In his latest talk with Ray McGovern on Dialogue Works, John Helmer gives far and away the best overview1 so far in the wake of Ukraine attacks on bridges and civilian trains, drone attacks targeting bombers in Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces, a failed new attack on Kerch Bridge, and phone discussions between Lavrov and Rubio and later Trump and Putin.
As you will see, Helmer focuses on whether Russia is about to go to what he calls “the Oreshnik moment,” as in a devastating non-nuclear retaliation. Putin has chosen to put the question in abeyance by depicting the attacks as terrorism, as opposed to acts of war, so as not to trigger an obligation to engage in a strategic response under Russia’s nuclear doctrine. Putin argued that escalating and breaking off negotiations would amount to going in the direction that Kiev and its backers want Russia to take, and by implication this is a trap to be avoided.2
But the issue still remains. As Helmer stated in his accompanying written post:
Now that Putin agrees that in the present war Russia is surrounded by enemies on all sides, and he must make the choice between the “path of struggle” – since Sunday, June 1, this is now war at the point of nuclear arms — and the “path of conciliation” – that’s President Donald Trump’s peace terms – what will Putin decide to do? c
As Helmer explains:
This is important because under the Russian nuclear doctrine of last December section 19c…an attack by a a non-nuclear state on Russia’s nuclear triad. Its capability to deter nuclear attack on Russia is considered a violation of the nuclear deterrence regime and requires under Russian policy a significant strategic level of attack.
Under III. Conditions for the Transition of the Russian Federation to the Employment of Nuclear Weapons, the text of 19c:
19. The conditions that enable the possibility of nuclear weapons employment by the Russian Federation are as follows:…
c) actions by an adversary affecting elements of critically important state or military infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the disablement of which would disrupt response actions by nuclear forces
Please note that Ray McGovern’s view in this talk, that the Ukraine attack did not cross nuclear doctrine red lines, is an extreme outlier among the regular YouTube commentators on this war. But since he regularly tries to object to Helmer’s well-substantiated view, that Ukraine’s attack not just legitimated but even per Russian doctrine, demanded a strategic retaliation, let’s put paid to this matter. We’ll turn the mike over to the fabulously seasoned and cool-headed former ambassador Chas Freeman, from a recent talk on Neutrality Studies, for the widely-shared assessment:
Traditionally the elements of a nuclear deterrent force on both the American and the Soviet side, the Russian side if you will, have been exempt from attack for the very simple reason that both countries regard a an attack with conventional weapons on their nuclear deterrent capacity as equivalent to a nuclear attack and justifying a nuclear response. Both sides take this very seriously. Of course, Ukraine is not part of the SALT agreements, nor is the UK. So, they are free, I suppose, mischievously to challenge this exemption, and they’ve done so, and it’s very dangerous.
In this interview, Nima hoisted remarks by US envoy Keith Kellogg that confirmed this interpretation. 3 Helmer flags US effort by US officials to avoid discussing this and the Bryansk bridge attacks, and worse from a Russian perspective, the resulting failure to condemn them.
To return to Helmer’s theme, of how Russia will respond, he argues:
(at 10:00) This means that Russia will not use the Oreshnik moment to attack at a strategic level. Instead, it’s saying we will subordinate our retaliatory capacity, subordinate it to the negotiations. And I’ve just during the day spoken with my sources in Moscow and what they say is the same. I ask expressly on the issue of “Will there be an Oreshnik retaliation?” My source in a position to know said the launch of the Oreshnik is unlikely [Looks at notes] I’m reading it. Perhaps later “Only if there is certainty that Trump will not deliver. Maybe now a measured strike to help Trump focus.”
If you read Helmer’s article, he presents the text of the relevant section of Russia’s nuclear doctrine and long form substantiates the points:
Also omitted from Russian law is the distinction between acts of terrorism and acts of war… In no other state, either allied with Russia in the present war such as China, Iran and North Korea, or allied with the US and NATO against Russia, is there a law differentiating between state acts of war and state acts of terrorism.
So the normally legalistic Putin is taking some big definitional liberties so as to have a fig leaf for not engaging in a strategic retaliation. What is bothersome is that advocates tend to start believing what they argue on behalf of their causes. Lawyers defending clients they know are guilty regularly come to believe their innocence. Is Putin similarly going to come to believe his minimization of these attacks?
But the immediate question is why Russia is holding back from establishing that it has escalation dominance without resorting to nuclear weapons. One factor may be, as Larry Wilkerson discussed in a recent interview we highlighted, that the direction of travel is that the US will hit the limits of its escalation ladder (with many not even fully grasping that Russia both outperforms the West in most weapons categories and can greatly outproduce the West too) it will go for a nuclear attack, and Russia is keenly aware of that.
However, Helmer points out in his related article (and he didn’t have a chance to cover this in the interview) that the Kremlin is simply giving Trump the opportunity to deliver on the latest Russian memorandum presented in Istanbul (see the terms here):
The source explains Putin’s decision-making. “The political functionaries [Kremlin, Foreign Ministry] have their focus on the Memorandum and expect it will be signed. Now we wait for Trump to deliver. Rubio sent [Senator Lindsey] Graham to [Vladimir] Zelensky to accept it. He talks best with Zelensky. Our side has some more patience before replying to the ‘terror attacks’ [sarcastic laughter]. This is because all the assurance we have from the Americans is that the outcome of discussions will be positive. A Russian military response of large proportions can wait. We have patience. It will happen if [emphasis] Trump will not deliver Ukraine on Memorandum-1.” How long will the Kremlin give Trump? the source was asked. “Several weeks, not months.”
This forbearance is unpopular within Russia, as Helmer4 and even readers have indicated, even with the effort to underplay its seriousness.
In our post on Larry Wilkerson’s reaction to the drone strikes, we ventured that Russia would not retaliate for several weeks so as to let the negotiations play out. Russia has made a point of observing forms. Why rush when time is in its favor? A delay of weeks not only allows them to chew up more of Ukraine, but if they opt for massive strikes, to better pre-position troops and materiel to take advantage of it.
Helmer describes what the public and private official Russian positions are. I will turn to a glaring contraction, of Helmer’s insistence in this and earlier talks, that Russia is testing the US, with the fact that he also points out that Russian officials, as they have repeatedly stated, at length, with vigor, and with receipts, that the US it totally, top to bottom untrustworthy. So why bother testing when you know the answer?
Helmer is far too smart not to recognize this conundrum, but perhaps he has reasons for not questioning what he had been told. I will considering this matter after more discussion of the state of play, particularly the Trump call to Putin.
The guilty silence from the US side is telling. The State Department provided an uninformative readout save registering that Lavrov initiated the call. The Russian readout shows that Rubio gave his condolences for the victims of the Bryansk bridge attack. But the Lavrov call came within hours of the Ukraine drone attack, and the fact that Rubio took in in the wee AM is an indicator that the US knew this scheme had gone pear-shaped and it was faced with answering to Russia somehow.
One is hard pressed to make any sense of what Trump says. After all, he and Putin had call both sides regarded as friendly and productive on May 19,. Less than two weeks later, Trump is calling Putin crazy, made a threat, and pretended not to know about the Putin assassination attempt. That was followed by a barrage of intended-to-be-extremely serious attacks by the US proxy that fell short.
Whatever Lavrov said to Rubio likely induced Trump to call:
As Larry Wilkerson points out, Trump is acting chastened, and I put more emphasis on “acting” that Johnson does. From his post:
Here is what I think really happened… Lavrov, at the direction of Vladimir Putin, called Rubio to deliver a stern message and a warning to President Trump….the Russian government was prepared to take strong action because the attack on the airfields represented a direct threat to Russia’s nuclear capabilities… Russia is going to punish Ukraine and any countries that provided assistance, whether materiel or intelligence, to this act of war.
The next day, June 2nd, Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, met with Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Rustem Enverovych Umerov, in advance of the formal meeting between the delegations of the two countries. Medinsky delivered an ultimatum to Umerov, i.e., this is your last chance to accept this deal or face worse consequences.
Trump was uncharacteristically silent on social media on Monday and Tuesday. I believe that he was alarmed by Lavrov’s message…
We got our first clue on Tuesday, when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced he would not attend the June 4 meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG). Secretary Hegseth’s absence from the June 4, 2025, meeting in Brussels marked the first time a US defense chief did not participate in a UDCG session. Hegseth did not attend the previous gathering in person, but he did make a Zoom appearance
This may also explain the odd appearance of a lead Bloomberg story on June 4, Exclusive: US Said to Deny Air Cover to Europe Force in Postwar Ukraine, Its opening paragraphs:
The US is refusing to provide air defenses to back the “reassurance force” the UK and France are planning in a postwar Ukraine, people familiar with the matter said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has insisted a US so-called backstop is essential to deter Russia from breaching any future ceasefire deal. But European allies have concluded during discussions with their American counterparts that President Donald Trump won’t provide the guarantees they have sought to back the Europe-led ‘coalition of the willing,’ according to the people, who requested anonymity disclosing private discussions.
Mind you, the US has already said no to this sort of entreaty. So why has this come up again? It appears that these EU leaders went again to the US, hoping that the drone attacks had been enough of a demonstration of Russian weakness so as to persuade Trump to change his mind.
But how long does this new-found probity last? One guesses at best until German Chancellor Freirich Merz visits him next week.
So why is Russia going through this elaborate charade of treating the US as if it could deliver on Russia’s demands? As Chas Freeman said,
What came out of this meeting in Istanbul is an exchange of memoranda outlining the positions of the two sides. That makes it apparent that there is absolutely no possibility of a meeting of the minds.
I cannot begin to make sense of Trump’s remarks on Iran. Admittedly, I am overly reliant on Professor Mirandi, but he was part of the team that negotiated the JCPOA. Mirandi has said that Iran would not want Russia to intermediate in talks with the US, and that Russia would not want to be in that position either.
And as with the Ukraine-Russia talks, the two sides are at an impasse. The Supreme Leader has rejected the US demand for no nuclear enrichment. No amount of Putin sweet-talking, even if he were to stoop to do that, would change things. And why exactly should he do the US a solid now?
Moreover, as Helmer pointed out, Russia is well aware of the fact that there are deep divisions in the Administration. More specifically, Trump put neocons in key positions and despite having purges underway, they are still very influential. Look at how when Keith Kellogg was supposed demoted to baby-sitting Zelensky, he’s managed to become the key US advisor. Recall Steve Witkoff was displaced after Putin refused to see him. That in turn was because Witkoff had become the bearer of the 22 point memorandum devised by Kellogg and friends, and could not be seen as an emissary for Trump.
In addition, Lindsay Graham is globetrotting like a wannabe Godzilla on an international tour, threatening his bone-crushing sanctions. One has to note this is actually progress of sorts. Someone must have given the memo to Graham that the US cannot meaningfully arm Ukraine, so at least he’s not trumping for big weapons packages.
However, Graham claims he has 80 votes in the Senate. That’s enough to remove Trump from office if articles of impeachment were to get to the Senate. That risk may seem remote now, but a lot of things are going pear-shaped for Trump.
So let us return to the contradiction of Putin wanting to test Trump when Russia knows full well that the US and even more so Trump, cannot be trusted. So what is the point of any test?
The test may not be of reliability, but testing for strength, as in intensifying pressures so as to see when and where fractures occur. For instance, Trump does not like being pushed around by neocons even though he still lets himself be influenced by them. Playing the negotiation game flatters Trump and should help him, even if only at the margin, in trying to reduce the neocon’s power.
Trump already loathes European leaders for having themselves or their predecessors treat him shabbily during Trump 1.0 while being ungrateful for US defense protection. Yet Trump has been threatening to leave them to their own devices, military and especially Ukraine-wise, while being very slow to take steps to operationalize that, as armed services types might say. The European leaders are particularly upset that the negotiations are happening at all. So keeping them going, even if on life support, also increases pressure on the US-Europe fault line.
Another reason for Russia to continue with attrition, albeit intensified, for a few weeks or even a bit more, is the very Iran issue that Trump mentioned. Netanyahu is just as desperate to get the US involved on his side as Zelensky in Ukraine, with far better ability to make that happen. Earlier this year, when Israel was working on a joint US-Israel strike package that Trump nixed, there were reports that Israel saw its window for action as late spring-early summer. That was linked to the expiration of the snapback provisions in the JCPOA (any procedure would have to start before the end of June so as to be completed before the expiration date in October). That presumably means a deal needs to be “done” by then or the US loses its leverage. And Netanyahu’s ever-weakening domestic position also creates a sense of urgency.
