Why Is the US Wiring Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts?

The New York Times had quite the interesting piece buried in its science section on April 28. Titled “U.S. Wires Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts,” it claims sensors “can detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker.” More:

In part, the goal is to make sure that if Russia detonates a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil, its atomic signature and Moscow’s culpability could be verified.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, experts have worried about whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would use nuclear arms in combat for the first time since the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

First off, what would possibly be the Russian rationale for using nuclear weapons? They’re winning in Ukraine, and the West is running out of ammo. Second, about those “experts.” To expand on their worries, the Times links to an October piece titled “Russia’s Small Nuclear Arms: A Risky Option for Putin and Ukraine Alike.” In it, we get this:

The primary utility, many U.S. officials say, would be as part of a last-ditch effort by Mr. Putin to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, by threatening to make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe some of the most sensitive discussions inside the administration.

So the experts are anonymous. Who is running this operation? The Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), which is the Nation Nuclear Security Administration’s arm that deals with emergency response functions.  The Times also notes the following:

Jeffrey T. Richelson, author of “Defusing Armageddon,” a 2009 book on the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, reported that it often teamed up with the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite military unit so secretive that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.

The Times’ April 28 piece gets more bonkers from there. There’s this:

Public knowledge of such defensive planning, nuclear experts say, can deter Moscow by letting it know that Washington can expose what is called a false-flag operation.

For instance, Moscow could falsely claim that Kyiv set off a nuclear blast on the battlefield to try to draw the West into deeper war assistance. But in theory, with the sensor network in place, Washington would be able to point to its own nuclear attribution analyses to reveal that Moscow was in fact the attacker.

So Russia would conduct a false-flag operation in order to risk accomplishing what Kiev would want to accomplish with its own false flag? Again, what would Moscow have to gain? It’s steadily winning the war and depleting western stockpiles.

But for the inhabitants of the alternate universe where Russia is on its last legs it all makes perfect sense. Speaking to that audience, the Times again invokes “nuclear experts” and “western experts” who are presumably the same aforementioned anonymous officials, and they put an ominous spin on Ukraine’s coming counteroffensive:

Nuclear experts say such defensive precautions could face their greatest test in coming weeks as the Ukrainian army launches its spring offensive. China has leaned on Russia to discontinue its nuclear saber rattling and Mr. Putin has not recently invoked a nuclear threat. But Western experts worry that Russia’s battlefield failures are making Mr. Putin, if anything, more dependent on his nuclear arsenal, and they worry that fresh setbacks could increase his willingness to pull the nuclear trigger.

One of the many alarming aspects of all this is that these “experts” certainly must know that the idea “that Russia’s battlefield failures are making Mr. Putin, if anything, more dependent on his nuclear arsenal” is complete fantasy, yet they’re peddling it anyways. Why? That’s an ominous thought.

Russia was warning NATO back in October that Ukraine might detonate a “dirty bomb” and blame Moscow. Washington, Paris, and London dismissed it all as “transparently false.”  Instead the West has continued to insist that Moscow might do so. The Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence state that Russia would not use a nuclear weapon of any kind unless the country is attacked using weapons of mass destruction or faces a conventional attack so severe it threatens the country’s existence.

Could Kiev create a dirty bomb? The US GAO admits it’s not hard to find the materials and build a dirty bomb. Ukraine returned all its Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia in the 1990, but still has stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. Dirty bombs can also be made out of byproducts from nuclear power plants of which Ukraine has several. According to Russia, it would be no problem for Kiev to build such a weapon:

Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops chief Igor Kirillov warned that Ukraine has the technological prowess and ample radioactive material reserves to build a dirty bomb. This includes some 1,500 tons’ worth of spent nuclear fuel from the country’s three operating nuclear power plants, and 22,000 spent fuel assemblies stored at the defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s waste repositories, including Uranium-235 and Plutnoium-239 – the primary fissile isotopes used in nuclear weapons.

…Furthermore, the officer stressed, Kiev has the scientific know-how allowing it to easily build a dirty bomb, including the legendary Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology involved in the creation of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Nuclear Research, which operates the BBP-M research reactor.

The Times’ piece has virtually no information on what the deployed sensors actually do. Presumably they would detect radiation and then a forensics team would try to determine the origin of the weapon. Thing is, there are already institutions for that.

The European Radiological Data Exchange Platform, which monitors radiation levels, already covers Ukraine. According to its website, itconsists of data exchange mechanism and presentation website for radiological monitoring data which is collected and shared by 39 participating countries in almost REAL TIME.” But it is not a rapid alert system, and while the EU has one of those, it only covers member states.

