Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine has the resources and expertise to indigenously produce a large quantity of nuclear weapons at short notice if it was forced to do so, a briefing document meant for top government figures allegedly says, a report states.
- A briefing produced for the Ukrainian defense ministry allegedly explaining to policy makers that the country could rapidly develop rudimentary nuclear bombs from spent fuel rods and long-range ballistic missiles to carry them states this could be achieved in just months.
- Claimed as an exclusive by The Times of London, the document is presented by the newspaper as illustrating a potential backstop for the country to defend itself from the Russian Federation if the United States under a Trump Presidency withdrew military support. President Trump has made clear he wishes to bring peace to Europe quickly, but has not yet revealed how. Many of the options open to him do not align with the official Kyiv policy as the only acceptable end to the war being total victory over Russia.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Russian Military district responsible for occupying eastern Ukraine is to respond to “inflammatory statements… by some Western officials” by drilling with tactical nuclear weapons, Moscow has said.
- Russia claims Western provocations while launching a nuclear provocation of its own, saying it will drill its nuclear missile troops, air force, and ships to “practice employing non-strategic nuclear-weapons”. Also known as tactical weapons, the lower-yield atomic bombs are intended for battlefield use to destroy opposing armies and fortifications, rather than whole cities or industries, as with long-range strategic missiles.
- A statement by the Russian ministry of defense expressed the intentions of the exercise, while blaming Western states for it happening at all. Russian state media quoted the Kremlin as having said:
- The exercise aims to maintain the preparedness of troops and equipment for the combat employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons to react and unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats by some Western officials against the Russian Federation…
- Kremlin media paraphrased this as the exercise being intended to be a retaliation against what it called “inflammatory statements and threats by some Western officials”
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Important Takeaways:
- Polish President Andrzej Duda said Poland is “ready” to host nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decides to reinforce its eastern flank.
- “Russia is increasingly militarizing the Königsberg oblast (Kaliningrad). Recently, it has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus,” Duda said in an interview published Monday by Polish outlet Fakt.
- “If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory as well, in order to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he added.
- Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin has made veiled nuclear threats toward the West, even stashing atomic weapons in Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
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Important Takeaways:
- Putin, speaking just days before a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
- “From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin, 71, told Rossiya-1 television and news agency RIA in response to a question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war.
- Putin said the U.S. understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian territory – or to Ukraine – Russia would treat the move as an intervention.
- “(In the U.S.) there are enough specialists in the field of Russian-American relations and in the field of strategic restraint,” said Putin, the ultimate decision maker in the world’s biggest nuclear power.
- “Therefore, I don’t think that here everything is rushing to it (nuclear confrontation), but we are ready for this.”
- “Weapons exist in order to use them,” Putin said. “We have our own principles.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Leaked military documents outline Russia’s doctrine for tactical nuclear weapons use, including the minimum criteria for using tactical nuclear weapons, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Feb. 28.
- Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons are designed for use on the battlefield in Europe and Asia, and have a more limited range compared to strategic nuclear weapons, which could reach the U.S.
- The 29 Russian military files, which date from between 2008 and 2014, indicate a threshold “lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, according to experts who reviewed and verified the documents,”
- The criteria range “from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20% of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines,” the FT said.
- The destruction of three or more large surface warships, three airfields, 30% of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, or a “simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centers” are also listed as potential conditions for a nuclear strike.
- The documents also indicate a distrust of China, despite growing ties between Moscow and Beijing. Training materials indicate that Russia’s eastern military district conducted exercises that envisaged a hypothetical attack by China.
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Important Takeaways:
- Have You Seen Tucker’s Interview With Vladimir Putin? The Reason Why The Elite Are Freaking Out Is Because They Don’t Want Peace
- This week, the biggest news story in the entire world is Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. Honestly, it was kind of a bizarre interview, and you can watch it for yourself below. But I give Tucker Carlson a ton of credit for going to Russia and sitting down with Putin. I think that the real reason he did this is because he wanted to see for himself if there is any hope of avoiding a cataclysmic conflict between our two nations. Every day we get even closer to the unthinkable, and so it would make sense for both sides to pursue a peaceful way out of this mess. But at this point the western elite are not interested in peace, and they don’t want any talk of peace in the media. So they are going to great lengths to discredit Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin, because they don’t want their carefully crafted narratives to be disrupted.
