A top Russian diplomat (click here) has warned that Moscow will respond “militarily” and deploy tactical nuclear weapons, if NATO does not guarantee an end to its eastward expansion.
His remarks raise the stakes even higher in the confrontation between Russia and Western powers just days after U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video conference aimed at defusing a burgeoning crisis over Russian military movements near Ukraine's borders, where the Kremlin is estimated to have amassed around 100,000 troops.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s threat comes amid rising fears that Putin is considering a further military incursion into Ukraine in a rehash of Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its seizure of a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, bordering Russia....
There is nothing new here. Putin has been inching up on a nuclear exchange for awhile. Arguably, Russian nuclear braintrust is grossly diminished or completely incompetent.
By Mary llyushina and Niamh Kennedy
Russia has denied that any leaks (click here) have occurred at two of its nuclear power plants after higher than usual radiation was detected over Norway, Sweden and Finland in the first half of June.
The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) said Sunday that "very low" levels of man-made radioactivity were found over the three countries. There was no impact on the environment or human health, it said.
"The combination of radionuclides may be explained by an anomaly in the fuel elements of a nuclear power plant," RIVM suggested after performing a calculation to find the source of the radionuclides, which are atoms with an unstable core.
"The calculations indicate that the nuclides come from the direction of western Russia. Determining a more specific source location is not possible with the limited data available," RIVM said on its website. It made clear that "no specific country of origin can be pointed out at this moment".....
August 12, 2019
By David E. Sanger and Andrew E. Kramer
American intelligence officials (click here) are racing to understand a mysterious explosion that released radiation off the coast of northern Russia last week, apparently during the test of a new type of nuclear-propelled cruise missile hailed by President Vladimir V. Putin as the centerpiece of Moscow’s arms race with the United States.
American officials have said nothing publicly about the blast on Thursday, possibly one of the worst nuclear accidents in the region since Chernobyl, although apparently on a far smaller scale, with at least seven people, including scientists, confirmed dead. But the Russian government’s slow and secretive response has set off anxiety in nearby cities and towns — and attracted the attention of analysts in Washington and Europe who believe the explosion may offer a glimpse of technological weaknesses in Russia’s new arms program.
Thursday’s accident happened offshore of the Nenoksa Missile Test Site and was followed by what nearby local officials initially reported was a spike in radiation in the atmosphere.
Late Sunday night, officials at a research institute that had employed five of the scientists who died confirmed for the first time that a small nuclear reactor had exploded during an experiment in the White Sea, and that the authorities were investigating the cause....
Europe has been rained on my Russian nuclear explosions within the Russian borders for years now. Their nuclear scientists are disposable. The scientists wives come forward to accept awards from Putin for bravery. That makes good propaganda, but, it is not proliferic nuclear competency.
By David E. Sanger and Andrew E. Kramer
American intelligence officials (click here) are racing to understand a mysterious explosion that released radiation off the coast of northern Russia last week, apparently during the test of a new type of nuclear-propelled cruise missile hailed by President Vladimir V. Putin as the centerpiece of Moscow’s arms race with the United States.
American officials have said nothing publicly about the blast on Thursday, possibly one of the worst nuclear accidents in the region since Chernobyl, although apparently on a far smaller scale, with at least seven people, including scientists, confirmed dead. But the Russian government’s slow and secretive response has set off anxiety in nearby cities and towns — and attracted the attention of analysts in Washington and Europe who believe the explosion may offer a glimpse of technological weaknesses in Russia’s new arms program.
Thursday’s accident happened offshore of the Nenoksa Missile Test Site and was followed by what nearby local officials initially reported was a spike in radiation in the atmosphere.
Late Sunday night, officials at a research institute that had employed five of the scientists who died confirmed for the first time that a small nuclear reactor had exploded during an experiment in the White Sea, and that the authorities were investigating the cause....
Putin, as a military leader, always appears reckless because none of his military isn't. Putin goes with what he has to work with as his idea is to bring back the Soviet Union. The reason he is scared of NATO expansion is because it claims countries that Putin believes belongs to him, personally and to Mother Russia.
The Russian military forces are not experts in the way The West understands experts, they are what Russia has to work with and it doesn't measure up to The West. NATO is a real threat as far as Putin is concerned as one former Soviet state after another joins NATO. NATO is enhanced by their memberships bring a lot of know-how and expertise that actually do become better experts under NATO's tutelage. The West is grateful for the faith these former Soviet countries have shown in becoming members. They aren't aligned with Mother Russia, they are aligned with The West. There are reasons.
The statement has to be made that decades after Chernoby in 1986 there have been repeated nuclear accidents by the Russian government. It doesn't matter if they are accidents, the process being used in handling materials and power plants and/or missiles is very, very flawed. That is a clear indication that the Russian brain trust is mostly dried up and Russia for his propaganda doesn't have a strong military or strong nuclear program.
HOWEVER
That won't stop Putin. He will do it anyway, even if it means destroying more land to nuclear isotopes raining from the sky.
One of the other reasons Putin wants to recapture the Soviet Union is simply land. There are Russian lands that are radioactive and with each new incident there is more land that is contaminated. One has to wonder how much land in Russia doesn't have a trace of nuclear pollution. People with longevity aren't exposed to nuclear anything for any length of time.
There are two Russian ports that are a direct threat to Europe, Kaliningrad and Murmansk. It is these Russian ports that can be accessed for limited range nuclear missiles. Putin would do it from his safe bunker with all his children around him.
In reality Russia and the former Soviet Union are realitively young nations. They were estblished after the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s at the time when the Avian Flu was killing many Americans. When the Soviet Union was established the USA was already 135 years old and Europe centuries older. That equates to a lot of assets, both financial and military. The Soviet Unions was taking place when the USA Woodrow Wilson was president and seeking to begin the earliest form the United Nations. The USA was a leader then and is still today. It has a lot of allies and strategy that Russia and Putin do not.
Vladimir Putin has been at the top of the communists for a long time and leader of Russia longer than Lenin. Today, no different than when the Russian Revolution took place, more than 50 percent of the citizens of Russia want a free and open society with elections that matter. Now, what do they have? They are looking at a president that was illegally put back into office and stating their will be a nuclear exchange.
This nuclear position by Putin is not welcome in The West or within 50 percent of the Russian people. Putin should not take that lightly. He is figuring it is now or never considering he was received strategic information from Trump. China is also an ally to Russia since 2000 and their Friendship Agreement. These two communist countries with far less experience with democracy than The West are poised or so they think to conduct war with the USA and they both know it is a nuclear exchange because the USA's military is strong and even stronger within NATO.
I am not surprised a Russian diplomat is stating Putin is considering a limited nuclear exchange with The West. He has no signficant military and he is out of running room to reclaim the Soviet Union. No matter his strong man tactics, he will lose the support of the people everytime. Putin wants this, but, he isn't going to win any measurable return to the Soviet Union because the former states already made their choice. He never considers the power of the people because he sees them dead in their opposition. This time, those Soviet states won't be alone.
