Monthly Archives: June 2022

Monday marks the beginning of a "truly historic week" for Ukraine, as the country awaits a decision on its future within the European Union, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his Sunday evening address.

"We will hear the answer from the European Union on the candidate status for Ukraine," Zelenskyy said. Last week, the European Commission backed Ukraine for EU candidate status. Now it is up to the European Council to confirm Ukraine's status, with a decision expected by the end of this week, the Ukrainian president said.

"I am convinced that only a positive decision meets the interests of the whole of Europe," Zelenskyy said.

He added that Ukraine -- and other European countries -- should expect increased hostility from Russia in the coming week.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Saturday, June 18, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends meeting with military officials as he visits the war-hit Mykolaiv region.

"We are preparing. We are ready. We warn partners," he said.

But as combat units from both sides of the conflict remain committed to intense combat in the Donbas, they are likely experiencing dips in morale, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense stated in a Sunday intelligence update.

"Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks, however, Russian morale highly likely remains especially troubled," the ministry said.

As cases of whole Russian units refusing to carry out orders and armed stand-offs between officers and their troops continue to occur, Russian authorities are likely struggling to put legal pressure on the dissenters due to the invasion's official status as a 'special military operation', the UK report said.

Low Russian morale is driven by "perceived poor leadership, limited opportunity for rotation of units out of combat, very heavy casualties, combat stress, continued poor logistics, and problems with pay," according to the Defense Ministry. Many Russian personnel of all ranks also likely remain confused about the war's objectives, it said.

The U.K. Defense Ministry also said Monday the struggles of Russia's air force likely contributed to the exhaustion of Russian ground troops. "In the conflict to date, Russia's air force has underperformed," another intelligence update said on Monday.

A woman takes a Sunday walk past a home that was recently damaged by a Russian missile strike on June 19, 2022, in Druzhkivka, Ukraine.

"Its failure to consistently deliver air power is likely one of the most important factors behind Russia's very limited campaign success," the report stated. Despite boasting relatively modern and capable combat jets, Russia's air combat training has for years highly likely been heavily scripted and designed to impress senior officials, as opposed to fostering modern skill-sets, the Defense Ministry said.

As a result, Russian ground troops in Ukraine are becoming worn out while a heavy reliance on advanced cruise missiles has likely led to their stocks running low, the report concluded.

More shelters, less music

The Ukrainian Parliament on Sunday supported a bill on the construction of a network of bomb shelters across Ukraine, including in new buildings.

"The war has shown that there were few reliable shelters in Ukraine," said Olena Shulyak, a member of parliament.

Many of the existing shelters are not equipped with evacuation exits, lack access to water supply and sewerage systems, and are not adapted for food storage, Shulyak said on Telegram, adding, "Not to mention their ability to protect the population in the event of weapons of mass destruction."

The parliament topped off a busy weekend when it banned music by artists with Russian citizenship from being aired in public and in Ukrainian media to prevent the influence of "separatist sentiment in the population," according to the new bill.

A two-thirds majority of lawmakers agreed that Russian music would make the adoption of a Russian identity more attractive while weakening the Ukrainian state.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Yulia Drozd

Read more here:

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russians launching large-scale offensive in Luhansk region - ABC News

The 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense operates a dozen central storage facilities for nuclear weapons. Known as Object S sites and scattered across the Russian Federation, they contain thousands of nuclear warheads and hydrogen bombs with a wide variety of explosive yields. For the past three months, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have been ominously threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine. According to Pavel Podvig, the director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project and a former research fellow at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, now based in Geneva, the long-range ballistic missiles deployed on land and on submarines are Russias only nuclear weapons available for immediate use. If Putin decides to attack Ukraine with shorter-range, tactical nuclear weapons, they will have to be removed from an Object S sitesuch as Belgorod-22, just 25 miles from the Ukrainian borderand transported to military bases. It will take hours for the weapons to be made combat-ready, for warheads to be mated with cruise missiles or ballistic missiles, for hydrogen bombs to be loaded on planes. The United States will most likely observe the movement of these weapons in real time: by means of satellite surveillance, cameras hidden beside the road, local agents with binoculars. And that will raise a question of existential importance: What should the United States do?

President Joe Biden has made clear that any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be completely unacceptable and entail severe consequences. But his administration has remained publicly ambiguous about what those consequences would be. That ambiguity is the correct policy. Nevertheless, there must also be open discussion and debate outside the administration about what is really at stake. During the past month, Ive spoken with many national-security experts and former government officials about the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the probable targets, and the proper American response. Although they disagreed on some issues, I heard the same point again and again: The risk of nuclear war is greater today than at any other time since the Cuban missile crisis. And the decisions that would have to be made after a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine are unprecedented. In 1945, when the United States destroyed two Japanese cities with atomic bombs, it was the worlds sole nuclear power. Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons, others may soon obtain them, and the potential for things going terribly wrong has vastly increased.