In other words, Putin’s lame terrorism positioning may have been his cleanest excuse to wait to see if Israel does attack Iran, since that clock is very much ticking. If so, the US will have to Do Something and NATO will be roped in to assist (recall that the UK and France participated in the $2.3 billion defense against Iran’s negotiated and scheduled attack on Israel that cost Iran only $90 million). So Russia would have a much freer hand in the scale and scope of its drone attack retaliation, and even more important, how it moved ground forces to capitalize on that.
Let us put this another way: Ukraine is about finished. There are gaps in its manning in the line of contact. Russia crossed the Oskil River unopposed. There are reports of panic among Ukraine soliders due to the advances in Sumy. This series of attacks are recklessly desperate, wild punches by Ukraine. The one last boost it might get is using Taurus missiles, which do have a longer range, of 500km, than previous Western missiles.
But Germany can provide only 150. They have to be air launched, presumably from F-16, which have been notably missing in action, apparently due to the ease of Russian interception. Yes, a few might get through. But this is a self-limited threat. And Russia does not have to exact its revenge quickly, given that Germany is a paper tiger.
Helmer said Russia sees the US as playing a double game, as if its chaos and incompetence even rises to the level of a game. Think Russia isn’t playing one too? Even with Helmer having excellent sources, key fact and plans are likely very closely held.
My best guess is Russia recognizes it needs to break NATO and is not yet willing to admit to that as its real aim. And in any event, it has to break Ukraine. So first things first. The process of subjugating Ukraine will weaken NATO and will increase all sorts of splits (imagine the recriminations and blame shifting). Russia will get all sorts of information from that process as to how to proceed next.
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1Helmer refers specifically to details of documents and speeches, and also unlike pretty much all Western YouTube commentators, has access to high-level sources in Russia, including on the General Staff.
2 The fact that Kiev might think this is a trap in its game of information warfare does not mean that an assessment of risks and benefits means Russia should refrain from retaliation for that reason. I can see the point in Scott Ritter terms, that Russia does not want Ukraine driving its OODA loop. But that does not argue for no retaliation, just no immediate retaliation. Russia should pick advantageous times and means.
3 See at 28:30:
Kellogg: What happened this weekend..people have to understand in the national security space when you attack uh an opponent’s part of their national survival system which is their triad the nuclear triad that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side’s going to do. You’re not sure. And that’s what they actually did. And the one that really concerned me was the fact that there may have been reports uh that they attacked the naval the northern fleet headquarters in Severomorsk . And if that’s the case, if when you attack two legs of a triad that first of all, it was a very bold attack. Um and when you do that, it’s very clear the risk levels will go up. And I think that’s what we’re trying to avoid. We’re trying to get to a position where the risk levels have blown so high that this thing will expand and actually where we don’t want to be.
Helmer pointed out the attack on the fleet did not happen.
4 Helmer’s examples:
Moskovsky Komsomolets, a mass circulation newspaper and tribune of popular opinion, has called for the same “determination and harshness” against Ukraine as Israel has shown against Hamas. Boris Rozhin, speaking for the Russian military opinion and editor-in-chief of the widely read military blog, Colonel Cassad, said: “I hope that the military-political leadership will find a way to adequately respond. The blow should be painful… As long as we are waging a limited war, the enemy is waging a total war, the purpose of which is the destruction of our country and people. And no peace talks will change this. The longer it is in coming, the more unpleasant surprises.”
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Is it just me or is all text struck out?
we have strikethru not closed?
I have struck through pretty well everywhere as well.
Yes, fixed, mangled footnote code. Sorry!
Weird. I can’t post a comment, although I have subscribed. Just wanted to say that your analysis is correct:
.”My best guess is Russia recognizes it needs to break NATO and is not yet willing to admit to that as its real aim. And in any event, it has to break Ukraine. So first things first. The process of subjugating Ukraine will weaken NATO and will increase all sorts of splits (imagine the recriminations and blame shifting). Russia will get all sorts of information from that process as to how to proceed next.” I have been saying this for a long time over on News Forensics on Substack which now has an 85% record of correct predictions.
Bhadrakumar is coming round to the view that Putin is erring in his (now multiple) prudential decisions to avoid escalatory retaliation in response to the crossing of established red lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkJzpmz0OQ
The danger–as many on this site have noted for a bit now–is that by not retaliating more forcefully earlier in the escalatory process, Russia may eventually find itself forced to escalate to a degree and in a manner that it had not anticipated having to resort to. That is the scenario when things risk getting out of control. It is a very tricky game. I frankly do not have a strong view on Putin’s handling of the war, because the number of variables he is managing simultaneously is well beyond my capacity to second guess.
I listened to Glenn Diesen’s discussion with Amb. Bhadrakumar with sympathy but thought the latter overstated certain things and omitted others. He seemed to conflate at times the idea of Western provocations with crossing Russian red lines. Yes, usually the West is first to escalate, but most of the red lines the West crosses are their own, at which point Russia typically escalates, if somewhat less. Energy infrastructure attacks are an example of the latter. NATO expansion *was* a red line, and here we are.
Russia warns the West of the seriousness of such escalations but issues few “if/then” statements that it can then be trapped into having to deliver on. They typically leave themselves flexibility of action.
One major consideration is the degree of publicity that comes with Western moves, and the relative silence and subtlety of Russian ones. During this conflict both North Korea and Iran have made tremendous strides in missile tech, as have Ansarallah. Russia? Iran’s demonstration strike on Israel was a targeting masterpiece. Russia? The Israel / US aerial attack turned back well short of Iran when locked on with unfamiliar radar systems at considerable distance. Russia?
Another major reason for Russia’s moderated responses to Western escalations is the latter’s fecklessness. Unless & until the West introduces authentic game changers, Russia just counters and grinds on. The escalation fever is a testament to Western weakness, not Russia’s.
That said, the 5-airport drone attack not only crosses Russia’s nuclear-response threshold, but constitutes an attack not just on Russia’s nuclear deterrent but nuclear treaty protections and provisions themselves. The risk that a weak response to this provocation will invite further provocations is real and high.
But given the depraved indifference of the West to damage in and to Ukraine, there is no Russian retaliation within UKR, including, I suspect, a tactical nuke, that will back off the fanatics sheltering under NATO Art. 5. Damage to UKR is just grist to the West’s demonization narrative.
No, the only meaningful, deterrence-restoring response is against NATO forces directly. Throwing one belligerent country, not too small, up against the wall may be preferable to striking multiple countries. The UK is an obvious candidate. The UK offers the additional advantage of having forces outside of NATO territory. Russia could, for example, strike 5 UK bases in any of: Cyprus, Oman, Bahrain, Diego Garcia, Falklands, Belize. None in NATO territory.
But for those jonesing for a Russian strike vs. NATO, and chafing at the Russian slow-walk response, consider the possibility that Russia has already decided to confront NATO directly but prefers to annihilate its politically expendable 800,000 slav army in UKR first.
Oh, the idea of striking UK bases is genius.
I assume that’s sarcasm.
Assuming this was indeed withering irony, coz you think striking UK bases outside NATO is beyond the pale, do you think the Russian military advising Putin are not offering more radical escalation options?
In his June 4 commentary, Alexander Mercouris suggested an alternative or supplementary interpretation of VVP’s “terrorism” language — it might be laying some public ground-work for upgrading the Special Military Operation to Anti-terrorist Operation, which would give the RF General Staff more resources and freedom of operation.
I don’t know enough to intelligently interact with this proposal. I do have the impression that VVP is under pressure to escalate in some way.
Mercouris has been saying this for a while. It has not happened.
Putin has had MANY other incidents he could have used. The killing of Darya Dugina. Crocus City Hall. The drone attack on a Crimean beach. The very long-standing Ukraine strikes on civilian targets in Donetsk City, including the use of petal bombs.
Putin does not even remotely need to lay groundwork.
The only useful escalatory action Russia could and should do is the continuation and intensification of the electric war.
Many Dnieper bridges could be erased to better control how Ukrainian supplies and troops get to the front. The port of Odessa could be laid to waste (offloading cranes, coal unloading). US ISR could be blinded permanently (and denied responsibility). The Rada could be erased along with all the parliamentarians inside and perhaps a visiting Lindsey Graham. I could think of more if I wanted to. This would force the Ukrainian govt to relocate to Lviv – aka rump Ukraine.
I am sure Russia has many smarter people than me thinking of other ideas, too.
No, Russia wants those Dnieper bridges, the better for Ukraine to bring its men and materiel to the line of contact for Russia to attrit them. Russia will want them if/when it advances across the Dnieper. Finally, all cities on the Dnieper, including big ones like Dnipro straddle the Dnieper, so taking the bridges out impairs the operations of those cities. Russia would have to rebuild them if it takes them.
And that, I think, is precisely why the present rhetoric shift is significant.
This isn’t about when terrorist attacks happened, or Putin’s personal feelings, or some legalistic justification. This is about leverage, and this is about propaganda. On the propaganda front, “all of a sudden” in the last one-two-three days Russian TV and radio switched to discussing “Ukrainian terrorism”. The nightly Channel One national news program literally replayed Putin’s comments on this two days in a row – you’d think once were enough. So the question is – why now, all of a sudden?
And to me, the answer seems pretty simple. SMO means you can still negotiate, and have some counterparty to negotiate with (however technically illegitimate – hence the line about holding elections before signing anything in Russia’s “Istambul memorandum”). Recall that Putin and Lavrov have consistently positioned themselves, including to the BRICS, as perfectly willing and happy to negotiate, so long as certain base demands were met. And this was also how the whole thing was presented internally, to the general populace – we won’t give an inch, but we’re happy to end the war tomorrow if we get what we want.
A CTO, meanwhile, means there isn’t anyone to negotiate with. It’s unconditional surrender or death, for the entirety of Ukraine as controlled by the present regime in Kiev. The exact parallel one needs to look at is the Second Chechen War, which Putin personally presided over. And now, plenty of Chechens are fighting for the Russians (not the least as, per Alaudinov’s recent statement, ~50% of the Ahmat special forces unit is ethnically Russian – they even changed their flag to reflect this). It also means every member of the government in Kiev is now a mini-Osama Bin Laden with a price on his head, and remember, the Russians spent many, many years finding and killing Chechen commanders, including in the West, after the war had formally ended.
So it seems fairly obvious to me that Putin & Co. would use the SMO-to-CTO conversion as a threat with which to pressure both Ukraine and the US. Hence the 2.5 hour meeting-before-the-meeting in Istambul between Medinsky and Umerov, hence the we-just-chatted-idly readout of the conversations with Rubio, and literally two days later, responding to an event that, let’s be honest, was almost randomly picked out of a hat, given that Russian civilians are killed by Ukrainian drones every week, Putin starts making public noises about terrorism, while Lavrov makes equally public pleas to continue negotiating.
I am not sure Putin’s little gambit will be successful; I am also not sure that an actual CTO conversion is imminent. But hey, I guess they think they won’t lose anything by trying. And at some point, they will have to declare further negotiations to be pointless and switch to unconditional-surrender mode, for which their own public, at least, must be prepared. That’s my theory, in any case.
Also, too, I am less optimistic on the “finished-ness” of Ukrainian army at this precise juncture. Obviously, one cannot know when exactly the collapse will happen, but for now it still looks like this year will be more grindy than collapsy. Unless, of course, the Russians pull one or two rabbits out of their hats this summer…
They want Ukraine to quit the negotiations and that has happened. Zelensky has said no more Istanbul, he wants to meet Putin. Putin will never agree because that legitimates him.
Putin probably wants to defend his favorite defense minister. The Russian Defense Ministry tends to avoid responsibility by labeling any attack on Russian territory as an act of terrorism. If it is terrorism, then the intelligence agencies would be responsible for failing to prevent it, not the Ministry of Defense. For this reason, Russia is calling the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk a “terrorist attack.”
Are you really that much not on top of this story?
The planes HAD to sit out in the open per the START treaties. The MoD had nothing to do with that.
Since when is the MoD responsible for trying to find Ukraine agent networks in Russia? Monitoring domestic cell networks for suspicious traffic? Monitoring who or what crosses the border? None of that is the responsibility of the defense forces, It is domestic policing and intel work.
But it does appear that Ukies(US/Nato) have discovered some weaknesses in Russian internal security. They need to have their citizens to be alert to these threats, without causing undo alarm.
The attacks on civilians only galvanizes Russia to cross the Dnieper River and clear the land.