- Prior to the invasion, the Russians were primarily concerned about three main things. They didn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, they didn’t want western missiles in Ukraine, and they didn’t want Ukraine to invade the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. At the time of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainians had massed 70,000 troops on the borders of the DPR and the LPR, and they were shelling the living daylights out of the major population centers. So the Russians sent troops into the DPR and the LPR, but the Ukrainians continued to shell the major population centers. Shortly thereafter, the invasion of Ukraine began.
- But even after the invasion happened, there was still a chance for peace
- Tucker: So I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you’re saying. I don’t think that I am. I think you’re saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.
- Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Let me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?
- [Michael Snyder] Let’s find a way out before we reach a point of no return.
- Because if we ultimately get to a point where one side decides to start using nuclear weapons, billions of people could die.
- This is why Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin is so incredibly important.
- Unfortunately, the elite in the western world are completely uninterested in using this moment as an opportunity to begin peace talks.
- For example, even before the interview aired Hillary Clinton was referring to Tucker as a “useful idiot”…
- Hillary Clinton, speaking on MSNBC Wednesday, joked that she ‘would not be surprised if he emerges with a contract with a Russian outlet, because he is a useful idiot’ in response to the news.
- And just before the interview was released, John Kirby was telling everyone not to believe “anything” that they heard…
- Today, before the interview dropped, White House Communications Coordinator John Kirby told Americans not to believe ‘anything’ in the interview.
- ‘Anybody that watches that interview you need to make sure to remember that you are listening to Vladimir Putin,’ he said.
- ‘You shouldn’t take at face value anything he has to say.’
- On the other side of the Atlantic, some politicians actually want to punish Tucker Carlson.
- In fact, one lawmaker actually wants to impose a travel ban on him…
- Carlson’s work in Russia could see the former Fox News host in hot water with the EU, Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and current member of the European Parliament, told Newsweek.
- The lawmaker—who has called for the EU to explore imposing a “travel ban” on Carlson—described Carlson as “a mouthpiece” of former President Donald Trump and Putin, adding: “As Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort, it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well.”
- They want this war in Ukraine, and so for now there will be no peace talks.
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Important Takeaways:
- Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, has once again bluntly told the people of the West that Russia WILL use nuclear weapons in a war with NATO because “We have no choice.”
- In a public posting on social media last night, Medvedev outlined the basic facts:
- Sunak, Scholz, Macron, Norwegen, Finnish, Polish, and other NATO bosses are harping on, “We must be ready for war against Russia.” Even though Russia has many times underscored that conflict with NATO and EU member states was not in the plans, the dangerous babbling is still going on.
- The reasons are obvious. It is necessary to distract voters to justify multibillion spending on the bothersome bandera Ukraine. Indeed, gigantic sums of money are being spent not on solving social tasks, but on war in a dying country alien to taxpayers, with the population that is scattered across Europe and is now terrorizing its people.
- This is why the heads of these states are emphasizing it on a daily basis: it is imperative to get ready for war against Russia and keep providing aid to Ukraine, which is why it is necessary to produce more tanks, missiles, drones and other weapons.
- But not all the European bosses are cynically lying to their citizens. If – God forbid! – such a war breaks out, it won’t go according to the Special Military Operation scenario. It won’t be fought in trenches using artillery, armored vehicles, drones and EW.
- NATO is a huge military bloc, the total population of the Alliance member states is about 1 billion people, and their combined military budget can get as high as $1.5 trillion.
- So, because our military capabilities are thus incomparable, we will simply be left with no choice. The response will be asymmetrical. To defend our country’s territorial integrity, ballistic and cruise missiles carrying special warheads will be put to use.