Several scenarios for how Russia might soon use a nuclear weapon seem possible: (1) a detonation over the Black Sea, causing no casualties but demonstrating a resolve to cross the nuclear threshold and signaling that worse may come, (2) a decapitation strike against the Ukrainian leadership, attempting to kill President Volodymyr Zelensky and his advisers in their underground bunkers, (3) a nuclear assault on a Ukrainian military target, perhaps an air base or a supply depot, that is not intended to harm civilians, and (4) the destruction of a Ukrainian city, causing mass civilian casualties and creating terror to precipitate a swift surrenderthe same aims that motivated the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

From the July/August 2022 issue: We have no nuclear strategy

Any response by the Biden administration would be based not only on how Russia uses a nuclear weapon against Ukraine but also, more important, on how Russias future behavior might be affected by the American response. Would it encourage Putin to back downor to double down? Cold War debates about nuclear strategy focused on ways to anticipate and manage the escalation of a conflict. During the early 1960s, Herman Kahn, a prominent strategist at the Rand Corporation and the Hudson Institute, came up with a visual metaphor for the problem: the escalation ladder. Kahn was one of the primary inspirations for the character Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubricks classic 1964 film, and yet the escalation ladder remains a central concept in thinking about how to fight a nuclear war. Kahns version of the ladder had 44 steps. At the bottom was an absence of hostilities; at the top was nuclear annihilation. A president might choose to escalate from step No. 26, Demonstration Attack on Zone of Interior, to step No. 39, Slow-Motion Countercity War. The goal of each new step upward might vary. It might simply be to send a message. Or it could be to coerce, control, or devastate an adversary. You climbed the ladder to reach the bottom again someday.

The escalation vortex is a more recent and more complex visualization of a potential conflict between nuclear states. It was developed by Christopher Yeaw, who served as chief scientist at the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command from 2010 to 2015. In addition to the vertical aspects of the escalation ladder, the vortex incorporates horizontal movement among various domains of modern warfarespace, cyber, conventional, nuclear. An escalation vortex looks like a tornado. An illustration of one, featured in a Global Strike Command slideshow, places the worst outcome at the widest part of the funnel: the absolute highest levels of permanent societal destruction.

In October 1962, Sam Nunn was a 24-year-old recent graduate from Emory University School of Law whod just gotten a security clearance and a job as a staff member for the House Armed Services Committee. When a colleague backed out of an overseas tour of NATO bases, Nunn took his place, left the United States for the first timeand wound up at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Nunn remembers seeing NATO fighters parked near runways, each loaded with a single hydrogen bomb, ready to fly toward the Soviet Union. Pilots sat in chairs beside their planes, day and night, trying to get some sleep while awaiting the order to take off. They had only enough fuel for a one-way mission and planned to bail out somewhere, somehow, after dropping their bombs. The commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe told Nunn that if a war began, his pilots would have to get their planes off the ground within a few minutes; Ramstein Air Base would be one of the first NATO targets destroyed by a Soviet nuclear attack. The commander kept a walkie-talkie with him at all times to give the takeoff order.

The Cuban missile crisis left a strong impression on Nunn. During his 24 years as a United States senator, he worked tirelessly to reduce the risk of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. As the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he championed close cooperation with Moscow on nuclear matters. To continue those efforts, he later co-founded a nonprofit, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, with which I have collaborated on a number of projects. All of that work is now at risk of being undone by Russias invasion of Ukraine and the strident nuclear rhetoric accompanying it.

Before the attack on Ukraine, the five nations allowed to have nuclear weapons by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and Francehad reached agreement that the use of such weapons could be justified only as a purely defensive measure in response to a nuclear or large-scale conventional attack. In January 2022, those five countries issued a joint statement affirming Ronald Reagans dictum that a nuclear war must never be fought and can never be won. A month later, Russia violated norms that had prevailed under the NPT for more than half a century. It invaded a country that had given up nuclear weapons; threatened nuclear attacks against anyone who tried to help that country; and committed acts of nuclear terrorism by shelling the reactor complexes at Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhya.

Nunn supports the Biden administrations strategy of deliberate ambiguity about how it would respond to Russias use of a nuclear weapon. But he hopes that some form of back-channel diplomacy is secretly being conducted, with a widely respected figure like former CIA Director Robert Gates telling the Russians, bluntly, how harshly the United States might retaliate if they cross the nuclear threshold. During the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy and First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev both wanted to avoid an all-out nuclear warand still almost got one, because of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mistakes. Back-channel diplomacy played a crucial role in ending that crisis safely.

From the October 2007 issue: A near miss

Nunn describes Russias violations of long-standing norms as Putins nuclear folly and stresses that three fundamental things are essential for avoiding a nuclear catastrophe: rational leaders, accurate information, and no major blunders. And all three are now in some degree of doubt, he says.

Nunn argues that if Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, the United States should not respond with a nuclear attack. He favors some sort of horizontal escalation instead, doing everything possible to avoid a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. For example, if Russia hits Ukraine with a nuclear cruise missile launched from a ship, Nunn would advocate immediately sinking that ship. The number of Ukrainian casualties should determine the severity of the American responseand any escalation should be conducted solely with conventional weapons. Russias Black Sea fleet might be sunk in retaliation, and a no-fly zone could be imposed over Ukraine, even if it meant destroying anti-aircraft units on Russian soil.

Since the beginning of the invasion, Russias nuclear threats have been aimed at discouraging the United States and its NATO allies from providing military supplies to Ukraine. And the threats are backed by Russias capabilities. Last year, during a training exercise involving about 200,000 troops, the Russian army practiced launching a nuclear assault on NATO forces in Poland. The pressure on Russia to attack the supply lines from NATO countries to Ukraine will increase, the longer this war continues, Nunn says. It will also increase the risk of serious blunders and mistakes. An intentional or inadvertent Russian attack on a NATO country could be the beginning of World War III.