The IAEA, on the other hand has its EMERCON system for radiological or nuclear emergencies and which does cover Ukraine. And the IAEA can help prepare for the investigation into a nuclear incident:

The IAEA supports States in developing technical capabilities by providing: Technical assistance, including, upon request, to prepare for the conduct of a nuclear forensics examination in the context of the investigation of a nuclear security event. Important considerations involve procedures to collect and preserve evidence and properly sequence non-destructive ahead of destructive analysis in the laboratory.

Additionally, the IAEA notes that there are international organizations that provide various forms of nuclear forensic support, including the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, INTERPOL, and the Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group. But the US apparently does not want to rely on these international institutions.

The US is apparently going with its own team. So should such a weapon be used in Ukraine, would the US Nuclear Emergency Support Team be able to determine who did it? It’s hard to tell – but probably not with any certainty.

The Times piece has few details on how the process works, saying only that it developed rapidly after 9/11, has some secrets, and “its outlines are publicly known.”

The Times then links back to two articles – one from 2004 and another from 2006. They’re fairly similar and both describe the process of identification this way:

The basic science relies on faint clues — tiny bits of radioactive fallout, often invisible to the eye, that under intense scrutiny can reveal distinctive signatures. Such wisps of evidence can help identify an exploded bomb’s type and characteristics, including its country of origin.

While tracking a missile from the blastoff point is not difficult, tracking unconventional devices, such as a dirty bomb that uses ordinary explosives to spew radioactivity, can be a major challenge. Both articles described “federal experts” participating in drills to establish the origin of a weapon. From the 2004 piece:

In a drill this year, dozens of federal experts in fallout analysis met at the Sandia laboratories in Albuquerque to study a simulated terrorist nuclear blast. Mr. Worlton said they were broken into teams and given radiological data from two old American nuclear tests, whose identities remained hidden, and were instructed to try to name them. Some teams succeeded, he said.

While hyping that apparent success, the 2004 piece noted that success was only partial. The Times also mentioned that there were numerous complexities involved that made attribution less of a sure thing, including “that knowing who made a bomb may say little about who detonated it.” And there’s this:

Experts agree that such detective work can prove difficult. For years, the International Atomic Energy Agency has struggled with limited success to identify the source of highly enriched uranium, a potential bomb fuel, found by the agency’s inspectors on Iranian nuclear gear.

According to the IAEA, forensic investigations are rarely slam dunk cases:

Nuclear forensic analysis and interpretation involve a deductive and iterative process, as depicted in Fig. 2. Implementing the analytical plan produces results that can be compared with information on existing or known materials, and such comparisons lead to interpretation, which puts the analytical results into context. The comparative process involving analytical results and known material information is iterative because each successive comparison may provide new information that can identify further analyses or comparisons that, in turn, may uncover additional signatures that will help to identify the material more precisely.

This comparative process may also be deductive because it can be used to progressively exclude particular processes, locations or other origins as possible sources of the material. For example, comparisons of analytical results from seized nuclear material with known production processes will identify likely production processes that could have made the seized material, as well as those processes that could not have made the seized material. Additional comparisons with other existing production processes or analytical measurements will serve to narrow the list of likely production processes responsible for the production of the seized material.

Fig. 2

But American officials claimed in the Times articles from 2004 and 2006 that scientific advancements were being made in the US, which would make identification more accurate.

Have they advanced enough? And maybe the real question is, who would trust the US’ conclusion? Would it matter?

Dr. Jay C. Davis, a nuclear scientist who helped found the Pentagon’s part of the US effort to trace an explosion, told the Times back in 2004 that the identification effort would be crucial in ”dealing with the desire for instant gratification through vengeance.”

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43 comments

  1. timbers

    Military experts are going to Congressional hearings telling Congress the brilliant policy of moving NATO ever eastward is working (some go out their way to praise eastward expansion hi five man!), incompetent Russia is floundering Putin is hated and could be overthrew Russian military is greatly weakened by Ukraine awesomeness, then a few minutes later saying Russia is more powerful and dangerous than ever so give us more $$$. I have little doubt these same Congress folk will believe anything told them by our military intelligence “experts” should a nuke mysteriously detonate in Ukraine or Russia.

    1. Alex Cox

      Thank you for remembering Tufte! When I saw the absurdly colourful “leaked Pentagon documents” with their multiple typefaces and differently-coloured boxes, all of which distract the eye and reduce comprehension, it was clear that our powerpoint generals haven’t read Tufte and are making communication with their own people more difficult than it needs to be.

