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Comment by fauxpause_ | Hacker News Reader

No. Depleted uranium rounds have been used in previous conflicts. They exploded in those conflicts. There was no material radioactive impact of this. It’s also unlikely that the Russian claims are accurate. Russia is falsely playing up these things as nuclear weapons. They’re not.

If you’re concerned about radioactivity you can just look at your own link. The measurements of radiation are all that matters. Not some scary cause. As your link indicates, levels are fine.

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> No. Depleted uranium rounds have been used in previous conflicts. They exploded in those conflicts. There was no material radioactive impact of this.

Oh yes ? Are you sure about that ?

https://thebulletin.org/2020/07/war-and-the-environment/

https://merip.org/1999/06/the-gulf-war-battlefield-still-hot...

Actually I am not that much concerned about (gamma) radioactive risks, but more about toxicity or DU. As far as I understand it, the latter comes from both uranium being a toxic metal and the alpha particles emitted from the dust in close proximity if inhaled or ingested.

You are very unlikely to see a material concentration of this stuff unless you’re very close to the site of the explosion. The risks, if any, come from people handling hunks of it like armor plating and bullets .

How about people on the receiving end? It is absolutely no secret that the use of DU ammo in Kosovo by NATO forces in 1999 led to an increase in the cancer rates of the civilian population, as well as some military units (most notably the Italian ones). It is no wonder either, DU is pyrophoric (i.e., burns on impact, spreading DU dust in the impact's environs) and should banned just as (even more than) cluster bombs and mines.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7197787/

This study from 2020 found an 89% increase, which is a large effect size, but it’s still just 1’s of people per 100,000 more getting cancers. It’s not a massive public health hazard. War is complicated.

Regardless the effects are highly localized. You’re fine if you’re not nearby.

I do not understand your ultimate point. Going by your line of reasoning, the utilization of nerve gas on the frontlines, chemical weapons and maybe even low-yield nuclear weapons should not be considered a big deal since they are all 'highly-localized' anyways, right?

It might all be 'highly-localized', but DU is there to stay in the ground virtually forever, until it is blow elsewhere by the wind of carried underground by rain, both of which are equally undesirable outcomes.

My ultimate point is that if you are in Bulgaria you have nothing to worry about from DU ammo in Ukraine. Which was the original question. I find your other points to be a straw man. Most banned weapons are about indiscriminate civilian killing or needlessly harming soldiers that would be already removed from the battlefield.

There’s no evidence that this stuff can blow elsewhere at concentrations sufficient to cause harm very far (maybe a couple dozen miles). Hence, “highly localized”.

Highly localized. Radiation in Poland be like

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