The upcoming US shipment to Ukraine of depleted uranium ammunition for promised M1 Abrams tanks has angered Russia as the Ukrainian counteroffensive gains momentum south of the eastern city of Bakhmut and western the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia.

“This is, in fact, a criminal act (…),” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said this Thursday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was visiting the Ukrainian province of Chernigov this Thursday, announced on Wednesday in Kiev a new military and civil assistance package of more than $1 billion for Ukraine, which includes for the first time ammunition 120 millimeter caliber with depleted uranium for M1 Abrams tanks.

US President Joe Biden promised Ukraine 31 units of these armored vehicles last January.

“We want to make sure that the Ukrainians can be as effective as possible in this counteroffensive (…), explained in Washington the spokesman for the White House National Security Council, John Kirby.

The use of projectiles with depleted uranium, which have a greater capacity to pierce armor and are in the reserves of other armies, including the Russian one, is controversial due to their possible impacts on health and the environment.

Last March, the United Kingdom was the first country to announce the shipment to Ukraine of this type of ammunition for the British Challenger 2 tanks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said today that the supply of these projectiles by the US is “very bad news” due to the consequences for the population of the territory in which the ammunition will be used. He emphasized that all responsibility “will fall entirely on the US.”

Russian diplomacy stressed that these munitions cause “a moving radioactive cloud and small particles of uranium are deposited in the respiratory tract, lungs and esophagus, accumulate in the kidneys and liver, cause cancer and cause inhibition of functions.” of the entire organism”.

Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told CNN yesterday that the United States has “absolute confidence that the Ukrainians will use them responsibly as they fight to reclaim their sovereign territory.”

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre noted for her part that the M1 Abrams tanks that will be able to use this ammunition will arrive “soon” in Ukraine.

According to the American media Politico, the first ten units should arrive at their destination in the middle of this month.

“Many of the transferred weapons have already become scrap or have been destroyed in the combat zone. There is no doubt that the Abrams will suffer the same fate (…),” said the leader imposed by Russia in the eastern region. Ukrainian from Donetsk, Denis Pushilin.

The US announcement of a new military assistance package comes as kyiv has managed to give new impetus to its counteroffensive.

In Donetsk, the Ukrainian troops have managed in the last day to expel the Russians to the south of Bakhmut from positions that they controlled on this flank of the town, according to what the Ukrainian General Staff indicated today.

Also in the east, but in the Kharkov region, Ukrainian soldiers today raised the Ukrainian flag in the villages of Stroivka and Topoli, on the border with Russia, according to the Interior Ministry.

In turn, in the west of the Zaporizhia region, the Ukrainian Army managed to liberate small areas south of the liberated town of Robotine and west of the neighboring Verbove, according to Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesman for the Tavria strategic operational group, in charge of the southeastern area of ??the front.

There, Kiev’s troops try to break the Russian defense lines to reach the occupied city of Melitopol and cut off the land corridor created by Russia on the shores of the Sea of ??Azov from the Donbas to the annexed Crimean peninsula.