  2. John

    My first thought was it was a set up for the planned false flag dirty bomb that some moron thinks would be a brilliant stroke.

    1. southern appalachian

      Managing the narrative ahead of events. This came to mind for me:
      We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
      Karl Rove

    2. Hans Zandvliet

      Indeed, and the most important question at the end gets no elaboration at all:
      “And maybe the real question is, who would trust the US’ conclusion? Would it matter?”

      For example: who could ever again trust an OPCW-investigation anymore , after their shamelessly fraudulent investigation, to pin the alleged chemical attack in Douma on the Syrian army?

      Now, the IAEA is not the same as the OPCW. However, what is the same indeed, is the total control and ability to manipulate that Washington has over those and many more international institutions.

  3. John R Moffett

    “…would the US Nuclear Emergency Support Team be able to determine who did it?” Yes! absolutely, any dirty bomb detonated in Ukraine can automatically be pinned on Russia, because that is what the whole point of the exercise is. It doesn’t matter that one tactic that Ukraine has been using is to make sure everything is destroyed in any areas of the Donbass they lose control of. Nothing would fit that MO better than making some city in the Donbass uninhabitable for decades after they withdrew their troops. The purpose of the detection system, and floating its existence in the NYT, is to have the cover story in place if Ukraine decides to nuke a town with a large dirty bomb.

  4. Maxwell Johnston

    It’s a strange article (lacking in hard detail, repeating the usual trope about RU shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant, and buried deep in the print edition of Saturday’s science section), and it’s odd that almost no other MSM outlets have picked up on it yet. One can stand this story on its head and speculate that, assuming the USA really is installing these sensors in UKR, it is doing so not to be able to blame RU, but for exactly the opposite reason: to be able to blame UKR in case they try some idiotic dirty nuke bomb to drag NATO into the war. Recall the rogue UKR missile that landed in Poland last November and how UKR tried to blame RU for attacking a NATO country. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I think that there are cooler heads in Washington who are trying to avoid getting the USA more deeply involved in the ongoing UKR fiasco. If I’m wrong and the sensors are being deployed to blame RU falsely, then maybe it’s time to start looking at moving to South America before it’s too late.

    Purely out of curiosity, I visited the comments section on the article. Oh my. And this is the NYT, supposedly the smart people. Mein Gott.

    1. Revenant

      “The Times piece has few details on how the process works, saying only that it developed rapidly after 9/11, has some secrets, and “its outlines are publicly known.”

      The Times then links back to two articles – one from 2004 and another from 2006. They’re fairly similar and both describe the process of identification this way:

      The basic science relies on faint clues — tiny bits of radioactive fallout, often invisible to the eye, that under intense scrutiny can reveal distinctive signatures. Such wisps of evidence can help identify an exploded bomb’s type and characteristics, including its country of origin.”

      This is Symetrica and its novel technology using plastic to make radiation intensifiers rather than expensive crystalline germanium. It won a large contract to supply handheld radiation identifiers to DoD / DHD. It also won an even bigger tender to supply lorry-sized portals to scan cargo (remember the “Al Quaeda shipping a dirty bomb to US ports” trope? The challenge is not stopping every naturally radioactive load of coal or coffee or bananas or cat litter!) but this got mired in lobbying by US prime contractors and the contract ended up being a face-saving supply as a second tier to a wounded but connected prime….

    2. dandyandy

      My thoughts were similar. If one was to discount the neocon crazies, what was left after the chaff was as if the actual warrior military people in US (this is to say, 2 stars and down) came to realise that ukranian leadership, succumbing to the terminal phase of rabies, would not have any hesitation in triggering a nuclear war, given that their own jig was up.

    3. Tom Doak

      It is precisely because it’s in the NYT that it’s so worrisome. It’s clearly a plant by the intelligence community. If it was a real thing the DOD would be holding press conferences about it, but they aren’t, because they don’t want to have to answer potentially pesky questions. [If there were any reporters there who weren’t afraid to ask them.]

