RT News - January 6th 2023 Late

Moscow says Ukraine continues firing on civilian areas despite a ceasefire announced by Russia for Orthodox Christmas, which Kiev rejected. The ceasefire should have started at noon on Friday but within one minute of the ceasefire, Ukraine had fired 6 155mm shells into a residential area of Donetsk (A). At least two women have been injured in the past 24 hours by Ukraine shelling. Human tragedy. Report.

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Ukraine "security services" raided several churches across the country on Friday (Orthodox Christmas eve)

Some western politicians have decried Pres. Zelensky's rejection of the ceasefire for Christmas.

Emmanuel Macron (France) has said "until victory and until peace returns to Europe, France's support for Ukraine will not waiver" Rachel Marsden looks at what that statement means.

Detention of Marat Kasem in Latvia: Demolishing the pillars of the freedom of the press - - 'Lawlessness in Europe' - that's how the head of Sputnik news' parent company branded the detention of its chief editor in Latvia. Marat Kasem is accused by authorities of violating anti-Russian sanctions.

The Egyptian Pound has dropped to record lows against the U.S. Dollar, this is in the wake of a $3 billion IMF bailout agreement.

Serbians block roads in Southern Kosovo demanding justice for two young people wounded after an Albanian national targeted civilians in a drive-by shooting. Report from Nikola Jovic.

Twitter: Hundreds of thousands of twitter users have voted to dig deeper into the dirty laundry of the politicians who have colluded, manipulated and threatened the platform before Elon Musk purchased the company. Caleb Maupin looks at the eighth instalment of the "Twitter Files" and what it could mean for the Democrats. Example : James Clapper, former U.S. Director of National Intelligence, continued with accusations in full knowledge of what was going on.
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Below via RT website
A) --- Donetsk shelled in first minute of Christmas truce – authorities
B) --- Christmas truce ordered by Putin comes into force
C) --- US set to fight with Russia ‘to the last Ukrainian’ – Moscow

1) ---Two Serbs shot in Kosovo Christmas Eve attack
2) --- Russia blasts ‘cynical’ Christmas decision by Germany
3) --- Latest saboteur attack foiled in Russia – media
4) --- Moscow asks UN to intervene in journalist’s prosecution in EU country
5) --- Ukraine conflict at 'critical point' – Biden
6) --- US rankles China with latest Taiwan ‘provocation’
7) --- Nuclear Ukraine? Amid 'concerns' over alleged Russian threat, the world overlooks the real danger
7a) Leaked documents expose Ukrainian attempts to destabilize Russia and draw NATO into a full-scale war with Moscow
7b) --- Dead Hand’s nuclear revenge: What would happen if the West launched an attack
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6 Jan, 2023 12:01

A) --- Donetsk shelled in first minute of Christmas truce – authorities

Ukrainian officials had rejected Moscow’s proposal to cease hostilities for 36 hours

Ukraine’s forces disregarded the Christmas ceasefire announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin less than a minute after it took effect, by shelling a residential area in the city of Donetsk, according to the local authorities. The truce is supposed to last from noon on January 6 until midnight on January 7.

In a Telegram post on Friday, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), a monitoring group that tracks attacks on Russia’s Donbass regions, said that Kiev’s forces had fired six 155mm shells targeting the Petrovsky District in the western part of the city. No casualties have been reported.

Ukraine conducted the strike less than a minute after the ceasefire entered into force, according to the JCCC, adding that half an hour later, another strike was delivered in the same area with four 155mm rounds.

On Friday, the Russian Defence Ministry said that despite the compliance by Moscow's forces with the truce, “the Kiev regime continued artillery strikes on settlements and positions of Russian troops.” It added that Russian forces had suppressed several Ukrainian artillery positions that had been involved in the shelling along the entire frontline.

The truce was ordered by the Russian president on Thursday on the eve of Orthodox Christmas after an appeal by Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. The goal of the ceasefire was to give Orthodox Christians “the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day,” the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian officials, however, rejected the ceasefire offer. Alexey Danilov, the head of the National Security and Defense Council dismissed the initiative as “lies and hypocrisy,” while promising Moscow that Kiev “will bite you in the singing silence of the Ukrainian night.”

This sentiment was echoed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who dismissed the offer as a military ruse. “Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses ceasefires to continue the war with renewed vigor,” he claimed.

Ukrainian forces have repeatedly shelled both Russia’s DPR and the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic, targeting residential sectors and other civilian infrastructure. According to JCCC data, since February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, Kiev’s attacks have killed a total of 4,405 civilians in the DPR and 169 in the LPR.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569474-donetsk-shelled-christmas-truce/
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6 Jan, 2023 08:57

B) --- Christmas truce ordered by Putin comes into force

Kiev rejected the ceasefire initiative, calling it a military ruse

A cessation of hostilities in Ukraine ordered by President Vladimir Putin on the eve of Orthodox Christmas took effect on Friday morning. Russia intends to observe the truce for 36 hours, from 12:00 local time on January 6 until midnight on January 7.

The president’s ceasefire order was issued on Thursday after an appeal by Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. “We call upon the Ukrainian side to proclaim a cessation of hostilities and give them [Orthodox Christians] the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day,” a Kremlin statement read.

The Russian truce has been rejected by Kiev, with officials calling it “hypocritical,” and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky describing the offer as a military ruse while US President Joe Biden suggested that by seeking a pause, Putin “is trying to find some oxygen.”

In a statement on Thursday, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, claimed the Biden administration’s reaction shows the US “is committed to fighting with Moscow ‘to the last Ukrainian,’” while not caring about the eventual fate of the Ukrainian people.

Meanwhile, Denis Pushilin, the acting leader of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), stated that his troops would not conduct any offensive actions during the truce, while not letting any Ukrainian provocations go unanswered. Russian forces will not allow “the enemy any chance to use the holiday hours to improve its positions along the line of contact,” he added.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569467-christmas-truce-ukraine-start/
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6 Jan, 2023 07:40

C) --- US set to fight with Russia ‘to the last Ukrainian’ – Moscow

Earlier, President Joe Biden voiced skepticism about the Christmas truce offered by Russia

The US government’s policies on Ukraine show it is not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the Russian ambassador to Washington said on Thursday.

