Pentagon orders 20,000 depleted uranium munitions per year for Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Ukraine

Russia considers depleted uranium weapons akin to "dirty nuclear bombs" as the White House authorizes shipments to Ukraine.

As the Ukraine-Russia proxy war grinds on, the Biden administration is escalating to an unprecedented level of danger that could trigger nuclear war. The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House authorized shipment of depleted uranium munitions to be used in both Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Russia has long made clear it views depleted uranium as a red line. Head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control Konstantin Gavrilov warned on January 25 that “If Kiev were to be supplied with such munitions for the use in western heavy military hardware, we would regard it as the use of ‘dirty nuclear bombs’ against Russia, with all the consequences that entails.”

Despite this stern warning, the U.S. has issued multiple contract tenders for depleted uranium munition. Most recently, a tender published on May 12, 2023 shows the U.S. army “is seeking possible sources for the production of the 50mm x 228 Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot with Trace (APFSDS-T) cartridge.” These will be used to “achieve advanced lethality against enemy materiel threats.”

This ammunition is to be used with the XM913 Weapon System, an experimental cannon the U.S. army announced in 2020 to provide “a decisive lethal punch that enables gunners to make the right firing decision quicker, with greater accuracy, at farther distances, to establish dominance on the battlefield.”

“These technologies, coupled with an advanced fire control system, optimize the system’s lethality to maximize the number of stowed kills and provide a lethal capability that will enable overmatch against our pacing threats,” said, Picatinny Arsenal engineer Robert Tani, about the XM913.

Image source: US Army 

This cannon is mounted on Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 109 of which have been shipped to Ukraine beginning in January. In recent days, 16 of them have been destroyed by Russian forces. 

On June 13, the Pentagon announced its latest weapons delivery to Ukraine, including 15 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles to replace those recently destroyed, HIMARS ammunition, NASAMS missiles, and much more.

The tender for depleted uranium munitions compatible with Bradley Fighting Vehicles states that initial production will be up to 1,200 cartridges, and full production will reach up to 20,000 per year.

On January 25, the Biden administration announced it would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

When that shipment was announced, the White House was asked in a background press briefing if it will be sending depleted uranium munitions. The senior official on the line demurred, and said “I’m not going to get into the technical specifics.” 

However, it appears use of depleted uranium in Ukraine has long been in the cards for U.S. war planners.

The Federal Procurement Register showed contract tenders for depleted uranium 120mm armor piercing M829A4 munitions dated October 26, 2022, and components, which are made specifically for Abrams tanks, as I reported for Redacted.

Another tender is dated January 11, 2022, as Russian troops massed on its border with Ukraine and U.S. officials warned that an invasion was imminent.

The effects of depleted uranium are well known.

A 2013 study in Iraq found that “the overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, had doubled, and even tripled.” 

In 1999, The Guardian quoted a research scientist saying that he expects 10,000 extra deaths in Kosovo because of DU.

The U.S. has sought to downplay and cover up the long lasting dangers of depleted uranium munitions for local populations and soldiers. It used DU munitions in Iraq in both the 1991 and 2003 invasions, in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, and in 2015 it fired thousands of shells in Syria in Islamic state-held territory despite its promises to not use the munition.

According to Military Watch Magazine:

The effects of depleted uranium shelling were seen in the Gulf War, with British Royal Navy Commander Robert Green reporting: “a surge of unexplained illnesses, cancers and children born with genetic deformities among the Iraqi people, especially in the south near the battlefields.” A confidential UN report leaked in May 1999 similarly concluded regarding depleted uranium weapons: “this type of ammunition is nuclear waste, and its use is very dangerous and harmful.” In the subsequent Iraq War the following decade the city of Fallujah was particularly heavily bombarded by depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces, with Professor Chris Busby. One of the authors of a survey of 4,800 Fallujah residents wrote regarding the connection between these attacks and the rapid increase in cancers and birth defects that followed: “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened.” He concluded that some kind of uranium weapon had to have been the cause.

The Fallujah survey by 11 experts, which covered over 700 households, concluded that the effects on the population were “similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout.” Depleted uranium weapons were found to have had highly similar effects in Yugoslavia, and were also used for limited strikes by U.S. forces in Syria.

With no end in sight, Washington’s latest escalation could turn an apocalyptic nuclear nightmare into reality.