Russia ia the biggest country in the world. It is impossible to secure it perfectly.. The perps were likely Ukrainians or Russians recruited to be agents. Either way, they spoke Russian and lived in Russia.
We don’t inspect containers at ports. This act used containers. The perps rented a warehouse and trucks. Think any country can surveil that? The drones are toy sized and the components, even smaller.
Just adding to this–Scott Ritter noted that both MI6 and the CIA cultivated probably hundreds of Russian assets during the 1990s and he believes there is a very good chance that some of those assets were directly involved in the logistical planning of this operation.
Containers are the new pagers.
Yes, Slavyangrad also wrote on this point yesterday on Telegram, describing it as a possibility and defining the legal consequences. We’ll see I guess.
Today in the Moskovskij Komsomolets (mk.ru), mentioned in the article, Major-General Vladimir Popov (ret.) commented that Russia’s retaliation will most likely commence sometimes between Friday and Sunday. It will last two days, after which there will be a pause to estimate the effect followed by another two days of strikes.
As Popov used to be actual military (1967-2009) and retired as the head of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation he likely also has contacts in the Russian General Staff.
He believes that Putin told Trump that there will be a vary strong retaliation and the Ukrainian leadership has no more security guarantees from Russia, and that Trump relayed this information to Zelensky. So while to Russian military finalizes the target lists, the regime in Kiev has time to think about actions and consequences.
” Kiev has time to think about actions and consequences.”
All sides knowing that UKR will act on in the same manner.
Aha, saying no more security guarantees to Ukraine leadership, that means Russia can take out Kiev’s buildings that run the government. Even if the staff gets out, they won’t be able to remove much in the way of systems and records that they need to run things (like the central bank!)
But Russia has been observing forms. They need Ukraine to reject the memorandum first.
Helmer above suggested a biggish strike to focus minds before the “Oreshnik moment” attack at most a few weeks later. So if Helmer is right, Popov’s weekend strike will be impressive but not the Oreshnik level attack.
“They need Ukraine to reject the memorandum first.”
Then that´s what´s gonna happen.
And Kiev will drag the dead out in front of the cameras and make a spectacle out of it and will try to cause turmoil all over at the same time.
Who knows maybe Budanov wants to cause some state of emergency in Russia with various sleeper cells being activated. I was thinking of just that during Helmer´s conversation before yesterday when he warned of the possible true scale of it all.
It´s a bit like pre-Mabuse calm before the storm. That is fascism literally as Mussolini envisioned it: Keep man at the brink to push him to his utmost “best”!
What a life, what a vision. I am so proud to be German at this very moment in time. Truly exhilarating. To the last Ukrainian indeed.
You’ll see first the last Gazan…
There are two sets of targets that will win the war:
1) Bunker-buster tactical nukes (medium-sizes) at border crossings using bunker busters to complete block NATO logistics. Think the Sedan Crater but one breaking up every road and railway track from Poland and Romania (Hungary and Slovakia will shut them down voluntarily presumably after that). It will take months to sort the mess, wait for radioactivity to go down, etc. Then you hit again if they persist.
2) Command and control and data centers for the SBU/GUR/AFU. Most of those are buried, and may too require small nukes.
One can also add nuking the airfields, but I am not sure how much those even matter at this point as the AFU has been very good at applying old Soviet doctrine and using the road network to take off and land
Everything else will be once again performative. But those steps will end the war quickly.
What I see as rumors is that Trump asked Putin to not use tactical nukes and Putin could not guarantee that. Which is encouraging, but we will see.
There will be no nukes, yet.
Nukes the way you describe their use are the penultimate step of the escalation ladder.
And so far every single time that the peanut gallery went “Whelp no choice now Russia got to use nukes.” Russia came up with a fitting retaliation that went up a rung on the escalation ladder but not to the very end.
Another reason for not using nukes is that that will isolate Russia if they do a first strike even if it is in retaliation. China and the South reluctantly support Russia, dropping a nuke will drive them into the arms of the West.
Leveling the Rada building for example would be an example of escalating but not reaching for the nukes.
For your option 2) they might be able to utilize the few Oreshniks they’ve built so far.
Another one would be a purge of the totally not military/spooks from US/UK/GER/FRA. Russia has a history of leveling hotels, apartment complexes, and production facilities when those live there or were visiting as retaliation. Just like they hit award ceremonies, or in the case of the suddenly disappearing naval drone fleet orchestrated the creation of a reward ceremony, where the NATO handlers are present.
And that are just repeats of what Russia has shown it is capable of. Nothing really new for example poking that complex in Germany from where the Taurus would be getting its satellite date.
This has gone way beyond the point where such considerations could possibly outweigh the negative consequences of not striking.
It has also gone way beyond the point where “dropping a nuke”, i.e. a symbolic strike, will solve anything.
What is mandatory now is to use the nukes to win.
The light option is to use them to physically isolate and defeat Ukraine. Obviously no strikes on cities, but to kill logistics between NATO and Ukraine, demolish bunkers, airfields, industrial areas, etc.
The heavy option is to annihilate NATO in Europe. The US will stand down.
Do you think China will isolate Russia then, after Russia has destroyed NATO? That is silly.
But yes, doing a pathetic silly symbolic strike does run that risk. Which is why you go hard or you go home.
“Rumors” about “tactical nuke” use? You should call it “made-up nonsense,” for that is what it is.
What makes you think the use of nuclear weapons in this context is nonsense? Are you commenting on the repeated western assertions that the Evil Rooskies will do something like that, or are you responding to claims that such things have been discussed? I remain continually amazed that we have not yet been on the receiving end of a nuclear exchange after years of endless provocations by stupid people. I thought for sure that was the bang that would have made old man Biden leave his presidential position with a whimper.
A running theme in the analysis of the current situation cannot be ignored: Russia will have to do something to end this or else it will happen again. The west will not stand down and give up the dream of control. The CIA and their agents, which includes all of Ukraine at this point, will never concede defeat. So how does Putin steer his country to safety and minimize the risk of terrorism once the conflict ends? How does he convince Western patrons to give up? Nukes seem a reasonable choice. I’m glad he hasn’t done that yet. Surprised, but still very glad.
Another challenge with Oreshnik is precisely that it demands a worthy target & I wonder how many of these there are within UKR. The Ministry of Defense compound in Kiev is almost big enough, but you’d still be smashing a lot of buildings near by. High collateral damage.
Port of Odessa? Maybe, but again, Oreshnik is almost too big to prevent killing a lot of the wrong people in Odessa.
Dneiper bridges–why is it so hard to see that Russia *wants* the bridges in place, so as to continue to lure UkroNATO to fight in the SE, near Russian logistics, rather than withdrawing behind the river and forcing Russia to continually cross the Dniepr to fight near NATO logistics in the West, and near NATO air cover?
No, the best targets for Oreshniks are outside UKR, and where collateral damage is more than a media talking point:
UK bases world wide, but esp. Cyprus, Jordan, if Mossad is involved with drone strikes.
MI6 HQ on the Thames
UK, France, Germany factories producing StormShadow, Taurus & Scalp
UK submarines and bases.
Aegis Ashore bases in Poland & Romania.
Wiesbaden or Ramstein bases in Germany, where UKR operations are directed.
NATO HQ Brussels.
CIA HQ Langley
NSA HQ, Fort Meade
You get the idea.
My understanding is we’re not really sure how the materials problem of a hypersonic weapon was solved yet. It may be that Putin is in the same position we were for a time with Fatman and Little Boy. Maybe he doesn’t have very many to use? In that case, perhaps he needs to be very careful about what targets he picks for a demonstration.
Russia has not even committed to taking out the Dieper bridges or the electricity grid in Kiev or the dual-usage port in Odessa.
Why they have not done any of these things–which would directly hamper NATO’s war effort in Ukraine–is up for debate, but the fact remains they have not done so.
They are not going to leap over these items and bomb Kiev’s government buildings. That wouldn’t make any sense. Before they do anything like that, they will probably start prosecuting the war as a real war, and destroy Ukrainian bridges, electricity, ports.
Dneiper bridges–why is it so hard to see that Russia *wants* the bridges in place, so as to continue to lure UkroNATO to fight in the SE, near Russian logistics, rather than withdrawing behind the river and forcing Russia to continually cross the Dniepr to fight near NATO logistics in the West, and near NATO air cover?
Large strategic aircraft movements today back to the western bases. Targets like the Antonov plant are that large they will need to be area bombed. TU-22’s for this.
The summer offensive will probably be upgraded now with lines of communication and logistics units needed for marching needing to be integrated, this will take some time and be evident.
Is the kh-95 finished yet ?
I have followed Ray McGovern for years and have much respect for him. However, he continues to give benefit of the doubt and seems to ignore the levels of ignorance, incompetence and hubris of the DT2 regime. The larger context of the issue is also seems to be omitted in his assessment. I agree that Helmer offers the best explanation.
If the SBS did indeed participate in some of these attacks, I find it hard to believe that DT, Rubio and the gang didn’t know. Or are they that willingly ignorant?
I believe that McGovern and several other of the alt commentators continue to insist upon Trump’s purported desire for peace against all evidence to the contrary.
Bhadrakumar is 100% convinced all recent actions have been undertaken with American knowledge and aid. His interview with Diesen is extremely critical both of the US and Russia and is, for me, chillingly clarifying. We are in a very, very dangerous place.
Irresponsible not to speculate? See latest Larry.
I will speculate that Ray–ex CIA like Johnson–is right.
Trump cares only about Trump. If he cared about peace and lives he would not be all on board with genocide in Gaza.
The only reason he cares about “peace” is NOT that he gives a rat’s ass about it, but that he made repeated claims he would deliver it. This is about his image.
If he really cared about peace, he could have cut off US intel to Ukraine to bring them to heel. He hasn’t, ergo this is not what he wants.
True, and we can add the illegal siege warfare waged against Venezuela, Cuba and others. The continued “sanctions” on Russia, threats to Russia. And Vance/Rubio/Hegseth warmongering hubris and what some see as a coming war with China.
I guess we need a new definition of “peace”
Actually, for Trump, we need a new definition of “wants”. A lazy desire does not cut it.
Trump wants peace the way that kids who want to be professional dancers think that a few years of weekly lessons will get them there. No, you have to do a lot more in the way of developing your instrument. Trump is not willing to do the work. particularly cross the many interests vested in Project Ukraine.
The SBU took credit.
See also: https://archive.is/Mf3zT
Thanks for the link. The same applies for the Ukraine SBU. I find it hard to believe if the SBU did the both the bridge and drone attacks that they were not aided by the British SBS and British intelligence with full knowledge and approval of the US. Aurelien recently commented that MI6/CIA does not directly control SBU, however it sure looks like the SBU was aided and abetted by the US/UK puppet-masters. To claim that the US has no knowledge of what the British do flies in the face of “the five eyes” and intelligence sharing. (I recall Snowden talking about this sort of thing years ago)
I doubt that the CIA or MI6 would say they controlled any assets that were not employees. So I am not sure what to make of this claim.
I tend to think Aurelien is right about “control,” although what “control” really means is a lot more ambiguous than not.
Every political player “depends” on others in some shape or form, but they all have their own agendas. If the scope of “cooperation” comes to the point that they are basically on the same agenda but one side controls the access to the resources disproportionately, it might as well be “control.” All sorts of bureaucratic reasons means that SBU wants to carry out terrorist attacks on Russia and rile them up–in some ways, more than Zelensky himself. Western intel agencies have the same agenda, notwithstanding whatever it is that Trump “really” wants, or if he wants anything at all. Western agencies have access to most of hte required resources, although SBU, it must be said, has resources that Western agencies lack–they are, after all, “Russians” and are capable of infiltrating Russia like no other outsiders can (except for other former Soviet states–and not all of them, and Belarus and Kazakhstan are not that close to the West, just sayin’.) So slightly more complex than just one way “control,” but probably not that different functionally, at least for now.
JFK did not know about the Bay of Pigs, IIRC. Of course, Eisenhower was a real human and took responsibility for it.
I didn’t get from his article that Helmer was implying Oreshnik strikes on Europe–I think he was referring to their use against Ukraine again? Did I miss something?
If that’s what we’re talking about–using them against Ukraine again–it is a useless gesture: there’s nothing an Oreshnik can do to Ukraine that a bunch of Iskanders can’t. The first use was presumably a demonstration to Europe that Russia has a non-nuclear strategic strike weapon that can reach them. i.e. the threshold for use will be lower than tactical nukes. I don’t think Oreshnik is anywhere near replacing tactical nukes, but clearly Putin has been implying this. (IMO, this was behind his messaging confusion about Oreshnik being “near-nuclear”–he meant doctrine more than efficacy).