During the summer of 2016, members of President Barack Obamas national-security team secretly staged a war game in which Russia invades a NATO country in the Baltics and then uses a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon against NATO forces to end the conflict on favorable terms. As described by Fred Kaplan in The Bomb (2020), two groups of Obama officials reached widely divergent conclusions about what the United States should do. The National Security Councils so-called Principals Committeeincluding Cabinet officers and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staffdecided that the United States had no choice but to retaliate with nuclear weapons. Any other type of response, the committee argued, would show a lack of resolve, damage American credibility, and weaken the NATO alliance. Choosing a suitable nuclear target proved difficult, however. Hitting Russias invading force would kill innocent civilians in a NATO country. Striking targets inside Russia might escalate the conflict to an all-out nuclear war. In the end, the NSC Principals Committee recommended a nuclear attack on Belarusa nation that had played no role whatsoever in the invasion of the NATO ally but had the misfortune of being a Russian ally.

Deputy staff members at the NSC played the same war game and came up with a different response. Colin Kahl, who at the time was an adviser to Vice President Biden, argued that retaliating with a nuclear weapon would be a huge mistake, sacrificing the moral high ground. Kahl thought it would be far more effective to respond with a conventional attack and turn world opinion against Russia for violating the nuclear taboo. The others agreed, and Avril Haines, a deputy national security adviser, suggested making T-shirts with the slogan Deputies should run the world. Haines is now President Bidens Director of National Intelligence, and Kohl is the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

In 2019, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) ran extensive war games on how the United States should respond if Russia invades Ukraine and then uses a nuclear weapon there. DTRA is the only Pentagon agency tasked exclusively with countering and deterring weapons of mass destruction. Although the results of those DTRA war games are classified, one of the participants told me, There were no happy outcomes. The scenarios for nuclear use were uncannily similar to the ones being considered today. When it comes to nuclear warfare, the participant said, the central message of the 1983 film WarGames still applies: The only winning move is not to play.

None of the national-security experts I interviewed thought the United States should use a nuclear weapon in response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Rose Gottemoellerwho served as the chief American negotiator of the New START arms-control treaty with Russia and later as the deputy secretary general of NATObelieves that any nuclear attack on Ukraine would inspire global condemnation, especially from countries in Africa and South America, continents that are nuclear-weapon-free zones. She thinks that China, despite its tacit support for the invasion of Ukraine, would strongly oppose Putins use of a nuclear weapon and would back sanctions against Russia at the United Nations Security Council. China has long supported negative nuclear assurances and promised in 2016 unconditionally not [to] use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or in nuclear-weapon-free zones.

If the United States detects tactical weapons being removed from Russian storage sites, Gottemoeller thinks the Biden administration should send a tough warning to Moscow through back channelsand then publicize the movement of those weapons, using the same tactic of openly sharing intelligence that seemed to thwart Russian false-flag operations involving chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine. Over the years, shes gotten to know many of the top commanders who oversee Russias nuclear arsenal and developed great respect for their professionalism. Gottemoeller says they might resist an order to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. And if they obey that order, her preferred option would be a muscular diplomatic response to the nuclear strike, not a nuclear or conventional military response, combined with some form of hybrid warfare. The United States could launch a crippling cyberattack on the Russian command-and-control systems tied to the nuclear assault and leave open the possibility of subsequent military attacks.

Uri Friedman: Putins nuclear threats are a wake-up call for the world

Scott Sagan, a co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, at Stanford University, believes that the risk of Russia using a nuclear weapon has declined in the past month, as the fighting has shifted to southern Ukraine. Putin is unlikely to contaminate territory hes hoping to seize with radioactive fallout. And a warning shot, such as the detonation of a nuclear weapon harmlessly over the Black Sea, would serve little purpose, Sagan says. It would signal irresolution, not resolvea conclusion that the United States reached half a century ago about the potential utility of a NATO demonstration strike to deter the Red Army. Sagan concedes that if Russia were to lose major battles in the Donbas, or if a Ukrainian counteroffensive seemed on the verge of a great victory, Putin might well order the use of a nuclear weapon to obtain a surrender or a cease-fire. In response, depending on the amount of damage caused by the nuclear explosion, Sagan would advocate American conventional attacks on Russian forces in Ukraine, Russian ships in the Black Sea, or even military targets inside Russia, such as the base from which the nuclear strike was launched.

Sagan takes issue with how the back-and-forth of military conflict is commonly depicted. As an image, an escalation ladder seems too static. It suggests the freedom to decide whether you should go up or down. Sagan thinks nuclear escalation would be more like an escalator: Once it starts moving, it has a momentum of its own, and its really hard to get off. He would be deeply concerned by any sign that Putin is taking even the initial steps toward nuclear use. We should not underestimate the risk of an accidental nuclear detonation if tactical weapons are removed from their storage igloos and dispersed widely among Russian military forces, Sagan warns.