In a statement, Anatoly Antonov argued that Washington’s decision to supply Kiev with Bradley Fighting Vehicles only confirms the US has not “even tried to listen” to Russia’s warnings against such “a dangerous course.”

“The US unleashed a real proxy-war against Russia by supporting Nazi criminals in Kiev” as early as 2014, the ambassador said, referring to the coup that ousted the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. “Any talk about a ‘defensive nature’ of weapons supplied to Ukraine has long become absurd,” he added.

The envoy claimed Western arms shipments only encourage Ukrainian radicals to commit “terrible deeds,” adding to “their feeling of impunity… They continue to kill civilians in Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions of the Russian Federation in an extremely cynical way.”

Nobody should still have doubts who bears responsibility for prolonging this conflict,” as all actions by the US administration “indicate a lack of any desire for a political settlement,” Antonov said.

The Russian ambassador highlighted US President Joe Biden’s reaction to the 36-hour truce on Orthodox Christmas announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Earlier, the US president dismissed Moscow’s offer, saying: “I’m reluctant to respond to anything that Putin says… I think he’s trying to find some oxygen.”

“All this means that Washington is committed to fighting with us ‘to the last Ukrainian’, while the destiny of people of Ukraine means nothing to the US,” the diplomat argued.

The proposed ceasefire was branded “hypocritical” by Ukrainian officials, with President Vladimir Zelensky calling it a ruse, saying: “Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses ceasefires to continue the war with renewed vigor.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/569463-us-russia-fight-last-ukrainian/
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6 Jan, 2023 17:43

1) ---Two Serbs shot in Kosovo Christmas Eve attack

An ethnic Albanian is suspected of a drive-by shooting on the Orthodox holiday

Ethnic Serbs blocked a major road in the south of Kosovo on Friday, in protest over a drive-by shooting of two youths on Christmas Eve. An 11-year-old boy and his 21-year-old cousin were shot not far from Strpce from a passing car, identified as belonging to an ethnic Albanian, as they walked with oak branches traditionally used to celebrate the holiday in the Orthodox Christian tradition.

“Someone wanted to give us a bloody Christmas,” tweeted Petar Petkovic, the Serbian government’s commissioner for Kosovo. He described the shooting as “an attempted murder.”

Cousins Milos and Stefan Stojanovic were taken to a hospital in nearby Gracanica. “One was shot in the hand and the other in the shoulder, and they survived only by sheer luck,” Petkovic’s office said in a follow-up statement. They blamed the attack on the “anti-Serb policy” of the ethnic Albanian authorities in Pristina, and demanded “a swift and decisive response from the international community.”

Even though the attacker’s vehicle was positively identified by local residents, the ethnic Albanian police let the suspected shooter go, according to the outlet Kosovo Online. The outraged residents of Gotovusa, a Serb village near Strpce, have blocked the road and intend to protest until the perpetrator is brought to justice.

Serbian media said on Friday evening that a 33-year old man was detained by local authorities in connection to the shooting incident.

A group of Polish soldiers from NATO’s KFOR peacekeeping mission has set up an observation post nearby, local media reported.

NATO troops took control of Kosovo in 1999, after nearly three months of bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian insurgents. The province’s provisional government declared independence in 2008, but Belgrade has resisted US and EU pressure to recognize it, relying on support from Russia and China.

Last month, Serbs in the north of Kosovo set up roadblocks to protest the deployment of heavily armed ethnic Albanian police in their communities. The barricades were removed shortly before the New Year holiday, after the government in Belgrade claimed it received solid guarantees from Washington and Brussels that they would keep Pristina in line.
https://www.rt.com/news/569489-kosovo-christmas-shooting-barricades/
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6 Jan, 2023 15:24

2) --- Russia blasts ‘cynical’ Christmas decision by Germany

Berlin announced a new batch of military support for Kiev on the eve of the Orthodox Christian holiday

Germany’s decision to provide Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles and a US-made Patriot air defense system will only add fuel to the conflict, Russia’s embassy in Berlin warned on Friday.

The day before, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed earlier reports that Berlin would send new military hardware to Ukraine to support its fight with Russia. Later, a German government spokesman clarified that Berlin would supply Kiev with 40 Marders, sometimes referred to as “light tanks.”

In a statement, the Russian embassy “strongly condemned” the decision, describing it as “another step towards the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.”

The move looks “especially cynical” given that it was announced on the eve of Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7, and “against the background of the ceasefire” announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

The swift approval of this security assistance “leaves no doubt that Berlin took this step … under significant pressure from Washington, acting in line with the destructive rationale of transatlantic solidarity,” the embassy added.

The diplomatic mission went on to reiterate that “pumping Kiev with lethal weapons and heavy military equipment, used not only against Russian military personnel, but also against the civilian population of the Donbass, is the moral line the German authorities should not have crossed,” given the war crimes the Nazis committed in the Soviet Union during WWII.

The continued military support of Ukraine shows that Germany and the West “are not interested in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict,” the embassy claimed.

“Their efforts turned Ukraine into a military testing ground, while the Ukrainian people became a tool for achieving Western geopolitical interests,” it stated, warning that arms shipments would not only prolong the conflict, but also “have quite a negative impact” on Russian-German ties.

On Thursday, the Kremlin announced a 36-hour Christmas ceasefire to give the Orthodox faithful the opportunity to attend religious services. The proposal, however, was dismissed by Ukrainian officials as “hypocritical.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also took a swipe at the move, saying that “a so-called ceasefire will bring neither freedom nor security to the people who live in daily fear under Russian occupation.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/569480-russia-germany-ukraine-arms-cynical/
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6 Jan, 2023 15:07

3) --- Latest saboteur attack foiled in Russia – media

Several suspects have reportedly been detained by the state security service at a railway station in the Urals

The Federal Security Service has announced it foiled a sabotage attempt at a railway facility in the Chelyabinsk Region of Russia’s Urals, TASS news agency reported on Thursday, citing the FSB.

