, like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or fusion, like hydrogen bombs. Its explosive potential is therefore less, but it is just as devastating because it disperses radioactive material that can become airborne and be absorbed by the surrounding area, making the area radioactive. So the danger of the bomb depends on the type of nuclear material present and its concentration.
who can make it
In recent years, it has been believed that dirty bombs could be manufactured and used not so much by sovereign states as by terrorist groups. However, one thing to keep in mind is that the nuclear material needed to effectively build a dirty bomb isn’t all that easy to find, as it’s controlled by both the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the Group of Supplier States for nuclear power plants (Nsg, Nuclear Suppliers Group). In fact, to date, no terrorist group has used dirty bombs.