I recently had lunch with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry at his home in Palo Alto, California. Perry is 94 years old, one of the last prominent military strategists active today who witnessed firsthand the devastation of the Second World War. He served in the U.S. Army of Occupation of Japan, and nothing that he had read about the firebombing of Tokyo prepared him for what he saw therea great city burned to the ground, the survivors living amid fused rubble, dependent on military rations. In Naha, the capital of Okinawa, the destruction seemed even worse. In his memoir, Perry writes that not a building was left standing, and includes a famous description: The lush tropical landscape was turned into a vast field of mud, lead, decay, and maggots. What Perry saw in Japan left him profoundly unsettled by the nuclear threat. Naha and Tokyo had been devastated by tens of thousands of bombs dropped in hundreds of air raids; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by a single atomic bomb each.

Perry later earned advanced degrees in mathematics and became an early Silicon Valley pioneer, specializing in satellite surveillance and the use of digital technology for electronic warfare. During the Cuban missile crisis, he traveled to Washington, D.C., at the request of the CIA, and scrutinized satellite photographs of Cuba for evidence of Soviet nuclear weapons. He helped prepare the morning intelligence reports for President Kennedy and wondered every night whether the next day would be his last. As an undersecretary of defense during the Carter administration, Perry played a crucial role in developing stealth technology, and as secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, he led the effort to lock up nuclear weapons and fissile material at locations throughout the former Soviet Union. After leaving the Pentagon, he earned a dovish reputation, joining Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz in 2008 in a plea for the abolition of nuclear weapons; opposing American plans for new ground-based, long-range ballistic missiles; and calling upon the United States to make a formal declaration that it would never be the first to launch a nuclear attack. But Perrys views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine are anything but warm and fuzzy.

We ate sandwiches that Perry had prepared, with bread hed baked, sitting on a large terrace where the planters overflowed with flowers and hummingbirds hovered at feeders, beneath a brilliant blue sky. The setting could not have been more bucolic, the idea of nuclear war more remote. A few days earlier, Perry had given a speech at Stanford, outlining what was at stake in Ukraine. The peace that had reigned in Europe for almost eight decades had been shattered on February 24, he said, and if Russias invasion is successful, we should expect to see other invasions. Putin was now engaging in blackmail, threatening to use nuclear weapons for offensive, not defensive, purposes, trying to deter the United States from providing the conventional weapons that Ukraine badly needs. I fear that if we give in to this outrageous threat, Perry said, we will face it again.

Perrys manner is thoughtful, calm, and gentle, not the least bit alarmist or overemotional. Ive known him for more than a decade, and though his voice has grown softer, his mind is remarkably undimmed, and beneath his warmth and kindness lies steel. Perry has met Putin on a number of occasions, dating back to when he was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburgand thinks Putin will use tactical weapons in Ukraine if it seems advantageous to do so. Although the Russian Federations declared policy is to use nuclear weapons only when confronted with an existential threat to the state, public declarations from Moscow should always be taken with a grain of salt. The Soviet Union adamantly denied having any missile bases in Cuba as it was building them. It publicly vowed for years never to be the first to use a nuclear weapon, while secretly adopting war plans that began with large-scale nuclear attacks on NATO bases and European cities. The Kremlin denied having any intention to invade Ukraine, right up until it invaded Ukraine. Perry always found Putin to be competent and disciplined, but cold. He believes that Putin is rational at the moment, not deranged, and would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve victory and thereby ensure the survival of his regime.

During the Cold War, the United States based thousands of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons in NATO countries and planned to use them on the battlefield in the event of a Soviet invasion. In September 1991, President George H. W. Bush unilaterally ordered all of Americas ground-based tactical weapons to be removed from service and destroyed. Bushs order sent a message that the Cold War was overand that the United States no longer considered tactical weapons to be useful on the battlefield. The collateral damage they would cause, the unpredictable patterns of lethal radioactive fallout, seemed counterproductive and unnecessary. The United States was developing precision conventional weapons that could destroy any important target without breaking the nuclear taboo. But Russia never got rid of its tactical nuclear weapons. And as the strength of its conventional military forces waned, it developed very low-yield and ultra low-yield nuclear weapons that produce relatively little fallout. In the words of a leading Russian nuclear-weapons designer, they are environmentally conscious. The more than 100 peaceful nuclear explosions conducted by the Soviet Unionostensibly to obtain knowledge about using nuclear devices for mundane tasks, like the excavation of reservoirsfacilitated the design of very low-yield tactical weapons.

Two nuclear detonations have already occurred in Ukraine, as part of the Soviet Unions Program No. 7Peaceful Explosions for the National Economy. In 1972, a nuclear device was detonated supposedly to seal a runaway gas well at a mine in Krasnograd, about 60 miles southwest of Kharkiv. The device had an explosive force about one-quarter as large as that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. In 1979, a nuclear device was detonated for the alleged purpose of eliminating methane gas at a coal mine near the town of Yunokommunarsk, in the Donbas. It had an explosive force about one-45th as large as that of the Hiroshima bomb. Neither the workers at the mine nor the 8,000 residents of Yunokommunarsk were informed about the nuclear blast. The coal miners were given the day off for a civil-defense drill, then sent back to work in the mine.