“The FSB … caught three men red-handed as they were trying to disable the traction substation at a station of the South Urals Railway. A can of gasoline, a gas cylinder, a burner, and other items were seized at the crime scene,” an FSB official told the news agency.

The incident was reportedly confirmed to TASS by the regional FSB press service. The allegiance or nationality of the suspects, however, was not immediately known. They have been placed in pre-trial custody for two months under a court order.

In recent weeks, the FSB has made several announcements of foiled terrorist and saboteur attacks, allegedly staged on behalf of Ukraine. In late December, two Russian nationals were killed by FSB operatives in the country’s south. The suspects were allegedly plotting a terrorist attack in Russia before seeking to travel to Ukraine to fight against the Russian military.

Shortly before the incident, the FSB said it had intercepted a group of Ukrainian saboteurs trying to cross into Russia. Four suspects, carrying assorted weapons and explosives, were killed by officers in a firefight.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569483-fsb-saboteur-attack-foiled/
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6 Jan, 2023 14:41

4) --- Moscow asks UN to intervene in journalist’s prosecution in EU country

The allegations against Sputnik’s Marat Kasem in Latvia are “absurd,” officials claim

Latvia’s arrest of Marat Kasem, a journalist working for the Russian news network Sputnik, is an attack on freedom of speech, Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s top human rights official, has said. She asked the UN to intervene in the matter.

The editor-in-chief of Sputnik’s Lithuanian branch, Kasem was detained in Riga, the capital of neighboring Latvia. According to Latvia’s State Security Service (VDD), the journalist is suspected of “cooperation with [a] Kremlin propaganda resource subjected to sanctions.” Kasem was taken into custody on a court order, his lawyer announced on Thursday.

The journalist is a Latvian citizen but has lived in Moscow for several years and has been working for the Russian state-funded Rossiya Segodnya media group, which Sputnik Lithuania is part of.

“I view the criminal [prosecution] of Marat Kasem as an encroachment on freedom of speech and a violation of Latvia’s international commitments to protect the rights of journalists,” Moskalkova wrote on her Telegram channel.

"I urge the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to take a look at this outrageous fact and act in accordance with their mandate to defend the rights of Marat Kasem."

Russia’s Council of Human Rights, a presidential advisory body, released a statement calling the case against Kasem “far-fetched and absurd.” It asked the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe to intervene, accusing Riga of “prosecuting Russian journalists.”

In 2014, after Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, the EU blacklisted Rossiya Segodnya Director Dmitry Kiselyov for “supporting the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine.” In 2020, the Latvian authorities launched criminal proceedings against several journalists working for Sputnik and another Russia-linked website, Baltnews, on suspicions of violating the sanctions.

The EU banned Sputnik last year in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine launched in late February.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569482-russia-un-latvia-journalist/
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6 Jan, 2023 11:20

5) --- Ukraine conflict at 'critical point' – Biden

The US president says new weapons shipments will help Kiev fight Moscow

US President Joe Biden has described the Ukraine conflict as entering a crucial phase, justifying Washington’s latest pledge to send more heavy weapons to Kiev. His statement came after Ukraine rejected Russia’s proposal for an Orthodox Christmas ceasefire.

“Right now, the war in Ukraine is at a critical point. We have to do everything we can to help the Ukrainians resist Russian aggression, and Russia is not attempting to slow up,” Biden said during a government meeting in the White House on Thursday. “Earlier this afternoon, I had a long discussion with [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz and – about Ukraine – and our alliances in Europe and the EU. We have a much larger contingent of countries that share our view, including Japan and others.”

Biden highlighted Washington’s recent decision to supply Kiev with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a Patriot air defense missile battery, in a bid to shore up Ukraine’s military capabilities. “They function well, and they’re helping a lot,” Biden said.

Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords. Western powers responded by imposing sweeping sanctions on Moscow and sending a constant flow of weaponry to Ukraine, despite the Kremlin’s warnings that foreign arms will only prolong the conflict.

Kiev and its Western backers have rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call to observe a 36-hour ceasefire from Friday noon to midnight on Saturday, in order to allow Orthodox Christians, who make up the majority in Ukraine and Russia, to celebrate Christmas.

Putin’s proposal for a ceasefire came after Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, urged all sides to end hostilities during the holiday.

In a video address on Thursday, Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed that Moscow was planning to use the ceasefire “to stop the advance of our boys in Donbass for a bit” and to buy time to deploy more troops and equipment to the frontline. Ned Price, spokesman for the US State Department, dismissed Russia’s ceasefire offer as “cynical.”

However, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the ceasefire proposal, according to his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
https://www.rt.com/news/569473-biden-critical-point-ukraine/
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6 Jan, 2023 17:57

6) --- US rankles China with latest Taiwan ‘provocation’

Beijing has accused Washington of exacerbating tensions by sailing another warship through the Taiwan Strait

US-China tensions over Taiwan have escalated yet again, with Beijing accusing Washington of purposely undermining stability in the region by sailing a warship through the strait between the self-governing island and the Chinese mainland.

The USS Chung-Hoon, a guided-missile destroyer, transited through international waters of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday in what the US Navy called a “freedom-of-navigation” exercise. The incident marked Washington’s first such passage through the 100-mile-wide strait this year and came just two weeks after US and Chinese warplanes passed within 3 meters of each other over the South China Sea.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, called on the US to “immediately stop provoking troubles, escalating tensions and undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” He added, “China will continue to stay on high alert and is ready to respond to all threats and provocations at any time, and will resolutely safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) went on high alert as it monitored the US ship’s passage through the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy has vowed to continue transits through the strait to demonstrate its commitment to “a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Navy spokeswoman Lt. Kristina Wiedemann told USNI News that Thursday’s transit was done in accordance with international law.

"The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows.”

The Chinese embassy spokesman said such demonstrations only heighten tensions between the countries. “US warships frequently flex muscles in the name of exercising freedom of navigation. This is not about keeping the region free and open.”

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen reportedly visited a military base on Friday in central Chiayi county to observe drills amid the latest row. She told reporters that the PLA’s “continuous activities” around Taiwan are “not helpful to cross-strait relations nor to the peace and stability of the region.”