Oreshniks against European marshalling yards for Ukraine is arguably overdue but I can’t imagine Putin taking that step before climbing the escalation ladder much more gradually with things like air-exclusion zones over the Black Sea, or what have you.
Yes, he did mean only Ukraine for now.
I am not sure I agree. Information about effect of the one Oreshnik strike was suppressed, which says it was disconcerting to the West.
There are those who argue that its kinetic force alone at >Mach 10 on impact with a super dense warhead (Russia is believed to have engineered something as dense as depleted uranium or even more so) would have close-to-nuclear-warhead -level ability to take out structures and underground bunkers (some of this is due to how the shock waves propagate underground). I think one reason why is the high concentration of the impact force. Atomic bombs are exploded above the surface, I think not to maximize the raw shockwaves but the explosion force + superheat. We featured articles where experts did some math and modeling on impact effects. I imagine the house weapons mavens will reopen this debate.
There was a curious report a few weeks ago about an upside down earthquake near one of those towns in the backblocks of Russia stating with an N. It soon disappeared but that is what one would expect from a non-nuclear warhead test for this weapon. Could of course have been a natural event.
That only works up to a fairly low limit.
Nobody has abolished the laws of conservation. There is no external source of energy in a purely kinetic hit here other that the kinetic energy it carries, which is ultimately derived from a chemical reaction and thus cannot be all that much.
Here is some basic math.
Where does the energy in a typical conventional warhead comes from? Well, a chemical reaction happens and the energy in certain chemical bonds is released. As a basic rule:
1 ton of TNT = 4.184e9 J of energy.
So a typical 500-kg warhead has around 2 GJ of energy. Maybe a bit more with different explosives, but is on that order of magnitude.
Now what is the kinetic energy of something flying very fast? A Kinzhal missile weighs 4,300 kg at take off, but it burns fuel on the way to its target, and how much it weighs at the end of the journey is anyone’s guess, but let’s pencil in a 1,000 kg for ease of calculation.
The kinetic energy of something like this flying at Mach 10 at the target would be 1/2*mv^2 = 0.5 x 1,000 kg x 3,430 m/s = 5.8 GJ.
If it flies at Mach 5 during descent (more realistic because the atmosphere is at its densest near the ground) we are down to 1.4 GJ. So comparable to a 500-kg warhead. It does mean that you may not need to bother putting a warhead there, but a capability of a groundbreaking significance this very much is not.
And that makes perfect sense, because, again, where does that kinetic energy come from? It comes from burning the chemical fuel in the missile. Minus whatever is lost to overcoming air resistance, etc. during flight. But that whole missile weighs only 4 tons, so there is nowhere for orders of magnitude more energy compared to a regular warhead to magically appear. You can only stuff so much fuel in it.
For comparison, where does the energy of a nuke come from? It comes from E = mc^2 and the difference in mass between the relevant material in the warhead and the fission/fusion products of the explosion. This works out to less than 50 grams of mass per megaton. A megaton warhead weighs around 250 kg with casings and everything, and it features tens of kilograms of material that undergoes a nuclear reaction between the fissile and fusion stages.
At the extreme, a hypothetical anti-matter weapon would feature just half that — 25 grams of anti-matter. But, of course, it would be extremely dangerous to handle, so we are probably better off not having it.
Usually, but not always. The reason you do air burst is to maximize the blast effects on the surface.
But there would be scenarios where you would explode it underground — e.g. taking out bunkers. Or you just want to make a big crater to cut off logistics and destroy airfields.
Look at what India did to Pakistan — one of the first things they did was to hit the runways of their airfields, thus paralyzing the Pakistani air force. This with conventional warheads. The damage from which is quickly repairable, but was sufficient to give India an advantage on the time scale that mattered, and the principle here is important. If you want to take out an airbase permanently, given how large they often are, a small tactical air burst might not be enough, especially if the planes have taken off after getting a warning of an incoming strike (look at the simulator, for a 20-kt explosion the maximum devastation radius is only a kilometers or so). So then they can return once the explosion has dissipated, and restart operations, especially if the weapons are stored in deep underground bunkers that would survive the blast. But if you use a couple bunker buster missiles and excavate huge craters in the runways you take the whole thing out largely permanently.
Etc.
The Oreshnk was measured at its terminal speed at >10 Mach 10. There are many films of the impact an a lot of people independently measured it and came up with that speed.
The big point was at that speed, with a depleted uranium or equivalent payload, that the energy of the impact alone would exceed that of any conventional bomb of similar size/weight.
Yves I’m feeling quite remiss in not having drawn attention to Ted Postol’s analysis of the terminal effects of the Oreshnik back at the time of the attack. I noticed that people didn’t seem to be picking up on it, and now I think the belief that Russia has this seemingly magical weapon is blinding people to the gravity of the current situation.
At risk of repeating myself over-often, a hypersonic penetrator traveling faster than the speed of sound in its own fabric would, upon contact with the earth, be expected to experience internal pressures which, per Postol, would vaporize much of it, producing an explosion roughly comparable to a similar-sized conventional explosive.
But I just did the math for you and showed you that it doesn’t make a huge difference.
The DU does not bring more energy, because the energy comes from the conversion of chemical energy into kinetic energy during flight, the DU is fully inert, it only improves penetration.
By all means, use it for that purpose, but if you want to do really serious damage, better have the right number of kilotons in warheads packed in there too. The kinetic impact won’t do.
Unless you are going for pin-point precision strikes. Purely kinetic hypersonic MIRVs that can precisely hit ICBM silos? That can work in theory. Assuming they can be targeted that precisely, of course, which is a big if. Permanently taking out an airfield? Forget about it, all you will achieve is making some potholes in the runways that will be filled in with quick setting concrete in mere hours
GM …. I highly recommend you bone up on celestial bodies entering a planets atmosphere and then its geo. Its a new level of physics because no one looked at it, did not have the instruments to conduct experiments, or the geological anthro data to corroborate. Been interested in its developments for some decades due to our planets history and how it has effected it both pre and post humans. Think the two Russian events resulting in air bursts, resulting effects, over a large foot print indicates otherwise.
As such I find the application of old physics a wee bit blinkered in this case. Same applies to breaking the Sound barrier, Hypersonic missiles, you name it mate. Put it this way, physics cannot describe something it has not encountered before – backwards observation with maths aside.
Then your strong opinion on the system being used with nukes is a bit worrisome and suggestion of it being deployed that way to make a statement.
Skippy, all your arguments on the topic of Oreshnik as a non-nuclear wonder weapon look like, waddle like, and quack like magical thinking. Hand-waving at unspecified “new physics” only makes it worse.
To other readers: I revived the topic of what we actually know about Oreshnik because I was concerned at how much NC commentariat opinion on Russian military capabilities appears to me to involve borderline magical thinking. I have a lot of respect of NC readers, and reckon a lot you are among the relatively rare people who can shake themselves out of magical thinking if it’s pointed out to them. Cheers.
I neglected to make the key point: what Helmer described was not the use of Oreshniks per se but “the Oresnnik moment” which is escalating as high as Russia can go in the conventional weapons ladder in making a strategic response.
Is Trump / the US playing a double game with the Ukraine?
1) Trump needs American popular opinion to swing firmly behind peace – which is currently denounced as “surrender” / “Russian victory”. He also need the European political class to realise the jig is up,
2) One of the accounts (@imetatronink? @RWA) noted that there was a lot of air defence at the airfields and most of the drones did not get through.
3) Putin is taking this very calmly and framing it as terrorism.
Could Trump have choreographed with Putin that the US would let one of the many madcap Euro-Ukrainian spectaculars happen and would Vladimir be kind enough to allow a convincing modicum of damage and then they can both get on with delegitimising Zelensky and his regime as terrorists playing with the nuclear annihilation of the American Way of Life…?
No, Trump and the US are untrustworthy. Trump can’t even keep his word from breakfast to lunch time.
And Putin has REPEATEDLY says that commitments from US presidents are useless. He’s had them made multiple times and come to naught. He has learned that the permanent bureaucracy, and not the President, is in charge.
A funny thing, whether by design or not, is that Trump is doing a very good job doing the real strategic ambiguity, as in keeping others guessing as to whether he’d actually cooperate with them (any one of them really) or not. This is substantially different from what Macron et al are actually doing (under the notion that they are doing strategic ambiguity): that they’ll backstab the other side sooner or later, do something crazy or crazier. The former at least the other side give the “ambiguator” a chance to show if they really mean X and deliver on cooperation of some kind; the latter just convinces the other side that the alleged “ambiguator” is the enemy one way or another and that they should assume the worst. The problem with the strategic ambiguity, though, is that this can’t last forever, unless you actually do deliver–and if you become predictable in delivering on the cooperation, you can be gamed by the others. Or, in other words, even if Trump has somehow gotten to be good at strategic ambiguity, he has to do something lest others will just grow tired of his actions and inactions and take their own initiative.
Ironically, the Ukrainian/international warmonger side might have reached that moment already….
Hmm, can’t edit the comment: I’ll just add that “getting tired” of this strategic ambiguity means that you just don’t trust the ambiguator any more. Ironically, I think the warmonger side no longer believes that Trump would willingly help them if they ever really expected he would choose their side and that they’re doing their own things with or without Trump. This is, obviously, bad–that means, if true, Trump is now just a scarecrow…that doesn’t scare crows any more. Whatever “trust” that the Russians might put on the possibility of his good intentions go away if he can’t do anything about them–if he had them in the first place.
Yet another reminder about requirements of successful strategic ambiguity–not only is there chance that you’d actually do something FOR the other players if they give you the chance, you’d actually have control over doing that under your firm control….
That’s being quite optimistic.
Or the US is playing the “good cop” and the UK and EU vassals “the bad cop” as if that’s going to fool the Russians or pressure them. As Mr. Helmer says the Russians know that the US is acting with duplicity.
I recall Vladimir Putin saying that the US was not capable of agreement. He would have no reason to “trust” the DT2 regime. For example, during the DT1 regime, the INF treaty was abandoned by the US and Trump flat out lied about the reasons why. People have short, selective memories.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-regarding-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-inf-treaty/
I actually am womewhat optimistic vis a vis Trump compared to other possible presidents–probably to my future regret, no doubt.
Unlike Biden or Macron, who are too transparently intent on twisting everything for sake of opposing Russia, there is SOME chance that Trump really wants to cut deal with Russia for some reason or another. This doesn’t have to be for sake of beneficence, for world peace or whatever. I think Trump has good reasons to avoid getting caught in costly entanglements abroad, if only for not endangering his own agendas elsewhere, and to his credit, his little Houthi adventure has taught him that there is no non-costly entanglements anywhere. I do think that, rather than actively engaging in strategic ambiguity, Trump is more like a deer caught in headlights. He wants to escape being squashed flat by events, but he’s not sure how to get out of the situation. (Or, he might be devilishly clever and putting on the act–but that’s probably too much.) But, strategically, it’s the same situation as intentional strategic ambiguity–he might, after all, move in the “right” direction in the process of trying to get out of the path of the car.
avoid costly entanglements? Is that why they increase DoD and military budgets? Is that why they approve of giving away billions to Israel to commit genocide? I wish I could share the optimism but I don’t do hopium.
DoD budget is basically boondoggle, not necessarily resources for more adventures abroad. It’s a bundle of payoffs to pertinent political actors more than preparation for further entanglements. Until we see how things unfold, I’ll reserve judgment in the short to medium term. (and the messages are decidedly mixed–but if you are trying to negotiate a political mess as it is, you’d expect the messaging to be mixed regardless of your direction.)
At the risk of sounding overly cynical, I think the same is true with the Israel and Palestinians. In the grand scheme of foreign policy agendas for US interests, Palestine does not rank high. We can punish Israel and force it to stop its misdeeds–but the administration doing that will do so at a high political cost without much return, I regret to add. Friends of Palestine will not be satisfied if Israel is simply forced to stop the bombings: fwiw, there’re just too many things going wrong with the Palestinians at the moment (yes, we can also be frank and say that most of these are due to Israel’s past actions) that rolling them back will be thankless and difficult task. Friends of Israel, on the other hand, will not forget so easily. Returning to some sort of working relationship with Russia (regardless of Ukraine) is an important global goal, as it is linked to many things everywhere.