  5. The Rev Kev

    I’m going to hazard a guess and say that we will see a repeat of the 2018 Douma chemical attack but using a massive dirty bomb instead. In Douma, the Jihadists staged a chemical attack and killed a coupla dozen people. One week later, France, the United Kingdom and the US launched a wave of missiles at Syria to punish the Syrians for this “attack.” This was before there was even an investigation. The OPCW backed up the Jihadist’s account in spite of the whistleblowers who came forward and said that the opposite had been found. So this time around? I would guess that it would be an attack against Ukrainian troops in the east. Tough luck for those Ukrainian troops but sacrifices have to be made. It’s not like the ultra-nationalists even cared. Of course a benefit would be that prevailing winds would carry any radioactivity east to the Donbass Republics and Russia too. Bonus time! And of course the International Atomic Energy Agency guys would jump in and blame Russia. These would be the same guys who just can’t tell who is bombing the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, even when they are actually there. NATO would also immediately blame Russia and would announce a holy crusade against Russia. They would tell all those Global South countries that if they do not condemn Russia for this attack, then they are complicit with it. It may impress people in the west but most of the world would look sideways at this event. Since the west is nearly running on empty as far as the Ukraine is concerned, consider this a Hail Mary attack

    1. tricia

      And there’s the MH17 downing over Ukraine and the way that investigation has gone (as documented by Helmer). Etc., etc., etc. Why would/should anyone trust the US (and its allies/assorted agency tools) in ANY way to determine the truth in situations like these when its focus is on its use value for its own malign foreign policy agenda & propaganda purposes???

      1. ambrit

        I’ll hazard a guess and suggest that this possible “faux false flag” attack will happen because no one “trusts” America’s word any more. At this stage of the game, the basic rationale for a “false flag” attack is to establish a “narrative” behind which to hide the truth of the matter.
        If such an attack happens in the Ukraine, well, we’ll see. If it happens in Russia proper, expect to see Kiev reduced to a radioactive pile of rubble, plus Lvov. Then let the Poles march into Western Ukraine. The rebuilding program there will be decades long.
        I was wondering, what is the half life of a Friedman Unit?

  6. hemeantwell

    Great work, Yves.

    The Russians are losing so badly that in their desperation they will use a bomb so weak that it will produce only ‘wisps of evidence.’ Cue up the Star Trek theme, we’ve crossed into the final frontier of bullshit.

  7. Aurelien

    We discussed this yesterday, I think, and I don’t have a lot to add. The problem is that the description of what the US may be up to is so illogical and ambiguous that it’s hard to know what is actually intended. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons, and no immediate capacity to make them. (Having weapons-grade uranium is like having explosive for a Kinzhal warhead.) The notion of a “false flag” can’t apply in that case. In any event, as the story says, and as several of us pointed out yesterday, the IAEA and others already have the necessary technology for identifying and classifying nuclear explosions, so it’s not clear what, if anything, the US initiative would add.

    But that issue has become confused, as here, with the (largely mythical) “dirty bomb.” This idea arose about twenty years ago, with the suggestion that a terrorist group could collect low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power-stations or hospitals, and disperse it with explosives to contaminate an area. To my knowledge this has never been done, and the best that could be achieved with such a weapon would be a very mild and non-threatening contamination of a small area. It’s always been assumed that the main purpose of such an act would be political: it has no military utility. This option requires little if any technical expertise.

    More recently, and I think here, the concept seems to have changed to somehow contaminating an area with enriched uranium from a nuclear reactor. I’m sure we have nuclear engineers among us, but in principle this seems rather analogous to going inside a nuclear reactor and taking some of the fuel out. It must be insanely dangerous for anyone who attempts it, as well as almost impossible to weaponise. If you aren’t going to make a nuclear explosion, then the particles involved are anyway very heavy, and won’t travel very far with conventional explosives.

    I wonder whether MJ above isn’t right, that this is intended as a deterrent to the Ukrainians. It’s clear that the US doesn’t have anything like the visibility of UKR operations that it would like to have, and that some sort of stupid stunt as this is theoretically possible, though I suspect it would actually be used against the Russians, rather than as one of these endlessly-predicted “false flags.”

    1. hk

      I think so. Even if Russians actually do resort to using nukes, for some reason, I’d suspect 1) they’d use the real thing; 2) it’s liable to fall by hundreds on NATO capitals and key installations, not Ukraine–Russians know what’s likely to follow once nuclear threshold gets crossed. If either of the above happens, which all but the most delusional can see, you don’t need sensors.

    2. Acacia

      This idea arose about twenty years ago …

      Nope. First suggested in 1941 by Arthur Holly Compton, usually known for the “Compton Effect”.