US-China relations deteriorated last summer, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied warnings from Beijing by visiting Taiwan. Chinese officials had claimed that her trip would undermine Beijing’s sovereignty over the island and embolden separatists. China reacted by ramping up military drills in the region and severing defense and climate ties with the US.
https://www.rt.com/news/569492-china-protest-us-warship-transiting-taiwan-strait/
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6 Jan, 2023 15:12

7) --- Nuclear Ukraine? Amid 'concerns' over alleged Russian threat, the world overlooks the real danger

Kiev is capable of building an atomic device, and its leaders often outline such thoughts

Last year, Western media and high-ranking politicians actively discussed the possibility of Russian troops using atomic weapons in Ukraine. There has even been speculation on the likelihood of a nuclear war breaking out. However, it could be said that the risk is probably a lot higher on the other side of the barricades.

Ukraine’s Atomic History

Ukraine was a nuclear state after the collapse of the USSR, when 1,700 active atomic warheads remained in the country. Its politicians of that time had the prudence to abandon this status. The weapons were taken to Russia under international control, and their means of delivery were destroyed. Ukraine’s missile silos, with the exception of one which is now a museum near Kiev, were blown up, while its strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons were either transferred to Russia or destroyed.

Despite this, there were still many nuclear specialists in Ukraine, as research into nuclear fission has been conducted in Kharkov since the 1930s. In addition, five nuclear power plants were built in Ukraine during the Soviet years: Zaporozhye, Rovno, Khmelnitsky, and South-Ukrainian, as well as the infamous Chernobyl, where an accident involving a power unit led to an explosion that spewed radioactive fallout throughout Europe.

In addition, uranium is extracted at a deposit in Ukraine’s Kirovograd Region and enriched at a plant in the city of Zheltye Vody. In the 2010s, there were plans with Russia’s Rosatom to build a plant in Ukraine that would produce fuel for nuclear power stations. However, these were abandoned after the Maidan coup in 2014, when the country adopted an adversarial stance towards Russia.

At present, three of Ukraine’s five original nuclear power plants remain under its control. Chernobyl, which continued to generate electricity even after the 1986 accident, was finally decommissioned in 2020, while Zaporozhye, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has been guarded by Russian troops since last year. It is currently being run by Rosatom but does not produce electricity, largely for safety reasons. This is due to regular rocket and artillery attacks by Ukrainian troops, which have damaged numerous pieces of auxiliary equipment.

Push to Reobtain Nuclear Weapons

It should be noted that not everyone in Ukraine was happy that the country gave up its nuclear weapons. Ukrainian politicians have often failed to hide the fact that their dream of reobtaining nuclear weapons is not so much connected with their country’s security, as the desire to dictate their will to the rest of the world. Radical Ukrainian nationalists were particularly dissatisfied with the abandonment of the country’s nuclear status, and many of their manifestos contain a clause calling for it to be restored.

For example, “the return of nuclear weapons” is specifically cited as a goal in paragraph 2 of the Military Doctrine section in the program statement of the Patriot of Ukraine organization, while paragraph 7 of its Foreign Policy section reads: “The ultimate goal of Ukrainian foreign policy is world domination.” Patriot of Ukraine was created in 2014 by the notorious Andrey Biletsky, who formed it based on the ideology of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and had dreamed of Ukraine possessing nuclear weapons as far back as 2007.

In 2009, the Ternopil Regional Council, which was then dominated by Oleg Tianibok’s neo-Nazi Svoboda Party (called the Social-National Party until 2004), demanded that Ukraine’s president, prime minister, and head of the Verkhovna Rada “terminate the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and retore Ukraine’s nuclear status.”

Ukraine’s longing for an atomic bomb especially increased after February 2014. In an interview with USA Today in March of that year, Ukrainian MP Pavel Rizanenko called Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a “big mistake.” And that was not just the opinion of one MP. Just a few days later, representatives of the Batkivshchyna party, headed by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and UDAR, headed by Kiev’s current mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, including the secretary of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, Sergey Kaplin, submitted a bill on withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty. Kaplin claimed that Ukraine could create nuclear weapons in just two years because it already had almost everything necessary: The fissile materials, equipment (except centrifuges), technology, specialists, and even means of delivery. In September of the same year, Ukraine’s minister of defense, Valery Geletey, also expressed the desire to develop nuclear weapons.

In December 2018, the former representative of the Ukrainian mission to NATO, Major General Pyotr Garashchuk, announced the real possibility of Ukraine creating its own nuclear weapons. In 2019, Aleksandr Turchinov, who usurped power in Ukraine in February of 2014, called Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons a “historic mistake.” Following him, in April 2021, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrey Melnik, stated that if the West did not help Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia, the country would launch a nuclear program and create an atomic bomb. And on February 19, 2022, before the start of Russia’s special military operation, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine has the right to abandon the Budapest Memorandum, which proclaimed the country’s nuclear-free status.

Perhaps the most striking statement by a Ukrainian politician was made by David Arakhamia, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s ruling parliamentary faction, Servant of the People. “We could blackmail the whole world, and we would be given money to service (nuclear weapons), as is happening in many other countries now,” he said in mid-2021.

Range of Possibilities

Is Ukraine technically capable of creating an atomic bomb? Absolutely. Yes, enriching uranium-235 to the purity necessary to set off a chain reaction would cost a lot, primarily to create centrifuges for separating isotopes. However, though this may be the most effective way to separate isotopes, it’s not the only one. The first American bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were created without the use of this technology.

In addition, it should not be forgotten that there are not only uranium, but also plutonium bombs. Breeder reactors are used to synthesize this chemical element, most often using heavy-water reactor technology, and research reactors are capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. There is presently a nuclear research installation at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, and a VVR-M reactor suitable for plutonium production at the Institute for Nuclear Research of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in Kiev. Until March 2022, there was a US-built facility in Kharkov that could produce isotopes by irradiating the starting materials with a powerful neutron flux, which could also be used to develop fissile materials for a bomb.

