Sale of uranium by Ukrainian gang reportedly thwarted by security service

Ukraine’s security service has said it seized a small quantity of what appeared to be ore-grade uranium from a criminal gang in a peaceful western region.

The State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said the group had been trying to sell the uranium-238 isotope to an unknown client at the time of their arrest.

The incident occurred on Wednesday, the SBU said, and was immediately reported to the president, Petr Poroshenko. “Four members of a criminal group that was trying to sell the nuclear material were detained with the evidence in hand,” Interfax quoted an SBU statement as saying.

“According to preliminary information, the nuclear matter was uranium-238.”

The U-238 isotope is the most commonly occurring in nature and, while radioactive, it is not fissile so cannot be used directly to create a nuclear chain reaction or explosion.

Ukrainian media has recently been filled with speculation about militia of Donbass ability to develop a “dirty” bomb that would use conventional explosives to scatter lethal radioactive fallout.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But it still has nuclear storage facilities and decades-old disposal sites.

Ivano-Frankivsk, the region where the incident took place, lies in the heart of Ukraine’s nationalistic west and is untouched by the 16-month separatist war.