      To my knowledge this has never been done…

      The US Military conducted tests in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

      the best that could be achieved with such a weapon would be a very mild and non-threatening contamination of a small area

      Nope. The explosions at Fukushima were “conventional”, just hydrogen gas, the materials were spent fuel rods in a cooling pond atop the building — no need to go inside a reactor for those — and they contaminated thousands of square kilometers. Either towns (e.g., Futaba-shi) were ruined and will likely never recover. This has all been extensively documented.

      1. Aurelien

        It was first seriously suggested that terrorist groups might use this method in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks, when AQ documents showing interest in CBRN technologies were found. Obviously the idea was around earlier.

        As I said, the “dirty bomb” idea was to use very low-level radioactive waste, stolen from hospitals etc. and distribute it around with conventional explosive. As I said also, materials of any kind associated with actual nuclear power operations are an entirely different issue.

        1. Revenant

          Hospital radiation sources are actually pretty high level in terms of the energy of emissions and half-life, e.g. cobalt-60. A conventional bomb is going to distribute this over hundreds of metres at most and a cordon sanitaire around the area might put a few square kilometres out of use until cleaned up, but the contamination hazard could be quite substantial.

          In comparison, Fukushima was a big nothing over a big area. A release of some very short lived gaseous products (tritium, iodine, probably some reactive carbon and oxygen and nitrogen and chlorine species). Some melted fuel within the reactors. The surrounding land is quite safe to occupy apart from some very localised hotspots. No reason for anybody past childbearing age to evacuate. The evacuation is a public health disaster given the deaths of despair and misadventure exceed any likely cancer toll.

          1. hemeantwell

            In the aftermath of 9/11 there were suggestions that it would take very little radioactive material to create a bomb that, if exploded in a major city such as New York, would have a significant impact on economically-relevant activity. Even if you can eventually convince people that they are not really endanger — sound familiar? — in the short run there would be a problem. However, whether that is relevant to the war-eroded economy of Ukraine is unclear.

            1. Pat

              I would have hoped that in the aftermath of the lies regarding the clean up of 9/11, NYers would be more skeptical and discerning. But watching DTS and Russiagate, the nearly total acceptance of the vaccine is all we need bs, and yes the election and acclaim of Adams, I had to accept that there may be no greater grouping of suckers around than far too many of my neighbors and fellow NYers.
              And no that isn’t everyone in NY. Thank the gods.

  8. Peter Nightingale

    An unlikely but not impossible scenario:

    Ukraine uses a couple of the depleted uranium shells it received as a friendly gesture from the United Kingdom. The uranium radiation is mistakenly identified as of Russian origin. The Russian Federation is wiped off the map after a software glitch activates the old, abandoned Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). SIOP, as it was designed, also takes out China. 600 million people die before nuclear winter sets in.

    Follow this link for more details and an alternative doomsday scenario.

    1. ambrit

      Not only is the Russian Federation “wiped off the map,” as you say, but also the West; America, Europe and possibly the rest of the ‘Five Eyes’ cabal. There is a Strangelovian reason for those nuclear attack submarines.
      Mutually Assured Destruction is just as viable a strategy today as it ever was.
      As the Territorial Marine in the film “Aliens” cries out: “It’s game over man! Game over!”

  9. Gregorio

    Will those sensors detect the use of depleted uranium shells?
    Asking for a friend.

    1. hk

      Doubtful. DU is not very radioactive (although the operative word here is “very.”). It’s problems are primarily the toxicity of the uranium (independent of radioactivity). Radioactivity problems have mostly to do with sustained exposure to low doses (These are, possibly, why it might be worse for the local civilians than to the users–these things break up into fine powder when they hit stuff at high speed/temperature)

      1. John Steinbach

        The DU(U-238) shells disintegrate upon impact, releasing widespread DU powder into the environment. DU is an Alpha-emitter & is extremely toxic if ingested or breathed in. Also chemically toxic.

  10. Cetra Ess

    My initial thought was the Americans are doing this to prevent the Ukrainians from setting off a dirty bomb. And I wondered if these devices could detect radioactive signatures traveling into an area well before an explosion.

    It’s a symbolic gesture if IAEA, Interpol, Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group have the capability. Cross the Russians off the list since such a gesture would be meaningless to them, they already know all this stuff about signatures. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, would be going “blast, thwarted again! (evil pinky finger)”

    Also, if the Ukrainians did set off such dirty bombs, proven by various sources, not just American, it provides a path for the US to exit the war.

    Should such be exploded on Ukrainian soil, now the world looks to the Americans to say what was the path of the package, since you’ve wired Ukraine to detect all radiological signatures you should have been able to track that package all the way from source to destination and in real time and by satellite, you would have seen this unfolding. If it’s on a truck, it’s not coming from Russia, if it’s on a drone it’s not shielded. There’s just no way it magically appears on sensors in one spot and explodes the instant it appears.