In addition, Ukraine has the technical capability to create a nuclear weapon based on uranium-233, rather than uranium-235, which is usually used. A similar bomb was tested by the US in 1955 during Operation Teapot, and its power was comparable to that of the Fat Man bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To obtain uranium-233, it is enough to replace one of the fuel assemblies of a conventional nuclear power plant reactor with a thorium-232 cassette, a supply of which is located near Mariupol, a city that was fiercely defended by Ukrainian nationalists from the Azov regiment earlier this year.

There is another indirect sign that both uranium and plutonium versions of nuclear weapons have been secretly developed at the direction of the post-Maidan authorities. At the beginning of 2021, Ukraine completely banned the export of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to Russia, as was required by an agreement on its supply by Rosatom. SNF, among other things, is a source of weapons-grade plutonium, which can be isolated from fuel cells that have been in a nuclear power plant reactor.

Nuclear Power on the Brink of Disaster

Just as dangerous is the nuclear power policy pursued by the Ukrainian government.

Ukraine inherited five nuclear power plants with 18 active reactors from the USSR. Three of them located at the Chernobyl NPP were decommissioned by 2000. Five of the six reactors at the Zaporozhye NPP, three of the four reactors at the Rovno NPP, one of the two reactors at the Khmelnitsky NPP, and all three reactors at the South Ukraine NPP have exceeded their original lifespans and received extensions of their operating lives for another 10 to 15 years. The license extensions have sometimes been granted with violations of existing regulations since, after 2015, Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate stopped cooperating with Russian vendors and has not overhauled reactor vessels, which become brittle after prolonged exposure to neutron radiation. Back in 2015, independent experts noted the critical condition of Reactor 1 of the South Ukraine NPP, which, nevertheless, has had its service life extended until 2025.

Ukraine’s Union of Veterans of Nuclear Energy and Industry sent a warning letter to the government in April 2020, arguing that the country’s nuclear energy sector was faced with a “threatening situation,” which, according to the authors of the letter, could well result in “a new Chernobyl.”

The lack of accountability, which led to the 1986 disaster, does not stop at neglecting the technical condition of the reactors that are not being properly monitored and maintained by their developers. During Viktor President Yushchenko’s administration, the decision was made to replace some of the standard fuel rods in Ukrainian reactors with unlicensed fuel assemblies supplied by Westinghouse Electric Company. In 2012, that experiment led to an emergency shutdown of Reactor 3 of the South Ukraine NPP, after Westinghouse fuel assemblies were damaged due to the specific design features of the American counterfeits.

That fuel assemblies fabricated by Westinghouse tend to malfunction in Soviet-designed reactors was not a revelation. They have repeatedly caused emergencies at NPPs in Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but that did not deter the Ukrainian leadership. Not even losses of around $175 million caused by using non-standard assemblies persuaded Ukraine against conducting risky experiments with its nuclear assets.

The new ‘revolutionary’ government, which came to power in 2014, was quick to plunge into its own experiments with nuclear power together with Westinghouse, which was suffering from financial distress. For the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017, the Ukrainian market could have been a much-needed lifeline – however, it wasn’t to be, because it once again emerged that the counterfeit fuel assemblies were dangerous for VVER-type reactors. Emergencies at Ukrainian NPPs became a routine event, and yet Westinghouse assemblies accounted for 46% of all nuclear fuel used in Ukraine by the end of 2018.

These risky experiments went beyond using non-standard fuel assemblies. In the fall of 2014, Kiev sent direct orders to boost electricity production at the South Ukraine NPP by 5 to 7%. To achieve this, three VVER-1000 reactors were supposed to operate in “controlled runaway mode,” and a whole algorithm was developed by Ukrainian and British engineers. It was this type of experiment that resulted in the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. A potential disaster was only averted by an ‘Italian strike’ organized by the NPP personnel, who refused to fulfil outsiders’ orders. This might have been what former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen meant when he said: “We have, upon Ukrainian request, sent a small team of civilian experts to Ukraine to assist the Ukrainians in improving security of their civilian nuclear plants.”

‘Revolutionary expedience’ was used a pretext for a mass exodus of experienced nuclear engineers from Ukrainian NPPs. As Ukrainian MP Viktoria Voytsitska said in 2018, literally all categories of workers were thinking of leaving Ukrainian NPPs, from steam engine drivers and riggers to engineers who controlled reactors and other high-tech equipment.

Provocation for Nuclear Escalation

After Russian forces assumed control of the Zaporozhye NPP, it became a target for incessant Ukrainian shelling, sometimes with the use of Western-made multiple launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, and attack drones. The plant sustained significant damage and was forced to stop generating electricity due to the destruction of auxiliary equipment and the threat to the reactors themselves. At the same time, an IAEA mission “was unable” to establish who was firing on the nuclear site, where Russian soldiers were present.

As the Western media was busy whipping up hysteria over the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine, it transpired that Ukraine was allegedly plotting a provocation of exactly that nature. According to Russian intelligence services, in October 2022, the Eastern Mining and Enrichment Combine in the town of Zheltye Vody and the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research were in the final stages of developing a dirty bomb on the orders of the Ukrainian government. A missile plant in Dnepropetrovsk built a mock-up of the Russian Iskander missile, which was supposed to carry a radioactive charge and be “shot down” over the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The goal was to accuse Russia of using nuclear weapons and push NATO to retaliate in kind. In other words, to start a nuclear war in Europe.

All these facts mean that present-day Ukraine is arguably a real threat to nuclear security not just in Europe, but on a global scale. It has everything it would take, from irresponsible people in charge of safety and security at nuclear sites, to the technical capabilities.

By Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat
https://www.rt.com/russia/569292-one-step-from-nuclear-armageddon/
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related, from 17 Sep, 2022 11:54
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7a) Leaked documents expose Ukrainian attempts to destabilize Russia and draw NATO into a full-scale war with Moscow

Plans concocted by the special services reveal Kiev’s aggressive strategy over many years

The best defense is a good offence. So goes one of the oldest principles of international relations.

And as Ukrainian documents now at the disposal of the media show, Moscow apparently had something to defend itself from when it launched its offensive in Ukraine. Over the past eight years, Kiev’s military and special services have been preparing numerous operations aimed at undermining Russia’s international ties, and internal peace itself.

