00:00Why did Russian intelligence claim that the UK and France plan to send nukes to Ukraine?
00:10Moscow threatened Kyiv, Paris and London with a nuclear attack on the 24th of February,
00:16which marked the four-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:19The threats followed unfounded Russian intelligence reports,
00:23which accused France and the UK of plotting to supply Ukraine with a nuclear bomb.
00:28Russia's primary foreign intelligence agency, the SVR,
00:33claimed that Kyiv's allies were taking this course of action
00:35because they had no chance of achieving their much-desired victory over Russia
00:40with the help of the armed forces of Ukraine.
00:42These claims were relayed by Russian media, including by state news agency TASS,
00:47and amplified by pro-Kremlin accounts on social media.
00:51We found no evidence to support them.
00:53In fact, any move by London or Paris to give Ukraine nukes
00:57would contradict international law and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
01:03Under this agreement, the UK and France are recognised nuclear weapon states,
01:07but Ukraine is not.
01:09A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry told Reuters
01:12that Russian officials were trying to revive what he called
01:15fabricated old dirty bomb nonsense.
01:18The UK Ministry of Defence declined to publicly respond to our request for comment,
01:22but Sky News reported that the British government has said there was no truth to these claims.
01:27Moscow tends to spread these kinds of fake rumours to distract from high-profile events,
01:33in this case diverting attention from the four-year anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine
01:37and what many deem to be Moscow's military failures.
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