Tom Nichols: We need to relearn what wed hoped to forget

The weakness of Russias conventional forces compared with those of the United States, Perry suggests, and Russias relative advantage in tactical weapons are factors that might lead Putin to launch a nuclear attack in Ukraine. It would greatly benefit Russia to establish the legitimacy of using tactical nuclear weapons. To do so, Putin must choose the right target. Perry believes that a demonstration strike above the Black Sea would gain Putin little; the destruction of a Ukrainian city, with large civilian casualties, would be a tremendous mistake. But if Russia can destroy a military target without much radioactive fallout, without civilian casualties, and without prompting a strong response from the United States, Perry says, I dont think theres a big downside. Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other nation in the world. Its national pride is strongly linked to its nuclear weapons. Its propagandists celebrate the possible use of nuclear weaponsagainst Ukraine, as well as against the United States and its NATO allieson an almost daily basis, in an attempt to normalize their use. Its military has already destroyed Ukrainian cities, deliberately targeted hospitals, killed thousands of civilians, countenanced looting and rape. The use of an ultra low-yield nuclear weapon against a purely military target might not seem too controversial. I think there would be an international uproar, but I dont think it would last long, Perry says. It might blow over in a week or two.

If the United States gets intelligence that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon, Perry believes that the information should be publicized immediately. And if Russia uses one, the United States should call for international condemnation, create as big a ruckus as possiblestressing the word nuclearand take military action, with or without NATO allies. The reprisal should be strong and focused and conventional, not nuclear. It should be confined to Ukraine, ideally with targets linked to the nuclear attack. You want to go as little up the escalation ladder as you can get away with doing and still have a profound and relevant effect, Perry says. But if Putin responds by using another nuclear weapon, you take off the gloves the second time around and perhaps destroy Russias military forces in Ukraine, which the United States could readily do with conventional weapons. Perry realizes that these escalations would be approaching the kind of Dr. Strangelove scenarios that Herman Kahn wrote about. But if we end up fighting a war with Russia, that would be Putins choice, not ours.

Perry has been warning for many years that the nuclear danger is growing. The invasion of Ukraine has unfortunately confirmed his prediction. He believes that the odds of a full-scale nuclear war were much higher during the Cuban missile crisis, but that the odds of a nuclear weapon being used are higher now. Perry doesnt expect that Russia will destroy a Ukrainian air base with a tactical weapon. But he wouldnt be surprised. And he hopes the United States will not be self-deterred by nuclear blackmail. That would encourage other countries to get nuclear weapons and threaten their neighbors.

As I listened to the recording of my conversation with Bill Perry, it was filled with the incongruous sounds of wind chimes and birds singing. Vladimir Putin can determine if, when, and where a nuclear attack occurs in Ukraine. But he cannot control what happens after that. The consequences of that choice, the series of events that would soon unfold, are unknowable. According to The New York Times, the Biden administration has formed a Tiger Team of national-security officials to run war games on what to do if Russia uses a nuclear weapon. One thing is clear, after all my discussions with experts in the field: We must be ready for hard decisions, with uncertain outcomes, that nobody should ever have to make.

Link:

What If Russia Uses Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine? - The Atlantic

Vladimir Putins appearanceon the third day of the St Petersburg economic forum, the Kremlin promised, would be an extremely important intervention. And it was. The Russian leaders lengthy address, a rarity since the invasion of Ukraine, was a flame-throwing show of defiance and blame-shifting, a remarkable snapshot of a state of mind that leaves little hope for compromise. It was also a staggering display of weakness that even presidential bluster could not mask.

First, the context. Putin has avoided high-profile public speechesover the past four months, keeping his Victory Day speech brief and pushing back other mainstays of his calendar, like his televised direct linequestion and answer session,a multi-hour marathon that is a crucial part of Kremlin political theater and efforts to burnish the presidents image as benevolent patriarch. So itmattersthat he went ahead with the flagship addressat an investment gathering Russia has long toutedas its answer to Davos, the elite Alpine get-together, thumbing his nose at the West.

See the original post here:

The Weakness of Putin's Economic Show of Force Is Russia's Reality - Bloomberg

Islam is not just another soldier.

"If the Russians take me, I won't be exchanged", said the Chechen fighting with the Ukrainian army near the front line.

"They'll torture me then show me on television."

The 33-year-old dissident, a refugee who has been in Poland for nearly two decades, joined the Sheikh Mansur battalion in April. Founded in 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea, the unit is mostly made up of veterans of the Chechen wars.

It takes its name from the 18th-century Chechen military commander who fought against Russian expansion in the Caucasus a reminder that the Chechen campaign for independence is not new.

"Several hundred" men with shaven heads and long beards like Islam have volunteered to help Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion.

Islam did not reveal exactly how many troops there are in the battalion, or where they are stationed.

He wants to keep their identities secret for fear of reprisals against relatives in Chechnya.

Because just across the front line, there are Chechens loyal to the Kremlin serving with the "Kadyrovites" Chechen militias with a sinister reputation, deployed alongside Russian troops.

They are said to be 8,000 fighters a figure that has not been verified.

"We want to show that not all Chechens are like them many of us see the Russians as aggressors and occupiers," said Islam as bomb sirens blared.

For him, the war here has an air of deja vu.

"It's like a journey into the past, a continuation of what started in the Caucasus," he said calmly, getting out of a van with a broken windscreen and a hurried spray paint job.

Echoes of war

Chechnya's capital, Grozny, destroyed by Russian bombs more than two decades ago, suffered a fate similar to that of Mariupol.

The small Muslim-majority republic was ravaged by two brutal wars. The last, begun by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 1999, led to the installation of Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been accused of ruthlessly suppressing opposition.

As a result, a Chechen diaspora of an estimated 250,000 people has formed in Europe, Turkey, and the UAE.