In June, a hacker Telegram channel dubbed ‘Beregini’ published the action plan of the Information and Psychological Operations Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO). According to official information, the tasks of this unit include working with the population of foreign countries, creating agent networks, and infiltrating special services and military organizations to conduct espionage and destroy people who pose a threat to the Ukrainian government (including in other countries), as well as preparing coups and the overthrow of regimes.

The SSO plan was prepared back in 2017, and this is just one of many similar secret documents created by Ukrainian spooks. It was just one that became public. But the presence of these plans and the real political and military steps taken by Ukraine, which coincide with SSO programs to a surprising extent, indicate that KI’ve has been actively carrying out anti-Russian activities since at least 2014, when a Western-backed coup took place in the country.

Sowers of Unrest

When studying the Ukrainian plan from 2017, the first thing that catches the eye is the variety of operations aimed at creating a split in Russian society.

Operation ‘Zaslon’ describes a scheme to influence the family members of Donbass soldiers and militiamen, as well as Russian army personnel. The operation’s main goals include blocking military units and encouraging desertion and resignations in the militaries of ‘Eastern,’ the document’s code word for Russia and the Donbass republics.

In the event of an outbreak of hostilities, a transition to Operation ‘Bolotnaya Square’ was planned. This consists of cultivating distrust of Russia’s military and political leadership among the country’s population, as well as fomenting dissent “against the aggressive policy of the ‘Eastern’ president and his entourage,” in order to incite mass protests.

Ukraine’s actual actions confirm the authenticity of these plans. Even after Crimea’s reunification with Russia, Russian citizens could be found who sided with Kiev.

It is noteworthy that in 2018, a fake news story claiming that 300 people had died in a fire at Kemerovo’s Winter Cherry shopping center originated in Ukraine. No less revealing is the story of a Ukrainian Special Forces employee who called on Russians to protest against “pension genocide,” but forgot to change his Ukrainian IP address.

Goal: Undermine Morale

The number of Ukrainian sympathizers in Russia is unlikely to have increased this year. Sociological studies indicate that citizens’ support for the Russian government has only been growing. By the beginning of the summer, 72 percent of Russians supported the military campaign, while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity rating had risen, settling at 82 percent.

But if Ukraine has failed in killing support for the offensive, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t tried. For example, the command of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces has been implementing the ‘Smuta’ project since January of 2022. The documentation contains a detailed report on materials published in the Russian media and social networks aimed at destabilizing the country, provoking discontent among its population, and discrediting the authorities.

After the outbreak of hostilities, Operation ‘Steppe Wind’ was activated. As stated in the SSO documents, its task is to demoralize the enemy and create tension between the Russian military and DPR and LPR fighters. According to Oleg Matveichev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, “in fact, there are about 80,000 accounts maintained by Ukrainian students [on the Russian-language internet], but they pretend to be locals: ‘ordinary residents’ of Penza, Kurgan, Chita, and Khabarovsk.”

Relatives of Russian servicemen have been terrorized by telephone scammers who report the death of their loved ones in Ukraine or demand money for their “release from captivity.” As reported by ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova, relatives of Russian soldiers have also received videos showing prisoners being abused. The Ukrainian special services have created several Telegram channels, where unverified data on Russian casualties and prisoners is published. The Ombudsman also said she has received more than 100 appeals concerning prisoners of war, of which about half have been confirmed.

‘Gentle Dew’ of Grads

Operation ‘Gentle Dew’, which is aimed at residents of territories not controlled by Ukraine, deserves special mention. Its mission is to “form pro-Ukrainian sentiment among the population of the occupied territories and encourage protest movements directed against the ‘Eastern’ and the occupation authorities.”

However, there has been no success in implementing this plan. The main reason for this lies in the difference between Kiev’s and the Donbass republics’ views on and approaches to the possible reintegration of the regions with Ukraine. In March 2021, President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree approving a ‘Strategy for De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.’ The document, which consists of 158 paragraphs, will give you an idea of how the authorities in Kiev intend to treat the residents of the regions that have left Ukraine.

The document proposes to exclude persons who “were part of or collaborated with the occupation administrations” from holding any position in government or civil service. This is a very wide range of people, ranging from members of the 2014 referendum commissions to teachers and doctors working in municipal schools and hospitals. ‘De-occupation’ also involves extending the statute of limitations on criminal cases that were conducted by Ukrainian police before the referendum on the return of Crimea to Russia, as well as pursuing criminal cases within the competence of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Translated from legal to layman’s language, this means purposeful persecution of all officials who worked in Crimea in February 2014, as well as participants in mass rallies supporting the reunification of Crimea with Russia, volunteers who helped DPR and LPR residents during the civil war, and so on.

While opening opportunities for the residents of Crimea and Donbass to study at Ukrainian universities, Kiev refuses to recognize any educational documents obtained on the peninsula. The question of whether these conditions will make residents of Crimea and Donbass want to return to Ukraine is purely rhetorical.

While it is unknown whether the SSO intends to continue implementing its plan to foster pro-Ukrainian sentiment among the residents of Crimea and Donbass, we do know for sure that the Ukrainian side sharply increased its attacks on cities in these regions after the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation. So far, this ‘Gentle Dew’ has only fallen on the region in the form of MLRS Grad shells and Tochka U missiles.

On the Hills of Manchuria

Ukraine’s SSO has also carried out several special operations in the foreign policy field. One of them is operation ‘Caspian’, whose purpose is to sow and deepen disagreements between the Russian Federation and certain ‘Fawn,’ which are presumably countries in the Caspian region. The operation is to be considered successful if it leads to “actions indicating the refusal of ‘Fawn’ from interacting with ‘Eastern’.”

In general, it is difficult to assess where the line lies between Ukraine’s efforts to disrupt Russia’s relations with its partners and the natural difficulties that arise in the dialogue between any countries. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that during the riots that took place in Kazakhstan in January this year, at least some of the protesters’ actions were coordinated with Ukraine, where Kazakh oppositionists found refuge.