Returning to the Middle East, I think the only realistic solution to Israel-Palestine issues is, in the long term, destruction of the Israeli state as it currently exists–in the ideal world, it can be transformed into a real democracy in which all Palestinians, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish, are represented (and those who don’t want to be Palestinians go back to wherever they came from.) I don’t think we can do much to achieve this on our end. I do think realigning the balance of power in the MIddle East can help us get there. If so, some kind of normalization of relationship between US and Iran has to be the first step (that we can take)–the really important first step, reintegration of Iran into the rest of the Middle East, has already been achieved with the mediation by the Chinese and the Russians. So, in a roundabout way, if Trump, in his present form, can help with normalizing (to some degree at any rate) US relations with Iran in some way, that would be helpful, even towards achieving some kind of peace in Palestine.
Now, i’m also optimistic because I’m pretty sure that Trump doesn’t believe in anything, except, well, himself. Idealists are the most dangerous people out there, I think. Cynics and egoists you can make deals with and expect that, if it’s good for them, they’ll stick to. Idealists will never make a deal with you that they won’t break.
In fact there is NO chance of Trump “cutting a deal” with the Russians, because the US and Trump would have to admit defeat. Do you really think Trump ever learns anything? He doesn’t. Trump’s sheer ignorance and stupidity and narcissism allowed him to think (and continues to allow him to think) that he’s this world-class “deal-maker,” but as we have seen over and over, he gets played every time. Trump ( and his entire rancid “team”) are sitting at the card table (to extend the metaphor) with a set of low and un-matched cards that the other players can see right through. None of this going to end well.
Thanks for posting this! It provides a lot of clarity as to the situation in Ukraine.
I also have to note, like many others have also commented, that as a American bit player in the Cold War in the 70-80’s, what’s going on right now – the crazy actions being taken by obvious America proxies – scares the crap out of me.
re: rouge nation
what if this is how a silent coup in the us looks like. trump might have not been involved that much and is now put under pressure. how is he supposed to control the cia´s secret troops 10000 miles away? how many does the cia have, i forgot the numbers chris hedges and sachs once mentioned, 50.000 black ops?
if there is momentum to seize then they will not let go and this could be it. cia didn´t prepare ukraine for 8 years in vain. actually i was surprised the secret war had been so much confined to ukraine so far. after all this is what nato too had been preparing for since 1949.
question is, would moscow eventually wipe out the entire ukrainian mafia government until noone is left who could succeed the nazis? because this is the final phase. we know it from nazi germany when the collapse of wehrmacht was undeniable and terror became part and parcel. the only difference being they had no big bro to back em up.
Perhaps Putin’s deliberations are because once that Rubicon is crossed and the missiles start flying in earnest, war slips the leash and there is no stopping it. As we know, neocons have no reverse gear. Rational people would of course try to prevent the total annihilation of the world. Putin and Russia are sane. Neocons in the US led Western world are not. They are like a malignant tumor in the body of humanity. They live in their own fantasy world and they would rather die trying than be shown to be wrong. Unfortunately, the US and now EU neoliberal culture have a way of elevating persons of this mindset to positions of power. Of course, once that mindset truly takes control, it kills its host; Nazi Germany, Zionist Israel, Banderite Ukraine, and of course, the USA.
Putin is also, as I understand it, a 7th degree black belt in judo. If true, that is a remarkable achievement especially outside Japan. The key in judo is kazushi, that is, “off-balance.” First you lead your opponent into a position of being off-balance. Then you apply the technique with a minimal of force. It really is poetry in motion (I used to play judo). Trying to force your opponent down without leading him or her to a condition of off-balance is usually a failure.
In any case, you cannot advance to that level of judo without absorbing its philosophy of peace and respect. Putin is not weak and there is nothing weak about his response. He’s just not ready and he managing every move. I am not ready to second guess him. He may yet succeed and our species on this planet may yet survive. However, for sure, if he acts rashly or prematurely even once, there is no recovering from it and I suspect that we are all dead.
Sun Tzu states:
Interesting interview, but I tend to side more with McGovern. I think Helmer is over-stressing the nuclear doctrine point. Like all such texts, this is extremely carefully worded, and the key words in para 19(c) are “enable” and “possibility.” In other words, if Russia had responded with a devastating strike of some kind, they could have said “just look at our nuclear doctrine: you’ll see we reserve the right to do this if we want to.” It doesn’t “require” anything and there is no “nuclear deterrence regime” that I’m aware of. Freeman is of course right that for nuclear powers to assault each other this way is an order of magnitude more serious, but that’s not where we are, even if you believe the US was closely involved.
Putin’s calm reaction, and the Russian desire to downplay the incident help to explain the otherwise bizarre use of the word “terrorism.” Terrorism, in all countries, is a peacetime criminal offence, usually distinguished from ordinary violence by its political motive and its intention to strike “terror” into the population. But Russia and Ukraine are at war, and any act such as those we have seen inside Russia is, ipso facto, an act of war. There are technical arguments about whether the state of armed conflict extends to all the territory of Russia, but realistically, any military action by Ukraine in Russia is an act of war, and the laws of war apply. However, the laws of war apply to individuals, not states, and if a non-military target is attacked then theoretically individuals could be prosecuted. But a military airfield is by definition a military target, and bridges are generally so considered these days as well: the Russians have destroyed enough of them, after all. I think the real story is of trying to minimise the gravity of the attacks – “nothing but a terrorist attack!” – and to undermine and belittle the moral and military status of Ukraine – “they’re nothing but terrorists.”
I can see the argument that there’s an important Trump-Putin dynamic here, but I think it’s essentially a shared interest in getting relations back to something saner and less dangerous. Mutual self-interest in a better working relationship can quite happily coexist with mutual public condemnation. It’s happened many times. But I don’t see how Putin can expect Trump to press Zelensky to accept what is in the Russian memorandum, if only because for the US even to accept the memorandum, never mind promote it, would be a humiliation greater than Vietnam and Afghanistan combined. Certain parts of it, yes, but not recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, for example. And I can’t see Trump anyway wasting political capital on something the Ukrainians are clearly not doing to agree to. After all, what can Putin offer him, or threaten him with, that might make that worthwhile.?
For what it’s worth, at least to me it seems that when Putin talks about terrorist acts, he’s referring to the train bombings, not the air base strikes.
(Argumenti I fakti – newspaper, today)
Agreed, the statements that refer to terrorism have all referred to deliberate attacks on civilian targets.
Russia is not at war; it is conducting a Special Military Operation.
Terrorism is a criminal offence to be dealt with in a Russian court of law.
Russia may be inclined to place the current moratorium on capital punishment on hold in order to cope with the extreme gravity of these and other offenses committed by members of the Ukranian and other regimes and their agents.
There’s no such thing in international law as a Special Military Operation it’s a term used by the Russians largely for their own internal purposes. It’s like saying that Korea was not a war because it was described as a Police Action.
Aurelian, i am just not clear on how a ‘war’ and a SMO cannot be distinquished anymore.
The USA contributed to the killings of tens of thousands of Syrians, Lybians and now Gazans. No declaration of wars were stated.
IOW, the lines seems blurred. Does anyone actually provide a declaration of war? Germans are sending Tauras to Ukr to murder Russians, but the German gov’t hasn’t declared war on Russia.
I am interpreting the SMO as an intervention in the UKR civil war, by Russia, to protect Russia citizens who live in Ukr. , likewise, since the USA is committing outright aggression against the Russian nation, in this proxy war, its escaping the need for declaration of war, hiding behind some vagjue SMO, itself.
Perhaps the military liturgy, needs to be updated, to reflect, how modern conflicts are termed?
I actually wrote a whole essay on this, which I think Yves kind enough to link to a few weeks ago.
Briefly, until 1945 declarations of war were speech acts, and produced a state of “war” between nations, which was understood and governed by (limited) rules of international law. So Britain and France “declared war” on Germany on 3 September 1939, in the traditional form. The UN Charter reserves the right of making war (which it doesn’t call that) to operations ordered by the Security Council, so nobody talks about “war” any more. The approved phrase is “armed conflict” but, as I explain, these two things are not at all the same.
Nonetheless, if we define “war” not by what it’s called and how it’s described, but by what happens, “war” has been quite common since 1945, albeit often hidden behind other names. Likewise, a whole category of military operations (often “interventions”) have taken place without either side seeing itself at “war” in the traditional sense with each other. Ukraine is a war. It began as a civil war, and Russia entered on side. However, the size and scope of the Russian intervention, Russian victory conditions and the attacks on all parts of the country, mean that it’s a classic war. The SMO designation, as I recall, was for purely internal, legal reasons in Russia, to do with the governments unwillingness to have to seek approval for various emergency powers.
It’s common for nations to provide assistance to others in war. France provided military aid and support to the American colonists in the Revolutionary War, but France was not a belligerent. Germany, Italy and Russia provided support and in some cases military forces in the Spanish Civil War, but they were not at war with each other. In Angola in the 1980s, Cubans and Russians fought South Africans, without anyone suggesting that the countries as such were belligerents. Happens all the time.
One correction: Wrt France in US Revolutionary War, they did become a formal belligerent in 1778, soon after they began meaningful aid to the Americans. They didn’t really hide behind all the legal fog once they decided to intervene.
“…the Ukraine attack did not cross nuclear doctrine red lines…”
This is just pure BS and/or propaganda trying to get to the front of the story! Those bombers were in nice orderly, viewable formation to conform with a prior SALT agreement. Yes, it appears that one or both sides technically back out of that agreement some time ago, but that doesn’t mean that those bombers in that same parked formation are now fair game with NO “red line”, we don’t do these things and assume no strings are still attached!
For almost the last decade I’ve spent a week in the Adirondacks with my sons and their scout troop at camp. Every year we get the same valuable speech… 1) Nobody has ever been killed in NYS by a bear that was not been provoked. 2) If you find yourself in a situation where the bear has taken your [proverbial] candy bar, DO NOT try to tell the bear they are in the wrong and do not try and take the candy bar from the bear. Bad things happen when you forget #2.
Those bombers were sitting in viewable formation per one of the old SALT agreements even if both parties were “officially” no longer in full agreement or an outside allied party was not included on those agreements. It’s basically re-trading the original agreement and then telling the bear it’s your fault because you stole my candy bar. As I said, bad things happen when you do dumb stuff like that.
“My best guess is Russia recognizes it needs to break NATO and is not yet willing to admit to that as its real aim.”
It’s been quite clear to me of late that if Russia wants to be sure that Ukraine never joins NATO, the only way to do it is to dissolve NATO itself. That’s the only way.
Then, let Poland and rump-Ukraine (and possibly a few other fools) go back to the Intermarium megalomania, which will freak out Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, and turn them as de facto allies of Russia – which is what Germany should’ve done 20 years ago.
As for Russia deciding to extend the target list, I’m definitely of the opinion that they should flatten the Rada and the presidential palace – not to take down the leadership, because the buildings will be mostly empty, but as a matter of principle.
Last but not least, I also tend to think that something unsaid about a war with Iran is China. US involved in a shooting war with Iran is a golden opportunity to go after Taiwan. Not because China is fully prepared, it most probably isn’t yet, but because that would mean a 3-front war for US/Nato/West, and they won’t be able to sustain it for long. They’ll have to pick one front and fully commit, losing the 2 others definitively – and eventually losing the 3rd one -, or they’ll economically and militarily collapse in a matter of months. Frankly, were I Xi, I wouldn’t hesitate one minute, because it’d be a situation that might not happen again for a long time.
Of course, there’s always the risk the US go nuclear then, but that risk exists no matter what, as long as there’s competition and war with either Russia or China. I don’t mention the case Israel goes nuclear against Iran, because in such as case, any nuclear nation on Earth would be fully legitimized to dump a couple of nukes on it and be done with it, without any other nuclear power having the legitimacy to even protest.
Ah, the post-Napoleonic coalition–Prussia and Habsburg Empire under Russian protection. Rusdian intervention in 1848 saved the Habsburgs. European liberals have never forgiven Russia since then. (And the Habsburgs repaid for this with a malevolent neutrality in the run-up to the Crimean War, which broke the post Napoleonic system…)
Putin plays 3d Chess. He’s looking at the whole picture: the US Foreign Debt of 28-33 TRILLION $$; of how China is playing a good game with Trump Tariffs; along with the bought-off UN (Baerback) and Germany’s Merz; the US military complex making Big Bucks off of sending weaponry to Israel and parts of W. Europe. Along with many nations/some investors who are investing in foreign currencies rather than T-bills.
You have to look at all of that to infer what Putin may be doing. Lots on the table.
How quickly will the US Foreign Debt bring the US down? Politically and militarily, to the point where it cannot carry out a first nuclear strike on Russia?