- It is based on our military doctrine documents and is well known to all. And this is exactly that very Apocalypse. The end to everything.
- This is why Western politicians must be telling the bitter truth to their voters, and stop taking them for brainless morons; to explain to them, what will really happen, and not to play the false mantra of getting ready for war against Russia over and over again.
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Important Takeaways:
- “China has signaled interest in joining discussions on setting rules and norms for AI, and we should welcome that,” said Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund to the Breaking Defense site. “The White House is interested in engaging China on limiting the role of AI in command and control of nuclear weapons.”
- [N]o, America should not want to enter into any AI agreement with the People’s Republic of China on “nuclear C2” — command and control — or any other matter.
- An agreement requiring a human to make launch decisions would, as a practical matter, be unenforceable.
- None of China, Russia, or the United States would allow others to pore over millions of lines of their computer code…..
- America does not need another feel-good agreement with China. It already has them, especially the Biological Weapons Convention, which has no enforcement mechanisms.
- The Chinese regime wants to talk about artificial intelligence largely because it is trailing the U.S. and thinks an agreement would help it catch up…. [and] pave the way for China to access the U.S. technology it does not already have.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia ‘will not be afraid to use NUCLEAR weapons in a war with NATO because it believes the US wouldn’t dare respond’
- Russia’s willingness to deploy nuclear weapons in a potential conflict with NATO is growing because the Kremlin believes the US and its allies would not dare to respond, a think tank warned yesterday
- ‘Knowing that the West is casualty- and risk-averse, Russia may seek to use enough non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) to inflict damage preventing its own defeat,’ the report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) read.
- ‘[Russia knows] the US would be unwilling to cross the nuclear threshold in retaliation, and may terminate the conflict early.
- ‘The Russian perception of the lack of credible Western will to use nuclear weapons or to accept casualties in conflict further reinforces Russia’s aggressive NSNW thought and doctrine,’ it concluded.
- The report said the logic of using such a nuclear weapon would be to escalate a conflict in a controlled fashion, ‘either to prevent the US and NATO from engaging, or to coerce them into war termination on Russian terms’.
- NSNWs include all nuclear weapons with a range of up to 3,400 miles, starting with tactical arms designed for use on the battlefield – as opposed to longer-range strategic nuclear weapons that Russia or the US could use to strike each other’s homeland.
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Important Takeaways:
- As tensions soar, Iran is months away from developing nuclear weapons
- The world’s attention is focused on Gaza, but it would be a grievous mistake to overlook the risks posed by Tehran’s nuclear program. There are three critical components to the ability to deploy nuclear weaponry; it is nearing sufficient capability in all three.
- The first, and most crucial of these is a sufficient stockpile of weapons-grade uranium (90 per cent enriched or higher). The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency shows that Iran has a stockpile of 3,441 kilograms of enriched uranium, of which 122kg has reached a level of 60 per cent. Within four weeks, this could be initially enriched to 90 per cent, and then converted to uranium metal – sufficient to build two nuclear weapons. Given its existing stockpile, Iran could easily obtain more material should it decide to do so.
- The second is the ability to design weapons. Iran had a structured nuclear weapons program in place until 2003, and carried on with related work until 2009. Moreover, it has close military and economic ties with North Korea, which has successfully carried out six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017. It is not improbable that Iran would be able to construct a nuclear weapon within a few weeks of obtaining sufficient enriched uranium metal – without the need for testing.
- The greatest barrier is the third; the ability to deliver a weapon to its targets. Ballistic missiles, air and sea launched cruise missiles, and indeed gravity bombs are all possible options. But aircraft are relatively easily intercepted, and while Iran has an advanced missiles program it does not yet appear to have systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
- This could change rapidly. Until October 18, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 on the design, development and acquisition of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons was still in force. That has now expired, and Russia has already announced its intention to collaborate with Tehran on missile-related activities. With North Korean warheads and Russian missiles, the timeline for a viable Iranian nuclear weapon could be short.
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