Operation ‘Manchurian Hills’ aims to worsen Russia’s diplomatic relations with the countries of the Far East. This Ukrainian special services’ plan has been designed to persuade Moscow that its eastern neighbors are potential threats, thereby provoking Russia to increase its military presence in the region.

If we analyze the content of the ‘Strategy of Ukraine’s Foreign Policy Activity’ adopted in July 2021, we can see not the defensive, but the aggressively offensive nature of Kiev’s foreign policy actions. For example, to offer experience “acquired over years of countering Russian aggression” to NATO countries and the Baltic-Black Sea region. Or to assist in fighting Russian “disinformation” in neighboring countries, to support the “people of Belarus,” to “democratize” Russia itself, and to strengthen “pressure on and deterrence of the Russian Federation on the basis of a broad international coalition.” This, by the way, is also included in SSO plans called ‘The Voice of Reason’.

Even in bilateral relations, where Ukraine should seemingly focus on developing trade, industrial cooperation, and cultural exchanges, the Foreign Ministry is tasked with “ensuring support from African and Middle Eastern states in countering the aggression of the Russian Federation.”

Epilogue

Since the outbreak of hostilities, Ukraine has been trying to present Russia’s actions to the ‘international community’ as an attack by a great power on a small state that is unable to defeat the huge Russian army because it has never had aggressive intentions either against the Russian Federation or any other country. This statement is refuted by ‘Ukraine’s Military Security Strategy’, which states in black and white, for example, that KI’ve may enter into a war with the Russian Federation if Russia tries to “keep the Republic of Belarus in its sphere of political influence.”

The goal of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is also clearly outlined. Of course, as a sovereign state, Ukraine has the right to join any international organization. But the issue is that Kiev sees the goal of NATO membership as the US-led bloc’s participation in a war against Russia. This has been confirmed by an adviser to the president of Ukraine, Alexey Arestovich, who, in explaining the purpose of the DEFENDER Europe 2021 exercises, stated that “in the waters from the Baltic to the Black Sea, we are working out – let’s not beat around the bush – how to carry out an armed conflict with Russia, a war with Russia.”

Although, back in 2017, the SSO created a ‘Voice of Reason’ plan, which included a task to ensure that “statements confirming readiness to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the situation” appeared in the West. In fact, the West never rejected this idea. After the outbreak of hostilities, it was Kiev that refused peace talks, preferring to wage war with Russia. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky repeated this policy line in Paris, stressing that the conditions for negotiating with Russia hadn’t yet “matured,” as he wanted to take a “stronger position.”

By Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat
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related from 6 Nov, 2022 08:13
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7b) --- Dead Hand’s nuclear revenge: What would happen if the West launched an attack on

Moscow has a Soviet-era system which can even hit back if NATO succeeds in taking out key decision makers

Imagine if one day we suddenly get a news alert to say the button’s been pushed and nuclear war has been unleashed?

Within hours, millions would be dead and hundreds of millions more would die in the following days. Gray ashes would soar into the air and scatter upon the ruins of what used to be Moscow. The US would have blown up all the ‘decision-making’ centers in today’s Russia. But what about Washington? The very same thing, but not only just the American capital – other key NATO cities would probably be destroyed as well.

That's the horrific reality for mankind if atomic weapons are ever used. Because, as modern Russian leaders often point out – there can be no winners in such a conflict.

Recently, the US army's former European commander, Ben Hodges, warned that his country would retaliate with "a devastating strike" against Russia if Moscow used its nuclear capability in Ukraine. Hodges, now a lobbyist at CEPA (a pressure group funded by US arms makers to promote, and maintain, NATO expansion in Europe) said Washington could target the Black Sea Fleet or destroy Russian bases in Crimea.

Living dead in charge of a superpower

In 1984, Konstantin Chernenko, a 72-year-old party worker and former head of Leonid Brezhnev's apparatus, sick with end-stage emphysema, became the leader of the Soviet Union. Ironically, given today's events, one was Ukrainian from Ukraine and the other a Russian-born ethnic Ukrainian.

“The leader of a great power turned out to be not just a physically weak, but a seriously ill person, actually a disabled person,” his successor, Mikhail Gorbachev, wrote in one of his books. Anatoly Chernyaev, who served at the time as deputy head of the International Department of the Central Committee, recalled that, when Chernenko was supposed to meet with the King of Spain, his assistants prepared pieces of his speech on small paper cards. “But Chernenko couldn't even read a piece of paper, he stuttered, not understanding a thing he was reading.”

Four years prior to his coming to power in the USSR, amid heightened Cold War tensions owing to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, across the ocean US President Jimmy Carter signed the notorious Directive 59 (pD-59), 'Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy', which was aimed at giving US leaders more flexibility in planning for and executing a nuclear war. However, leaks of its 'top secret' contents gave rise to front-page stories in the New York Times and Washington Post that stoked widespread fears about its implications for unchecked nuclear conflict.

The document presupposed the use of advanced technology to detect Soviet nuclear facilities, including in Eastern Europe and North Korea. The Americans planned to carry out precision strikes on these sites and, having received data on the damage done as quickly as possible, to strike again if necessary. The authors of Directive 59, among whom was the presidential military adviser William Odom, believed that the use of nuclear weapons against regular units of the Soviet army would not lead to a nuclear apocalypse. Yet, Odom and his colleagues warned that the war would be prolonged – in their estimation, it could take “days and weeks” to find all the targets worthy of a precision nuclear strike.

In 1983 – a year before Chernenko ascended to Kremlin leadership – the US delivered its new Pershing II nuclear missiles to West Germany. This significantly increased the possibility of such weapons reaching the USSR in a matter of minutes.

So, what if Chernenko – “a bent figure, trembling hands, a breaking voice calling for discipline and selfless work, sheets of paper falling from his hands,” as described by Gorbachev – had to make a decision on a nuclear counter-attack? What if the whole leadership was dead before they had the chance to order a retaliatory strike? Who would contact remote command posts and submarines?

That exact fear, of a country beheaded, a country denied a chance to respond, a vulnerability leaving no space for reacting, had made the Soviets start considering their options. The ‘if I'm going down, I'm taking everybody with me’ approach was a way of proving that there could not and should not be winners in future world wars. This argument was supposed to make war so meaningless that it would become impossible.