"I decided to join the battalion (for) the honor of the Chechens Moscow is trying to pass off as terrorists," said Islam, who has received threats for documenting alleged Russian war crimes online.

He takes orders from Deputy Commander Mansour, a battle-scarred 40-year-old soldier.

"Two of us have been killed and others injured. But it's important we're here," Mansur said. "We have things to teach the local soldiers about war."

The Chechen fighters are not officially part of the Ukrainian army. The equipment they use has been recovered from the Russians, and they are fed by locals, mostly Orthodox Christians, who seem to have taken kindly to them.

"We're not here to impose Islamic beliefs we're here to fight a common enemy and defend freedom," said Mansour.

Read the original:

The Chechens Fighting Russia on the Front Line - The Moscow Times

Reflecting a shockingly barbaric and old-fashioned wartime strategy, Russian forces have pummeled Ukrainian cities and towns with a barrage of rockets and other munitions, most of which can be considered relatively crude relics of the Cold War, and many of which have been banned widely under international treaties, according to a New York Times analysis.

The attacks have made repeated and widespread use of weapons that kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately a potential violation of international humanitarian law. These strikes have left civilians including children dead and injured, and they have left critical infrastructure, like schools and homes, a shambles.

The Times examined more than 1,000 pictures taken by its own photojournalists and wire-service photographers working on the ground in Ukraine, as well as visual evidence presented by Ukrainian government and military agencies. Times journalists identified and categorized more than 450 instances in which weapons or groups of weapons were found in Ukraine. All told, there were more than 2,000 identifiable munitions, a vast majority of which were unguided.

The magnitude of the evidence collected and cataloged by The Times shows that the use of these kinds of weapons by Russia has not been limited or anomalous. In fact, it has formed the backbone of the countrys strategy for war since the beginning of the invasion.

Of the weapons identified by The Times, more than 210 were types that have been widely banned under international treaties. All but a handful were cluster munitions, including their submunitions, which can pose a grave risk to civilians for decades after war has ended. More than 330 other weapons appeared to have been used on or near civilian structures.

Because of the difficulties in getting comprehensive information in wartime, these tallies are undercounts. Some of the weapons identified may have been fired by Ukrainian forces in an effort to defend themselves against the invasion, but evidence points to far greater use by Russian forces.

Customary international humanitarian laws and treaties including the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their protocols demand that the driving principle in war be military necessity, which mandates all combatants direct their actions toward legitimate military targets. The law requires a balance between a military mission and humanity. Combatants must not carry out attacks that are disproportionate, where the expected civilian harm is clearly excessive, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to the direct and concrete military advantage that would be anticipated. Combatants must consider distinction, that attacks are directed only toward lawful targets and people and are not applied indiscriminately. And they must not use weapons calculated to inflict unnecessary suffering.

The Russians have violated every single one of those principles almost daily, said Mike Newton, a Vanderbilt University law professor who frequently supports efforts to prosecute war crimes all over the world.

The law of war is far more demanding than the rule of simple expediency and convenience, Professor Newton said. Just because I have a weapon doesnt mean I can use it.

What follows is an analysis of the visual evidence The Times examined in its investigation.

A vast majority of the weapons identified by The Times were unguided munitions, which lack accuracy and, as a result, may be used in greater numbers to destroy a single target. Both of these factors increase the likelihood of shells and rockets falling in areas populated by civilians.

Russia has relied heavily in Ukraine on long-range attacks with unguided weapons, like howitzers and artillery rockets. By comparison, Western military forces have almost entirely converted their arsenals to use guided rockets, missiles and bombs, and they have even developed kits that can turn regular artillery shells into precision weapons. Russia may be limited by sanctions and export controls affecting its ability to restock modern weapons, and much of its precision-guided arsenal may now have been exhausted.

Illustration of a D-30 Howitzer

Illustration of a multibarrel rocket system

Source: U.S. Department of Defense

These Cold War-era, unguided Russian weapons have the capacity to shoot well beyond the range of the human eye many miles past the point where a soldier could see the eventual target. To use these weapons lawfully at long range, Russia would have to use drones or soldiers known as forward observers to watch where the weapons hit, and then radio back corrections. There was little evidence that they were doing so until recently.

I think what were seeing here with the Russians is kind of like what youd see back in World War II, where they just bomb the hell out of people, a senior American defense official said in an interview.

The most surprising thing is, I guess, their philosophy on trying to break the will or the spirit of the Ukrainian people by just leveling large sections or entire towns, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about assessments of Russian behavior in Ukraine. He added: This is what war used to look like, and they just brought it back center stage. And people, I think, are horrified.

Artillery rockets like the 122-millimeter Grad were fielded long before precision-guided weapons were invented. They were designed for something called saturation fire in which a handful of mobile rocket launchers, each of which can fire as many as 40 rockets in about 20 seconds, can offer the same firepower as many dozens of larger towed howitzers. They can essentially flood an area with warheads exploding in rapid succession.

When fired in a barrage, the rockets make up for their comparative inaccuracy with sheer volume blanketing their targets with explosions.

The warheads on these weapons can be devastating. When they explode, they produce a blast wave that can grow in intensity as it bounces off buildings, shattering concrete on neighboring structures and damaging internal organs of anyone nearby. The munitions casing breaks into razor-sharp fragments that can penetrate bodies. Both the blast wave and the fragments can be lethal at various ranges. Here are three common types of weapons Russia has been using in Ukraine whose fragments can be dangerous to unprotected people at great distances.

