Russia and Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

They don't need reasons, they're already war criminals. Laying that aside, it's of a piece with pretty much any of russias threats. If anyone does anything that scares them, they swear they'll kill more people harder. DU equipped western mbts can get in on the turret tossing olympics outside of return fire range for russian armor, not that it would matter much if russian armor were in range, since du armored western mbts can take a hit from anything the soviets tanks have and continue to operate. In the south, in a potential run on crimea, the sight lines are so open that the t series operators will likely never see a challenger or abrams or leo. That's the reason they make the threat, because they already know how the t series performs against those tanks from recent conflicts, not out of concern. You probably don't agree with them at all, more that you agree with your own framing.

On that count, the radioactivity of du is overplayed. DU is the leftover waste material from enrichment - quick and dirty, the radiactivity has been shifted over to the enriched uranium, and the depleted uranium is less radioactive that uranium in it's natural form - hence..depleted. So much so that our skin is an effective barrier. The problem is longevity and amount - so, provided they have a plan for battlefield cleanup and removal, it's likely that most people in the coming years will die from unexploded ordinance and land mines that russia has not mapped out or will not share their maps of, than from anything involving du toxicity from tank rounds. That's assuming they can stop the russians killing them directly, first, ofc - and doesn't take into account how many ukranians will become unwell, die, or die earlier due to the destruction and damage to ukranian infrastructure - to say nothing of the lasting psychological and social effects of a recently mobilization population.

In that wider context, where an entire generation of ukranians, at least, have had whatever their lives would have been taken from them even if they survive, anything that can end the war quicker is likely to be a net gain. Not supplying them with what weapons we have that could do that has been a long running hobby of ukraines allies. I doubt they appreciate it, or that we have anything valid to say about what weapons they should or shouldn't want or use. We may worry about du use now, but I'd call it completely certain that ukraine re-aquires actual nuclear weapons on the other side of this conflict. Depending on us and russian promises of security, or the largesse of western states mic, has shown itself to be a ludicrous strategy.