The Doomsday system

In 1984, right after Chernenko became the new Soviet leader, Valery Yarynich, a colonel in the Elite Strategic Missile Forces, acquired a new position, that of deputy head of the Main Directorate of Missile Weapons. It was this colonel who was entrusted with perfecting a flawed system, partially automated, that would launch intercontinental ballistic missiles in a retaliatory strike if the Soviet leadership had been decapitated in a nuclear bombing.

The system – probably the deadliest project of the Cold War – was called Perimeter, or ‘the Dead Hand’, informally. It was put on combat duty in 1983.

The Soviet Union could not have been the one to launch a nuclear ICBM at the Americans first. In this scenario, the US would have had enough forces left to inflict significant damage in a retaliatory strike with the remaining means at its disposal. It was also dangerous to launch missiles after detecting American warheads heading toward the USSR, since by that time there had already been several cases of false alarms from the warning systems. The only way left was to strike back only after confirming an attack by the enemy. But this was overly dependent on the state of mind of the general secretary. He could be frightened, confused, or too slow to act, or could believe it to be another false alarm.

The developers of Perimeter tried to minimize human interference. All that the general secretary had to do after receiving any information about an enemy strike was to place Perimeter on alert. After that, the fate of humankind passed into the hands of officers, who would have to make a decision. They were isolated in special spherical bunkers so deep underground that even a nuclear strike could not destroy them. These officers had a list of three criteria for launching an attack:

– Status of the Perimeter system. If it was activated, it meant that either the general staff or the Kremlin had put it on alert.

– Communication with commanders and party leaders. If this was lost, it was to be assumed that the leadership had been killed.

– The fact of a nuclear strike. At the same time, a network of special sensors was used to measure the level of radiation and illumination, seismic shocks, and an increase in atmospheric pressure.

If the system was activated, the leadership was dead, and a nuclear strike had indeed taken place, the officers had to authorize the launch of the command missiles. In 30 minutes, they would have given the order to launch all nuclear missiles that were still intact. The target was the US, along with other major NATO capitals.

According to Yarynich, the system also served as insurance against hasty decisions by the country's top leadership based on unverified information. Having received a signal from the missile attack warning system, the top officials could activate the Perimeter system and wait for events to evolve, being fully confident that even the destruction of everyone who had the authority to issue a command to retaliate would not be able to prevent a retaliatory strike.

One of Perimeter's developers, Alexander Zheleznyakov, described a possible scenario for using the system as follows:

“Two hours after the start of hostilities, when it seemed that there was nothing and, most importantly, no one to fight, in the remote Siberian taiga, in the Kazakh steppes, in the swamps of central Russia, the hatches of mine launchers almost simultaneously opened, and dozens of silver giants rushed into the sky. Thirty minutes later, the fate of Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, Berlin and Prague, Beijing and Havana was shared by Washington and New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Bonn and London, Paris and Rome, Sydney and Tokyo.

Having suddenly started, the nuclear war ended just as suddenly, destroying everyone. There were no winners or losers. Only small groups of people who did not understand anything somewhere on the islands of the Pacific Ocean, in remote areas of Africa and Latin America, feverishly turning the knobs of silent radios at once, watching with fear the lightning flashes blazing over the horizon.”

However, it was still the officers who had to make the last call on the strike that would destroy most of humankind. The question remains whether Perimeter's developers went further and made the system completely autonomous, turning it into a true Doomsday Machine. Yarynich claims that the generals did not agree to this, although the opinions of his colleagues differ. He also told journalist David Hoffman he believed that it was utter stupidity to keep the Dead Hand secret, since such a system was useful as a deterrent only if your adversary knew about it.

Is the Dead Hand dead?

Yarynich was the one to blow the whistle on Perimeter after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, he spoke cautiously about the key details of the Dead Hand system with American nuclear security expert Bruce Blair, who revealed the existence of the system in a New York Times op-ed, not mentioning the Russian colonel, though his colleagues were well aware who had leaked the information. In 2003, Yarynich himself wrote a book, ‘C3: Nuclear Command, Control, Cooperation,’ providing even more details. He had spent the rest of his life fighting for transparency within the nuclear command and control mechanisms of Russia and the US. “Nuclear weapons should not be viewed as a political instrument,” he believed.

“Today, we are facing an obvious absurdity,” Yarynich wrote in the introduction to his book. “On the one hand … the United States and Russia have become unprecedentedly open with each other, exchanging information that used to be completely secret during the Cold War.”

“Now publicly accessible computer databases include information about the various types of American and Russian ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, their numbers, characteristics, location, design bureaus and production facilities … The results of such decisive steps is evident: the process of nuclear arms reduction has started and is successfully continuing.”

However, Yarynich argued, this isn’t enough: absolute secrecy still reigns when it comes to command and control of nuclear weapons.

“Two issues are of greatest importance here,” he explained.

“First, what measures have been taken by the nuclear powers against accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, and how reliable are those measures? Second, what is the ideology for hypothetical authorized deployment of nuclear weapons?”

In 2007, Yarynich gave a detailed interview to Wired magazine. In it, he repeated his story about the technical features of the Perimeter, and most importantly, confirmed that the system is constantly being updated, and that he's proud to have been involved in its development: it successfully managed its task in the Cold War and can continue to serve. All he wanted was for the system to be talked about. Yarynich believed that publicity around the system would be useful to Russia: no one wants to die in vain.

According to Pyotr Kazulsky, a former researcher at the Research Center for Applied Informatics, today the Perimeter system has been updated and the new control center is equipped with a neural network. There is no confirmation of this. There are no other sources who would talk about it, so the 'singularity' upgrade remains a rumor – and will probably stay this way, since all information about the system (and its analogue) is classified. Bruce Blair has also repeatedly claimed that the system is constantly being updated.

In December 2011, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Karakaev, stated that the Perimeter system exists to this day and is on alert.

By Abbas Duncan, RT editor
https://www.rt.com/russia/565146-what-happens-if-west-nukes/
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