How quickly will Russia be degraded sufficiently to allow for a first strike if things continue to escalate and it keeps taking hits without responding?
The second timeline is much quicker.
Which is why the Kremlin must wake up and prepare to physically take NATO out of Eurasia in preemptive first strike before it is too late.
It seems to have become nearly the consensus here that the Oreshnik system gives Russia the means to “go nuclear” without actually going nuclear. I don’t think this view is at all well substantiated. If people think Russia can be confident of a successful nonuclear first strike that disarms Europe of its nuclear weapons, then I would say “wildly unsubstantiated.”
We’ve been discussing this in the comments to Haig’s most recent ‘Madhouse’ post.
Russia’s going to win in Ukraine – unless maybe there’s a nuclear war. If one dials down ones enthusiasm for Russia’s nonnuclear capabilities then perhaps Putin’s behavior makes more sense?
As Yves mentioned earlier in Comments. Kiev government buildings may soon be Russian targets. I’m sure those buildings have what the occupants think are secure bunkers. Their experience with the Hazelnut may be their final one. We’ll see.
I don’t want to bore everybody by repeating myself too much, but Ted Postol’s analysis of the Oreshnik strike indicated that the weapon mostly did relatively superficial damage, due the speed of the projectile exceeding the speed of sound within the projectile. There’s more discussion in the comments to the most recent ‘Madhouse’.
Oreshnik is impressive, but not necessarily for delivering “Rods from God” or any other sort of non-nuclear payload.
And he was allowed to visit the site; assessing the damage to come to that conclusion? I doubt he even has access to the most comprehensive imagery.
Is there imagery showing impressive damage you could point me to? I’m saying claims for dramatic effects against deep targets are questionable on the basis of theory,and unsubstantiated. You’re not offering substantiation.
Search “Ted Postol Oreshnik” on YouTube and you’ll find videos where he discusses available imagery.
Imagine a can opener.
In what world world would one make an analysis of a never seen before missile based on YT/vids. He notes that nothing on the orb can intercept them, its highly advanced, and then postulates they explode via going from a solid to a gas/plasma on contact.
Here is the rub … he has no idea of what the inert warhead is in its composition or how it will react on impact – zilch. Not to mention the 4 warheads hit in procession with high accuracy. Not to mention its wrapped in a plume of super heated plasma, even before it hits anything, level of physics where very strange things can happen.
You think Russia spent all the money on this system just to send nukes or HE when they have tons of that stuff already. That was just a shot across the bow and not for the players at home. It was a “snuff movie” for the people in the West that matter, you cant shoot it down and for those that survive in some underground bunker …. how long can you last till they dig you out …. if they can … that is why so many in the West are losing their minds … only brown and yellow people go poof in a blink of any eye unaware … pink mist …
Feel free to address Postol’s analysis in a bit more detail, I’ll be happy to respond to the best of my ability.
Do you understand why Postol anticipates that the projectile will vaporize? I gather that it pisses you off, but do you understand why he would assert that?
A. “I gather that it pisses you off”
Your rhetorical response which seeks to project some emotion on me is the first clue to your agenda, mate. Its totally unnecessary when talking about science.
B. He has absolutely no data to draw on and then postulates in a authoritative manner, after noting its unstoppable, it vaporizes on contact in the same yield as a HE warhead. Regardless of his accreditation its bad science to arrive at his conclusion and make public/political charged statements without having all the facts.
C. Without knowing the composition of the warheads its a mugs game. I have personal experience from an industrial perspective in a static environment wrt to plasma over decades. The idea that happens both with its velocity of in impact w/plasma already surrounding it [electromagnetic/thermal properties] and then hits the ground in successive waves … Harmonics … displacement of gases/introduction of new gases … wow …
The best bit is … it leaves the ground level less a mess e.g. collateral damage to surroundings. Yet it does all the damage underground in a very precise manner like one does in open/closed mining use of explosives.
I’m certainly seeing what looks like an emotional response, and some projection, but no sign you understand what Postol was talking about.
You need to substantiate your claim, hence you are what you decry in its abstinence.
I understand he is way out of his depth and has no data to corroborate his views on how the warheads works or the sequence of their impacts. He keeps attempting to say mass and velocity is all that matters without any knowledge of what constitutes the mass at that velocity.
Its like how many refuse to acknowledge how much energy is transferred due to a celestial mass and how its effected the orb we live on. It screws with ideological narratives.
Your referral to authority by name is noted.
Skippy, are you honestly misconstruing being invited to critique someone’s analysis as an appeal to authority?
Just for the record, since you’re apparently taking notes, I believe Postol used iron as his reference for the properties of the projectile. The point isn’t “Iron no good means Oreshnik no good.” The point is to illustrate the challenges in making a deep penetrating projectile for Oreshnik.
Postol then turns to the photographic evidence and concludes it doesn’t appear that the Russians employed such a device. Which isn’t suprising, given the energetics (see GM above).
All you have done is point at a YT video, so yeah. I unpacked my position without any references to personal feelings, yet that was your first go too and not anything I pointed out. Just reiterated your original reference point without anything added.
I remind that MIT is full of people which serve the security state, hence one always need to hedge what they say.
The warhead is an exotic composite, nothing, especially iron would survive atmospheric friction. One needs to remember the USSR was the only nation that landed a probe on Venus, of all places, and survived for a short time. They built a chamber that could replicate the atmosphere on Venus. Hence their metallurgical knowledge was ahead of the West even then.
It as I noted, seems some in the West are in denial or worse, because the notion that an inert warhead could effect the ground level so much – with a small foot print. Then penetrate in depth and create a shock wave that would resemble how mining explosives are used to both fracture and then reduce the strata to rubble without the geo going up in the air or all over the place.
Seems some are suggesting the system would only be effective with a nuke or traditional HE warhead. Don’t know what GM is banging on about and the need to do a first strike. Russia can grind this out for years whilst the West implodes economically and politically. Just from a position of having the man power alone in Mfg or troops to engage in a conflict alone.
Good luck mate …
You see my YT video (where a guy explains his reasoning and shows his evidence) and raise me one unspecified “exotic composite” plus mysterious wonders worked beneath the surface of the earth, questioning of which is evidence of “denial”?
Thank you for this. If anyone reads this and still doubts there’s a lot of magical thinking around the subject of Oreshnik, then I reckon they’re beyond hope.
Why do you keep inferring an emotional special plea mate.
I pointed out the long known state of Russian metallurgy, its advanced missile tech, and the best you can do is insinuate magic?
You have not addressed anything I have said, resort to personal pejoratives rather than any scientific thoughts, and then endlessly refer to Postol’s analysis. By what means can you even evaluate what he says T/F or do you just believe[tm] it out of your own emotional needs.
Postol was discussed here much back then I think.
There is simply no publicly available info on the subject.
And Postol is not in the knowing on Oreshniks beyond that either.
Consider it a sit. not totally unlike the period of US nuclear monopoly.
The lid is on the sensitive info.
The company providing satellite images which have been used on Yuzhmash analyses to paying customers I am sure did not provide the declassified versions. I still believe this is of high military significance. Americans have not figured out the various elements of hypersonic missiles. This becomes evident from various news releases which all reveal how little they have progressed. And therefore they attempt to save face in various ways which all confirm the problem however of lagging behind.
Part of that tactics is to simply remain mute over Oreshnik.
The overarching worry is that all the while Russians can train their ADs on genuine hypersonics materializing a serious advantage. The eventual goal will be a Russian “Golden Dome”. Just neither will it be called that way, nor will it cost that much and we won´t hear about it.
If it does work I don´t know. I am still unclear over why Russians can build S-500s or at least S-400 but US cannot. That still is not hypersonics but it would be something.
The info on S-500/550 taking down real ICBMs is very scarce.
(What Postol did suggest in the past together with Richard Garwin – but that was a totally different topic concerning space based solutions – and was intended unlike any SDI system.)
Of course the attacks of Sunday have further destroyed any meaningful future NPTreaty. That is welcome for the US and the RUs don´t care any more. We are looking at another 100 years of rearming. Stopped only by economic downfall.
Postol was discussed, but in my recollection his analysis of the terminal ballistics was not. Based on the replies I’m getting I suspect it went over peoples’ heads.
It appears to me you’re using absence of evidence that Oreshnik did relatively superficial damage as evidence that Russia now enjoys something akin to the early US monopoly on nuclear weapons. This is the kind of misguided view I was talking about in my comment to Yves above, and is why I’m pointing at the intrinsic challenges to building a deep penetrator for Oreshnik.
None of Oreshniks fans seem to want to engage with either Postol’s theoretical discussion, or his analysis of photographic evidence as appearing to show the kind of relatively superficial damage he would predict.
I think the fans are corroborating my assertions about magical thinking pretty darned well.
Hm, I am rather trying to suggest that we might not have enough data to make any major claim on certain issues. Postol too was argueing with natural skepticism if I remember correctly. Knowing that there is a huge amount of speculation there. Preliminary assessments so to speak.
I still cannot make a judgement over the fight between Postol and Martyanov. Former I have met once and I feel much gratitude to him taking time and explaining some important things to me.
Latter I have acknowledged as an important scholar on military affairs based on his books. And in some important issues which I learned a lot about from Postol Martyanov contradicts fundamentally and I tend to follow Martyanov in those. So now there are two experts who fight, I respect both but they cannot both be right.
The fan poise might be due to the general disregard towards anything Russia does displayed by the West.
Eventually what do we witness as result of those RU missile attacks?
It appears as if bunkers so far considered impenetrable have been destroyed. And a major installation underground was destroyed too.
If that is true and the people in there were killed and the machines contained there destroyed. That´s enough, right. The lack of overkill actually makes them formidable weapons because they become a political means. Nukes you cannot use only as last resort so politically it´s a dead end. No escalation. With these new systems there is.
Whether nuke or not nuke might thus not be the question. It´s a different kind of weapon.
As GM said somewhere here I think (or was it you…) if 36 warheads spread across on the surface those can wipe out a division. And if you can kill such a size in an instant without the shattering consequences of a nuke that´s a very different chess piece. It upsets the entire set of rules.
So speed, enough destructive force, capability to strike deep underground, range and non-interceptable. What else do you need for a game changer.
The same probably true for US Navy which might be the US´s real concern.
That’s not what I meant.
If you can get 36 nukes independently targetable over a square of 500-600 km, you can wipe out all US military bases in Germany with just two missiles.
This is why I’ve got this bee in my bonnet. It’s dawned on me that many people here, maybe most, misunderstand what’s known to be true severely enough that they misconstrue even simple statements.
I was merely alluding to the number of 36 independently moveable warheads as I was unsure myself. It´s a different matter how you use those against targets. And of course another one if those are nuclear.
WOW this is just so old cold war thinking and disturbed.
Postol/Martyanov are academics that are sitting on perches without any real applied knowledge. Better yet both have exposure to concerns with the security state.
My deal is the push to diminish the effectiveness of this system, even whilst acknowledging it can’t be shot down and time to target is whoboy … how would the politicians/rusted on ideologues in the West go if the population knew they or sites could be precisely targeted and go poof. All without the collateral damage and legacy dramas with nukes, especially since the advent of nukes the West is the only ones to deploy them and cow the rest of the world.
What if that was just made moot … Russia could get results without all the nuke baggage. Totally take away decades of strategic thinking, no more excessive collateral damage to innocent populations. Just whack leaders and critical military/intel sites.
In addition why would Russia deploy this system just to make a statement that it could carry nukes and not be shot down. Everything Russia has done for yonks is to inform the rest of the world its not a loose cannon, not bent on dominion by act and not words. Especially considering its so called commie past.
It carefully choose the target to display its abilities, limit collateral damage, and put on notice the people that have been attacking it like forever for what ever reasons.
Has Martyanov directly addressed Postol’s analysis of the internal dynamics of the projectile as it enters the earth? I’d be interested to read that.
If all he does is handwave it though, then you’re just going by vibes.
I doubt what is out there will satisfy your expectations. But I didn´t have the time to fully follow what went on when it occured. Martyanov won´t have written much text. Rather given some insulting comments.
There were arguments between both I assume mostly about the RU early warning system last year. What really was said in full remained between them apparently. There appears to have been also some disagreement on Oreshnik details too. On what in particular I don´t know. That also doesn´t mean they would disagree on everything.
But I think there is something in the play that goes beyond scientific issues. Because the fight politically in part makes no sense. Both men are highly critical of the US and express great respect for Putin.