9N210 submunitions

316 ft

9N210 submunitions

316 ft

Sources: Collective Awareness to Unexploded Ordnance (munitions explosive quantities); U.S. military publications (hazard ranges)

Munitions and remnants of weapons have been found throughout Ukraine, and about one-fifth of those identified were located outside of the areas of Russian troop presence, according to a Times analysis. Though some of the munitions were almost certainly used in airstrikes, many were most likely launched at maximum range, meaning that estimates of troop presence during the span of the war may have underrepresented the extent of the threat to civilians and civilian structures.

Rockets, missiles and other weapons identified in photos

Approximate extent of Russian troop presence

Sources: Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institutes Critical Threats Project (Russian troop presence) | Notes: Only munitions with known city or town locations are included. Extent of Russian troop presence shows combined assessments from March to June.

In the early weeks of the invasion, Russia shifted many of its attacks to highly populated areas with civilian infrastructure, hitting churches, kindergartens, hospitals and sports facilities, often with imprecise long-range unguided munitions that could be heaved blindly from afar, causing wreckage well beyond the boundaries of occupied territory.

The top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague has opened a formal inquiry into accusations of atrocities in Ukraine. Under international humanitarian law, combatants and commanders are supposed to take all feasible precautionary measures to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects, like apartments, houses and other buildings and structures that are not being used for military purposes.

Targeting civilian structures or indiscriminately bombing densely populated areas, depending on the circumstances of an attack, could violate the laws of war, or even possibly be a war crime. And the burden of proof to show that an area was a justified military target and that the attack was proportionate, experts have said, generally falls on the aggressor.

A photo of a warhead spiking the center of a playground, though it may be upsetting, does not necessarily prove that a war crime has been committed. Details of each instance, including the intent behind an attack and the surrounding circumstances, must be thoroughly investigated. (For example, if a school was being used as a military command center, it could potentially be considered a justified target under international law, though that would need to be weighed against other factors, like determining whether an attack would be proportionate.)

Still, experts said documenting evidence of potential violations could be an important first step in that investigative process and could help tell the story of civilians struggling on the ground. And a pattern of widespread attacks involving civilians and protected structures, they said, particularly with imprecise weapons, should not be ignored.

This is a window into the mindset of how Russia views Ukraine, said Pierre-Richard Prosper, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues under President George W. Bush and who has also been a war crimes prosecutor. And its a window into how Russia views the likelihood that it will be held accountable for its actions.

Its emblematic, he said, of how the Russian government has been operating with impunity on so many fronts.

Over and over, The Times found visual evidence that Russian forces fired on areas that were near easily recognizable civilian buildings. Hundreds of munitions were identified in or near houses and apartment buildings, and dozens were identified in or near schools. Weapons were also identified close to churches, cemeteries, farms, medical facilities and several playgrounds.

The Times found the distinctive remains of cluster munition warheads scattered across Ukraine they were photographed sometimes where they landed, and sometimes where they were gathered in piles. The munitions are a class of weapon comprising rockets, bombs, missiles, mortar and artillery shells that split open midair and dispense smaller submunitions over a wide area.

Although some of the Russian submunitions used in Ukraine have been mines designed to kill people or destroy tanks, they usually take the form of small anti-personnel weapons called bomblets that are cheaply made, mass-produced and contain less than a pound of high explosives each.

About 20 percent of these submunitions fail to detonate on impact and can explode if later handled. Many of the solid-fuel motors tallied by The Times that were left over from rocket attacks might have carried cluster munition warheads, but it was unclear meaning that the cluster weapon tally is likely an undercount.

A number of nongovernmental organizations have reported injuries and deaths in Ukraine resulting from cluster munitions. In February, Human Rights Watch said a Russian ballistic missile carrying submunitions struck near a hospital in Vuhledar, killing four civilians and injuring 10, including health care workers, as well as damaging the hospital, an ambulance and other vehicles.

The same month, according to the human rights organization, Russian forces fired cluster munitions into residential areas in Kharkiv, killing at least three civilians. Amnesty International reported that a cargo rocket dropped bomblets on a nursery and kindergarten in Okhtyrka, in an attack that was said to have killed three people, including a child, and to have wounded another child.

In April, Ukraines Office of the Prosecutor General, which has been investigating potential war crimes, said a man in the village of Mala Kostromka picked up an unexploded submunition, which then detonated, killing him. In May, the office said Russian forces had used cluster munitions in a village in the Dnipropetrovsk region, possibly killing one person. Neither Ukraine nor Russia (nor the United States) have joined the international treaty banning the use of cluster munitions.

Uragan 9M27 rockets have an average range of about 21 miles.

1 Once fired, an Uragan burns through its solid rocket fuel and follows an unguided ballistic course.

2As it nears the target, the warhead separates from the rocket motor, which falls to the ground.

3As the warhead spins, it releases its cargo of bomblets that fall over a wide area.

4About 20 percent of the bomblets will fail to detonate. They become hazardous duds that remain dangerous for many decades.

Uragan 9M27 rockets have an average range of about 21 miles.

2As the warhead spins, it releases its cargo of bomblets that fall over a wide area.