  11. A guy in Washington DC

    What a large array of monitors will first do is quickly identify the location and size of a radiation release. It will also help to charecterize the source material. So the “what?” and “where?” will be quickly identified. The “who?” not so much. And the potential “who?” list is quite large. I suspect nations are more worried about non-nations than about each other.

    A dirty bomb is not always a bomb. The term covers any method of spreading radioactive material.

    I’m not necessarily opposed to the monitoring stations. But remember some of the possible sources are in places the US can’t put monitors, so others have reason to place monitors (EU, Russia, UN).

  12. circa500bc

    The neocon factions in the Biden and previous administrations, their billionaires and highest-level bundlers conceived a violent, long-term plan to topple the Russians. What is the sit-rep? When the counteroffensive starts the Ukrainians will march into a mechanized wall of death. Old Europe countries will waffle and its downhill from there. Russia will be the regional power for decades. But…

    I can see the dejected schemers at their most recent high level echo rap session in a tunnel hugbox beneath the capitol, with the charismatic overlord telling all it ain’t over. After a brief bowing of heads for prayer, he said: “All is not lost! We still have our unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield!”

    The heroic faction members will draw strength, aye, groupthink mania! as they recount the phenomenal success with Nordstream. The moonshot that mattered with the pipeline mission was not destroying Europe’s access to Russian gas so much as the universal mind coalescence that came after. All present in the tunnel meeting noted with pride how no government, not a single soul in the mainstream media are genuinely investigating, and none scream for the U.S. and Europe to round up the perps. “Success such as this is how we know God loves us (not them). God gives us complete control so we can act boldly. We will create the city of Pandemonium on Russia’s doorstep.”

    Realpolitik this is not. A mistake would be for rational people to think these chameleon operators will be rational and quietly give up their project. “A mere shortage of human fodder and bullets? We got nukes.”

    Radiation sensors: the U.S. announces exactly 15 minutes after the detonation that “It was RUSSIAN radiation! Uh, so no need for any investigation. Got it?” The media, Europe, a bedeviled American public will scream with immortal hate for revenge.

  13. Jeremy Grimm

    The belief that Russians might use nuclear weapons of any sort in the Ukraine seems like believing Russians would deliberately piss into their own wells. After Chernobyl the idea that Russians would even consider using nuclear weapons of any sort in the Ukraine seems demented and outlandish.

    On the other hand … the u.s. and its Ukrainian puppet seem much more amenable to such madness — though I am unable to understand or grasp the full import of that madness. That madness, motivates the radiation sensors and more. I cannot imagine what sorts of poison fruit might be born of u.s. madness.

  14. ChrisPacific

    The basic science relies on faint clues — tiny bits of radioactive fallout, often invisible to the eye, that under intense scrutiny can reveal distinctive signatures.

    If you magnify the radioactive traces enough, you can see the words ‘Vladimir Putin’ scrawled across them in very tiny script.

  15. Doly Garcia

    It seems to me that the most likely scenario of some sort of nuclear event in the Ukraine war would be if Ukraine tries to re-take the Zaporizhia nuclear power station and it all goes South and ends up breaching one or more reactors, causing a Chernobyl 2.0. It’s possible that having sensors would help notice as soon as possible if that sort of scenario happened, but it’s unclear to me if knowing early would make much of a difference. I suppose in the fog of war, both sides would blame each other for the breach, and the sensor evidence might be used somehow in the argument, or may even be presented without explanation that there has been fighting for Zaporizhia, in an attempt to justify who-knows-what.

  16. Martin Oline

    I think the science behind this is undeniable, the isotopes will show where the fissionable material originated. B-b-but for this 2013 article from Discover wherein it reveals

    For the last two decades, the United States has been drawing about a tenth of its electrical power from an unlikely source: the uranium from 20,000 decommissioned Russian nuclear bombs.

    Fruit from the poisoned tree.
    I guess the material for a false flag of Russian-origin fissile material is already at hand and could easily be converted into either a dirty bomb or an actual nuclear weapon. If there is an offensive by Ukraine that is guaranteed to fail, why not blow up our boys with a red herring and make some use out of it? As they said in Firesign Theater “Garbage that goes bad comes back to our boys in baggies.”

    1. Paula

      By the way, best comment. To see as the devil does, you must know what the devil knows and how the devil operates.

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