When it comes to the physics and their judgement how those details on WMDs play out strategically, there might be major rift with Postol who was assuming Russia is very defenseless.
To give a gist of the level and kind of atomsphere in general, Martyanov posted this criticism by fellow Russian scientists of the latest Bulletin assessment of RU WMD by Hans Kristensen (the usual „Kristensen thing“). I leave it to professionals to judge these things in detail:
„(…)
People known under the moniker Kazmans are actual real professionals (senior officers) with massive academic and service background including in Russian Strategic Missile Forces, and their BS meter is very sensitive to all kinds of crap produced by American “scientists”. Here is their (machine translated) retort:
`Another (https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-05/russian-nuclear-weapons-2025/) ANAlytica from BOYS from FAS – Christensen and Korda on the subject of the missile and nuclear arsenal of our G-d-saved Empire. What can be said here? Yes, in general, the analysis is extremely weak, as in previous years, and was obtained by picking one’s nose (if not worse). Everything is as usual.
15A35 these figures have not been considered on combat duty for many years, although the regiments with them are on combat duty. And in our officialdom on this topic there are enough clear instructions (https://t.me/pozivnoy_kazman/18620) . You just need to be able to read and understand, fortunately they are not banned in Google. But why? You need to give birth to your own personal theory, built on crooked assumptions, and adjust everything to the desired answer.
Further, Christensen and Korda’s Yars carry 4 warheads, although these ICBMs have 3 main modifications (“Yars”, “Yars-S” and “Yars-M”, and each has a silo and mobile version) and they carry a different number of warheads at maximum – 6, 4, and, presumably, 3/2. But, at the same time, the Bulava SLBM carries 6 warheads, although they have a unified combat equipment with the simple Yars, the same number of warheads and one complex of means for overcoming the missile defense system (KSP). And this has long been known, there were even photos of “beds” for 6 warheads. The R-29RMU-2 “Sineva” and R-29RMU-2.1 “Liner” SLBMs also carry 4 warheads, although these two modifications differ in their combat equipment. Moreover, if we are not talking about the full load, but about the number of BBs on duty, in order to fit into the still officially living limits of the dead START-3, then even then K&K (Christensen and Korda) lied – the Bulavas also carry 4 BBs in this case.
We will not comment on the number of “Yars” on duty, plus or minus a bast shoe it is correct, although it lags behind in time. But GAYS GUYS still do not know how many “White Swans” Tu-160/160M (M2) exist. They always have 15 there 😂. But the real fun begins in the section on non-strategic/tactical nuclear weapons (TNW/NSNW). There, the doctors and orderlies in the mental hospital simply went on vacation and the patients themselves 😂. Everything is simply wonderful. For example, 1 special charge per launcher of the “Iskander-M” (the number of which is incorrect and very outdated), although the norm has been 2 nuclear warheads of ALL types since time immemorial.
At the same time, for the cruise missile, these “scientists” have their own launchers, and not a unified one, although this is only true for the “long” 9M729 (but it can also launch quasi-ballistic missiles from there, and we will probably adapt the “Zircon” there).
Well, and so on in the same spirit. Apparently, we don’t have nuclear artillery, mines, and so on, they think.
Well, and the calculations of charges with an accuracy of up to units, when these figures are classified as OV in our country, and US intelligence only counted with an accuracy of up to thousands. Based on the capacity of TNW/NSW storage facilities, new and re-equipped. Estimated. And even so, 8 years ago, it came out to no less than 8,000 TNW/NSW alone. We compare them with the K&K figures and are surprised😂.
And then they will refer to this “work” as if it were not for themselves. As well as to other similar ones. Although, against the background of other such “documents” this one is still nothing. These are the “think tanks” there. What kind of brain – such are the centers. However, ours are no better. But no one is interested in ours, and the government does not order analytics from them.
I myself am getting tired from reacting to copious amounts of butthurt BS and incompetent hysteria by the so called West’s “expert community”. They are no experts.
(…)“
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/05/unlike-these-two.html
p.s. Another political absurdity is that Postol has been excommunicated by both Bulletin AND FAS for calling them similar things I guess. He said that Bulletin who for 30 years had wanted his assessment stopped asking him when he supported Hersh´s investigations into Douma I believe. And from then on, Postol who is not known to walk back, it became worse. I however am completely on his side, reading political nonsense by scientists not just in the US but Germany too. For instance all those institutions (Max Planck Institute and Leibniz Gesellschaft) which in the 1950s opposed German nukes and warmongering fiercly and in the 1970s again – have now completely gone off the rail. A person like Postol in this Western jingoist mindset has no place. And still Martyanov doesn´t even pronounce his name any more…go figure.
I don’t see how Martyanov would know anything about this–he’s not a scientist. I have a nagging suspicion that Russians may have achieved some kind of major breakthrough in material science so that the limits postulated by Postol are less consequential (and what details that are known are kept very hidden). We really have nothing other than conjecture based on how people who are presumably in the know behave…and even there, the vibes seem really mixed, at least to me, as if there is no real consensus about what happened at Yuzhmash: some people are clearly frightened; other seem dismissive. Do they know something? For now, all we can do is to spin the same wheel endlessly without going anywhere as we simply don’t have enough reliable information…
I have never heard anyone suggest that the Oreshnick would be used for preemptive strikes against nuclear targets. It gives them an unmatched escalation option below the nuclear threshold.
Note that if it’s fit for the one purpose, then it’s likely fit for the other too, and how’re the people on the receiving end going to know what they’re about to lose?
I don’t think Oreshnik as demonstrated is likely to have the capabilities it is so widely imagined to possess, but if it does it’s hardly a comforting thought. I can’t see how the Russians could use it not anticipating a nuclear response.
Putin’s behavior makes sense under only two hypotheses:
1) The West actually has a technological trump card that has not been revealed and thus Russia is stalling for time until perhaps they can counter it
2) Putin is compromised in a variety of ways.
There is plenty of evidence for #2, unfortunately.
Need 1) be something so grand as a technological trump card, rather than something more mundane, like an uncomfortably high number of bad outcomes in war games?
No doubt the risk of a full scale war with NATO is something to be stepped around with care, but the path to a catastrophe is often paved with an abundance of caution, I think…
Please tell me:
New reports say it was Lavrov and Ushakov who urged Putin to continue with the negotiations. He wanted to break them off. So you look to be wrong in your assumption that Putin is the only top Russia official arguing for moderation.
And your corruption allegations? Seriously? This is straight out of Victoria Nuland’s old playbook. You damage what credibility you have with that. Putin is fabulously cautious. People tend to become more themselves when under acute pressure.
By “Putin” I do not mean the person, but the collective Putin.
Putin the person might well be an honest patriot, but if he is surrounded by people who are not, to the point where his decision making is determined by those people, well, that is the same as him being compromised personally, and that is all that matters.
But there are certain very serious unpleasant facts about him too. John Helmer is the only one who dares bring up Putin’s tight connections with Israel. Which are public knowledge, but nobody ever mentions it in Russia, because it is just too unpleasant a topic. Look at the oligarchs around Putin — it is all dual citizens. And it is not just oligarchs of that variety that are in his close circle.
Now think about it — Israel has major influence over Putin, in the same time Israel and the US are largely one and the same at this point, and the US, being one and the same with Israel, has determined its foremost geopolitical objective is to destroy Russia. Putin will be be fighting against the US, no holds barred, in that situation? Really? Something doesn’t compute here, does it? And, indeed, he has barely fought and is still to this day looking for a way out without fighting.
As a simple relevant example, the public version of events is that Zelensky is alive because Putin promised Naftali Bennett not to take him out; but is it the case that Naftali Bennett asked Putin to spare Zelensky and Putin, out of the goodness of his heart, has kept that promise for three-plus years of outrageous daily terrorism committed by Zelensky and his goons, and now strategic attacks too, or is it that Naftali Bennett straight up ordered Putin not to touch Zelensky and Putin is obeying the orders? Zelensky is not Ukrainian, remember that.
As a more of a second-order question, the only good move Russia has left now is to physically take NATO out of Eurasia, preemptively. That means nuking all military bases and infrastructure all over the perimeter, from Iceland to Japan, and for Europe likely countervalue strikes against half of it will be needed too. Then the US will face the choice to either fire the ICBMs at Russia or take the loss. It should take the loss, because if the US fires the ICBMs at Russia, Russia will be firing the ICBMs at the US while the Minutemans are still over Canada. And the US is dead. Better alive and without an empire than dead, right? But if that happens, Israel is done for, because Israel’s rear is Europe. All the weapons come through Europe, and that route will be cut off in such a scenario. So you can easily imagine Russian generals right now pleading with Putin to make that only good move left, but certain other people ordering him to stand down.
And the worst part is that you don’t even need to evoke the Great Jewish Conspiracy, though all the evidence points to that playing a major role. A lot of the Russian oligarchs are against the war and would be perfectly happy with the country being defeated for purely selfish economic reasons. Because their position rests on being middle men between Russian resources and the West. Russia doesn’t need to exist for them to be doing that. But they won’t be able to do that if there is total war and the connection with the West is permanently severed. They will also lose status in a major way if a mobilization is carried out and the state fully takes over the economy.
So that is a major factor too. These things tend to be overdetermined.
GM and others,
a slightly different issue here if I may since there is space left in this thread:
There are these contradicting positions and facts regarding missile defense. I was wondering how you see this.
I have already pestered others here in the past with these problems since I am not a rocket scientist so sorry if this is not written in an expert manner. But with Germany throwing money out of the window I was of the view one should try an shed light on this entire area instead of spending 4Billion Euros on Arrow-3 e.g. which Germany did 2023. There is also this MDF due to be stationed in Germany 2026 which was of course not canceled by the new US administration:
1) When I talked to Postol 2 years ago he was still of the opinion missile defense is not working and most likely not to going to work for a long time due to the technical nature of the problem, e.g. he mentioned the limited range of radar.
He spoke about the Patriot issue which we all know and which as far as we can observe Ukraine hasn´t changed. He also talked about how unwilling IDF were in providing evidence to Iron Dome successes which as we also know he doubts due to how the system is supposed to take down incoming. His suggestion is that space-based idea he had together with Richard Garwin and which was disregarded. (Wonder why establishment still disregards their concept if it could work.)
2) In contrast Martyanov says already S-400 systems are capable and with hypersonics RU can train and develop genuine missile defense and eventually build a serious missile defense shield. There is this one report I saw with S-500 (or 550) shooting down an ICBM. Not computer simulation but real.
So how does that correspond with Postol?
3) Then there are those in between like Dmitry Stefanovich who says both sides are capable of smaller things. He was part of a presentation 2 years ago at Valdai I think that said US will try to do missile defense (à la Golden Dome assumingly) but it won´t work in a way that it would shoot down enough. Whatever that means.
When I however mention Stefanovich to a Martyanov he laughs those people away since they are not genuine scientists which as the record goes is correct, Stefanovich has different training and is not a “rocket scientist”. Is that an argument? I don´t know.
4) From what we do know is that even in the Western public Russian AD in general is respected (which doesn´t mean it can also shoot down ICBMs).
We also know that none of the Western AD in UKR worked. This is something Martyanov and Postol would agree on. We also probably know that very little of the missiles from UKR get through. However I don´t know how much of that is thanks to RU AD systmes and how much is RU EW.
5) There is also this oddity: When Scott Ritter and Martyanov spoke they disagreed on the threat potential of Minutmen and Trident and Tomahawk. Martyanov basically disregarded all systems except sea-borne missiles.
I don´t know if he did so only because latter could be detected much too late. Why would he tell his friend Ritter that Minuteman are not that dangerous, alluding to the assumption they could be shot down. Something Postol, I assume, would contradict.
There also was an argument between Postol and Martyanov over the efficiency of US missiles upgraded with super-fuze. Which Martyanov – of course – suggested wouldn´t change much in essence.
6) There is this thing with Martyanov: Some may say he is merely a propagandist. But that´s simply not true. He does provide very good evidence in his books. The only serious scholarship on military affairs that I have access to. And in general he works with sources more than others for his major talking points (I am speaking about military issues not his societal “analysis”).
As his personal RU sources are concerned it is possible that his colleagues back in RU do know a few pieces of info which are simply secret. And Martyanov is only alluding to matters which he too is not fully in the know as he himself points out often. (For instance the “new materials” which would change some basics in missile engineering or the way how RUs are solving the “black barrier” issue with hypersonics).
