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Depleted uranium shells and Putin's warning
Summary
A look back at the British decision on armour-piercing ammunition for Ukraine and the Russian reaction it drew.
What did the United Kingdom commit to send Ukraine on 21 March 2023, and how did Moscow respond? London confirmed that it would supply depleted uranium armour-piercing shells to accompany its Challenger 2 main battle tanks. It said the risk of radiation contamination was "low".
Russian president Vladimir Putin said Russia would be "forced to react" to the British move. He did not specify what form any reaction might take, and the exchange added a new strand to the tense relations between Moscow and London over military aid to Ukraine.
A visit two days earlier
The warning followed another development on 19 March 2023, when Putin visited Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast, territory occupied by Russia. It was reported as his first visit to the city since the full-scale invasion began.
What the sequence shows
The two events were separate, but they fell within days of each other. Putin appeared in an occupied Ukrainian city on 19 March, and on 21 March he answered a Western decision to equip Ukraine's tanks with a specific type of ammunition. The British announcement showed that military support was moving beyond the tanks themselves to the ammunition they would fire, while Moscow's reply set out a public stance of retaliation without detail.
