KYIV, Oct 24 - Ukrainian authorities tried to dampen public fears over Russia’s use of Iranian drones by claiming increasing success Monday in shooting them down, while the Kremlin’s talk of a possible “dirty bomb” attack added another worrying dimension as the war enters its ninth month.

Ukraine’s forces have shot down more than two-thirds of the approximately 330 Shahed drones that Russia has fired through Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, said Monday, The Associated Press reported. Budanov said Russia’s military had ordered about 1,700 drones of different types and is rolling out a second batch of about 300 Shaheds.

“Terror with the use of ‘Shaheds’ can actually last for a long time,” he was quoted as saying in the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, adding: “Air defense is basically coping, 70% are shot down.”

Both Russia and Iran deny that Iranian-built drones have been used but the triangle-shaped Shahed-136s have rained down on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere.

“First of all, we have to be able to counter the drones,” U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday at a press conference in Zagreb with Croatia’s leader. “It is a dangerous technology and it must be stopped.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate the “increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses” — to substitute for Russian-made long-range precision weapons “which are becoming increasingly scarce.”

That assessment came on top of a stark warning by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to his British, French, Turkish and U.S. counterparts over the weekend that Ukrainian forces were preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device — a so-called dirty bomb. Britain, France, and the United States rejected that claim as “transparently false.”

A dirty bomb uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror. Such weapons don’t have the devastating destruction of a nuclear explosion, but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.

Ukraine has rejected Moscow’s claims as an attempt to distract attention from its own plans to detonate a dirty bomb. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht on Monday dismissed as “outrageous” the Russian claim that Ukraine could use a dirty bomb.

The White House on Monday again underscored that the Russian allegations were false.

“It’s just not true. We know it’s not true,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said. “In the past, the Russians have, on occasion, blamed others for things that they were planning to do.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that Moscow itself was setting the stage for deploying a radioactive device on Ukrainian soil.

The country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Monday he has urged the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog to immediately send an inspection team to the country to dispel Moscow’s claims. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in response that it was preparing “safeguards visits” in the coming days.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations Tuesday at Russia’s request on what it claimed was Ukraine’s plans for a “dirty bomb.” (ap/ez)