7) Eventually Martyanov in concordance to his antics disregarded the systems that are supposedly planned under the MDF plan in Germany, like mentioned Tomahawk and LRHW. And it is true that for LRHW the documentation by the US is almost zero. When articles in Germany are quoted they are 100% US sourced but when one reads those the genuine info is very little and hardly goes beyond speculations quoting Pentagon press releases.
p.s. In Germany I have the impression there is seriously almost no expertise on this matter independent from the US MIC. I talked to a few physicists and the younger ones are like mouthpieces. The older ones are more skeptical but have zero influence on the political machinery here. It´s insane frankly how little the so-called science nation German (was it ever?!) knows and how willingly it is following rumour-based national security investment all the while destroying civil society. It´s like in the Middle Ages and following the Catholic Church into your own downfall.
My stepfather worked on the computer science end of a number of projects that became parts of ‘Star Wars’ when Reagan really opened the money spigot.
So that was fifty years ago. But the problems, as I understood them, were very fundamental, being defined by the extreme destructive power of nuclear weapons and the limited information that radar beams and optical sensors can gather about hundreds or thousands of rapidly moving objects thousands of miles away.
The cost of any prospective defense appeared destined to always far outrun what it would cost an enemy to defeat it – and the existence of an effective defensive system would require solving seemingly intractable problems. In the end missile defense only appeared to be even remotely feasible in the context of limits on the number of nuclear weapons deployed.
None of us know what Lavrov said to Rubio. Or Putin told Trump.
My guess is that Russia is trying to leave an exit ramp for Trump. Private messages followed by public demonstration of retribution framed as dealing with a terrorist state. Gives Trump and the Euro leaders the option of distancing themselves from the “rogue” regime in Kiev, easier yet if the regime is buried under rubble. Then negotiation for peace on Russian terms can proceed.
Perhaps another summary says things that are different, but per Larry Johnson, Russia has designated the SMO now to be a counterterrorism operation. I don’t see this anywhere else. I see Putin making statements that grease the skids for that, which is not the same thing. I suppose that frees Russia of the obligation to negotiate, which is not where he seemed to want to go.
I see per Mercouris’s headline (I have not checked the news in the last 12 hours) that Ukraine has rejected further negotiations, so that may be what triggered the timing. Zelensky says the only way he will continue to negotiate is to meet with Putin, which Putin already nixed. He said he won’t meet with the head of a terrorist state. So it looks like Russia got what it wanted, which was for Ukraine to pull out of the Trump-insisted talks.
Johnson’s summary indicated the additional powers are domestic:
https://sonar21.com/russia-is-in-no-rush-to-retaliate/
But this would be consistent with the report above, that Ukraine’s leadership would no longer be off the menu.
1) It hasn’t.
2) Larry Johnson is one of the most poorly informed commentators of them all. And that is against very serious competition.
A lot of these people spend so much time on podcasts and giving interviews that they clearly have no time left ot actually pay attention to what is happening. And they clearly never knew the background of the conflict or the technical details of a lot of things before this all started, then never had time to learn them.
Well, Alastair Crooke must be as poorly informed as Johnson, because he said precisely the same thing about the change to a Counterterrorism operation from the SMO. As did Putin in his address about the time of Trump’s last phone call.
It’s you that’s not paying attention. And that’s not opinion.
Sorry, I have yet to see anything of the kind. Putin et al saying that Ukraine is engaging in terrorism/is a terrorist state is not tantamount to officially launching a counter-terrorist operation. Crooke is not a Russia specialist and does not speak or read Russian, and I don’t even see evidence that he follows Russian Telegram regularly. FFS, last week he was trying to depict the attack on the Russian nuclear deterrence forces as no biggie. This week, he tried to tap dance out of that rather than saying he misspoke by reacting only to the implications for Russia being able to continue prosecuting the war, and not discussing the nuclear doctrine part. I can’t take him seriously on Russia in light of that.
This is a problem generally, that hosts are too willing to ask guests to opine on matters outside their area of expertise, and the guests are not willing to demur.
The bar may not be high (I’ve been searching and from what I can tell, this would not require the approval of the Duma, for instance). But I read all of these statements to amount to telling the US et al that this is imminent, and if they don’t leash and collar Ukraine pronto, this hammer will drop very soon.
I’m going to call what I think happened. Trump and at least Hegseth were part of this attack against Russia’s nuclear triad and there is a report that Hegseth was watching the live feed. They knew that those bombers were in the open because of treaty obligations still honoured but thought to wreck that idea because of political expediency. The Ukrainians were doing it for the propaganda worth but could not do so without US intel and satellite coverage for coordination. Trump was onboard as it would deliver for him – he thought – actual leverage that he could hold over the Russians to end the war on his terms so that the West would win this war. Right after the attack, all hell broke loose. Kellogg may be all sorts of things but at heart he is a Cold War veteran and he got freaked out what happened. I saw the interview and you could see he was shaken as he knew the implications of what had happened. Trump got freaked out too what he had authorized and went into silence mode. I ask you – when has Trump shut up for two days straight? No interviews, no truth social posts, zip. Strict silence. He then gets on the honker to Putin but instead of the call that he was expecting to make to have it all over Putin, he is now on the receiving and and so in his post starts talking about Iran (Look! Squirrel!) Instead of walking away from the Ukraine, he has bolted his fate to that of that country. His ego will not accept as being labelled as ‘the President that lost the Ukraine’ but won’t think of blaming the Neocons whose project this has been all along. Will he learn anything from this? No, we are, after all, talking about Trump. If he had been smart, he should have condemned the attacks on the civilians on those trains in those sabotage attacks and offered his condolences but he could not even do that. What a mess. He should never have let this attack go forward.
That is a severe misunderstanding of the gravity of what happened.
ALL the active strategic aviation bases were attacked, plus the whole AWACS fleet. With enough drones to take out ALL planes.
So this was a full fledged conventional first strike against one of the legs of the nuclear triad.
Not a propaganda stunt. A propaganda stunt would have been to take out a couple bombers, but they went after all of them. Sheer luck plus the heroism of the Siberian bystander saved most of the fleet.
Which is why today Russia moved half the Tu-160s to Kamchatka. Which is basically an island and largely closed to outsiders, so it will be hard to smuggle drones there. Just in case…
I hadn’t heard this before…
Wow.
When I think about it, I now think that you are right and so change my opinion. Of course this makes it much worse. There would not be much benefit for the Ukraine in taking out one of the legs of Russia’s nuclear triad – but there would be very much a benefit for the US/NATO in doing this who coincidentally provided the intel and the satellite coverage for these attack to happen. And that means that this was an American attack on one of Russia’s nuclear defenses. Trump denied he knew about the attack when he talked to Putin over the phone but I am calling this an outright lie.No doubt this plan was initiated when Biden was in power but it was Trump that must have given the go ahead. Then he caught the car and realized the real world consequences of what he had done and so shut up for two days while he worked out how to get himself out of this jam.
I note too that when you said that Russia moved half the Tu-160s to Kamchatka, that Kamchatka is not that far from Alaska aka the US.
Yes, and Kamchatka is vulnerable to ship-launched drones. But I guess that is better that having them be sitting ducks for FPVs…
P.S. Prior to the attack they were concentrating strategic aviation in Belya. Furthest place from any coasts or hostile borders. But…
I assume if hypersonics are air launched from bombers taking off from Kamchatka, there’d be practically no warning time for US airbases in Alaska? Given the range and speed of the Blackjacks, how much warning time would there be for US nuclear weapons facilities (is Hanford still active?) and the big naval base(s) in Washington state?
The big ticket item was the awacs mate ..
I am well aware and commented on that under one of the previous threads
Trump is not up to the job. Maybe he’s not as debilitated as Biden, but he’s a vain old man who mainly skated through his first term on the strength of the idiocy of the impeachment-obsessed opposition party and with an international situation that was bubbling but not yet boiling over. Does he feel the walls closing in on him now? Biden left him a toxic mess that was already verging on World War III before Trump started his second term. He’s way out of his depth now. And the Russian leadership must know that, and must to some extent feel compelled to walk on eggshells around him until they see whether he can find a way out of his predicament without touching off a nuclear conflagration, and whether he is even going to last much longer before either the stress of the job or the deep state takes him out. But I’m sure Russia’s position looks “weak” to all the keyboard warriors out there who fantasize about using nukes. This is not the time for macho stunts.
Russia sees a nuclear armed country putting a series of addled and compromised men in the position of Commander and Chief – more so than a Biden or Trump.
“Commander-In-Chief”
A good point about the US choice between attacking Iran and going back into Ukraine. Of course when and if the USA does attack Iran the Euros will go into Ukraine to stop Russia supporting Iran. I think the gamble is that China will not do anything.
With this in mind you can see that Putin’s action is both right and wrong. He is right because time and materiel is on his side in Ukraine. He is wrong because the escalations encourage Europe to take the bullfighter role and time gives them a growing capability to prosecute it. The Euros do not have to win, they only have to hold Russia’s nose while the USA tries its hand in Iran.
There are big stakes here and no right policies, the USA’s global presence means it can apply pressure all over the place and once you neglect an area to fend them off in another they will capitalise on that neglect, slowly wearing you down from a thousand pinpricks.
It’s long past the time that China-Russia-Iran harden into an alliance. ‘Unite we stand, divided we . . . “
A very intriguing analysis. Thank you, Yves.
An interesting point today:
“The real giveaway, however, lies in the timing of the strikes. These weren’t blind attacks on static targets. Russia’s strategic bombers frequently rotate bases. Commercial satellite imagery – updated every few days at best – simply can’t track aircraft on the move. And yet these drones struck with exquisite timing. That points to a steady flow of real-time surveillance, likely derived from signals intelligence, radar tracking, and live satellite feeds – all tools in the Western intelligence toolbox.”
– Dmitry Kornev (RT)
Interesting but confusing: the rationale for why the bombers are kept exposed is so that they can be tracked by Western satelites–presumably, ones belonging to NATO governments. I wonder how the rotations are arranged: one would presume that the info is kept away from the riffraff, but the people in the know are given clues quietly . If so, that makes the Western credibility even weaker than the shady state it was already in as that makes it plausuble confidential information in adherence to arms limitation treaty might have been compromised…
How Corpses Became Part of Diplomacy — and Why the World Pretends Not to See
1. Timeline of Events
June 2, 2025
Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul. Both sides reached a humanitarian agreement: a prisoner exchange involving at least 1,200 individuals (including young and severely wounded soldiers), and the repatriation of fallen soldiers’ bodies — roughly 6,000 dead.
June 6, 2025
Russia announced the beginning of the operation: over 1,200 bodies had been stored in refrigerated containers and transported to the border area, waiting for Ukrainian pickup. Russia also submitted a list of 640 prisoners to be exchanged.
June 7–8, 2025
The Kremlin accused Ukraine of backing out of the exchange, failing to show up at the designated site. Russian Security Council rep Zorin confirmed that the first batch of over 1,200 bodies was delivered to the Belarus–Ukraine border region.
Kyiv pushed back, calling the accusations “dirty politics” and saying that no official dates were agreed on — and that Russia’s lists didn’t match the terms of the agreement.
AP and ABC News published photos and video footage: a convoy of refrigerated trucks loaded with bodies parked at the border, unmoving.
June 9, 2025
A partial and emotional prisoner swap occurred — mostly young and injured soldiers. Russia claimed it had already handed over 1,212 bodies, but Ukraine hadn’t confirmed receipt. Moscow again accused Kyiv of being uncooperative.
June 10, 2025 – Present
The situation remains deadlocked. Russia insists the bodies are ready for transfer. Ukraine insists the proper terms haven’t been followed and won’t act under pressure.
Meanwhile, the front lines remain active — drone strikes, artillery, and air attacks continue from both sides.
2. Silence in the West, Protests in LA
As refrigerated trucks filled with human remains idle on the border, protests begin in Los Angeles. Ukrainian diaspora members and human rights advocates are demanding transparency, dignity, and accountability for the dead.
And yet — the international press is silent.
The U.S. government says nothing.
European leaders are too busy prepping for the next summit. CNN’s running gas price charts. BBC is talking about corgis.
No emergency sessions. No statements.
Just silence — a fog of disinterest wrapped around 1,200 corpses.
3. Sleight of Hand
While the world watches the “humanitarian” pageantry of the negotiations, the actual bodies rot quietly in cold storage.
The real show isn’t about peace. It’s about optics.
The dead are being used as leverage.
The agreements are just window dressing.
And while diplomats talk and cameras roll, the actual bodies are still waiting in trucks at the border, while the world politely looks away.
Watch the hands.
Or at least don’t look away from the dead.