1 Once fired, an Uragan burns through its solid rocket fuel and follows an unguided ballistic course.

3About 20 percent of the bomblets will fail to detonate. They become hazardous duds that remain dangerous for many decades.

Uragan 9M27 rockets have an average range of about 21 miles.

1 Once fired, an Uragan burns through its solid rocket fuel and follows an unguided ballistic course.

3As the warhead spins, it releases its cargo of bomblets that fall over a wide area.

2As it nears the target, the warhead separates from the rocket motor, which falls to the ground.

4About 20 percent of the bomblets will fail to detonate. They become hazardous duds that remain dangerous for many decades.

Sources: Fenix Insight Ltd.; Collective Awareness to Unexploded Ordnance; Armament Research Services (ARES) and Characterisation of Explosive Weapons Project Note: Illustration is not to scale.

The military forces of both Russia and Ukraine are known to have used cluster munitions in Donbas during fighting in 2014 and to have used weapons in civilian spaces. But since the Feb. 24 invasion, with the exception of a single known use attributed to Ukrainian troops, evidence has pointed to nearly exclusive use by Russian forces.

The Times identified these weapons through photos of the skeletal remnants of empty rocket warheads as well as images of unexploded bomblets they left behind some of which were designed to demolish armored vehicles and others to kill people.

The Times defined civilian areas narrowly, as locations in or near identifiable nonmilitary or government buildings or places, like houses, apartment buildings, shops, warehouses, parks, playgrounds, schools, churches, cemeteries and memorials, hospitals, health facilities, agricultural structures and farms. Because some of the visual evidence in both city centers and small villages did not include clear examples of civilian buildings or landmarks, this tally is an undercount as well. The Times did not include infrastructure like roads or bridges.

In the photos below, The Times identified other weapons that are widely scorned by the international humanitarian community: a hand grenade used as a booby trap, an antipersonnel land mine, remnants of incendiary weapons and a group of flechettes.

Novoiakovlivka, Zaporizka

The hand grenade in the first photo, disguised in a crumpled coffee cup, was found by Ukrainians near their home in Zalissya Village, near Brovary. The weapon potentially violates the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which restricts the use of booby traps in the form of seemingly harmless portable objects that can explode if disturbed or approached.

The POM-3 land mine in the second photo is also banned under international humanitarian laws; it can kill and maim civilians long after wars have ended. Ukrainian military officials reported that they found such land mines in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. They are a new type of weapon, equipped with sensors that can detect when people walk nearby unlike older types of land mines, which typically explode when people step on them or disturb attached trip wires. Ukraine is one of 164 nations that have signed a 1997 treaty banning the use of antipersonnel land mines and have pledged to purge their stockpiles, while Russia has refused to join it (as has the United States).

The POM-3 generally is launched by a rocket and then parachutes back to the ground. There, it waits until it senses a person nearby and then launches a small explosive warhead that can detonate midair. The fragments can be lethal to someone as far as 50 feet away. In April, the HALO Trust, a British American nonprofit that removes explosive remnants of weapons after armed conflicts, told The Times that these create a threat that we dont have a response for.

The third photo shows small, hexagonal cylinders of thermite an incendiary compound used in some Russian rockets and bombs that have been seen bursting open mid-air, streaming burning sticks of thermite onto the ground below. International law specifically prohibits their use near civilian areas.

The fourth photo shows a handful of flechettes, essentially tiny steel arrows released from certain types of shells. Using them does not necessarily violate international humanitarian law, but the weapons could potentially run afoul of the laws of war if deemed to cause unnecessary suffering or if used in civilian areas because of their indiscriminate, lethal nature.

Even guided munitions, which are not generally banned on their face, can potentially run afoul of international humanitarian laws if they are used to harm civilians or structures without a justified military target. The Times found evidence of more than a dozen guided weapons in civilian locations.

Russias weapons strategy will reverberate far into Ukraines future. The Times found visual evidence of more than 120 rockets, bombs, shells and other munitions in Ukraine that failed to detonate or were abandoned. That count is surely just the tip of the iceberg, according to experts, who have said that proper cleanup of these weapons will take years.

Leftover munitions not only pose a danger to civilians if they unexpectedly explode, but also can wreak havoc on the environment, contaminating drinking water, soil and air, sometimes sickening or killing people. They can hinder rebuilding after fighting has ended, experts said, because people sometimes cannot return to their homes or cannot reach essential services.

Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv

In April, HALO, which stands for Hazardous Area Life-Support Organization, told The Times that future efforts to remove explosives in Ukraine would require roughly the same number of workers as its current operation in Afghanistan, which has suffered decades of conflict.

Unexploded ordnance poses a serious and ongoing threat, even decades after wars are fought. In Syria, land mines, explosive remnants and unexploded weapons were a leading cause of child casualties last year, making up about a third of recorded injuries and deaths and leaving many children permanently disabled.

In Laos, where the United States used cluster munitions extensively during the Vietnam War, nine million to 27 million unexploded submunitions remained after the conflict, causing more than 10,000 civilian casualties, according to the Congressional Research Service. More than a full century after World War I, unexploded shells still litter parts of Europe where battles were fought. Some zones are still uninhabited because they are considered unsafe.

In addition to launching weapons that have failed to explode in Ukraine, Russia has also attacked local arms depots, causing fires and explosions that typically can fling hundreds of damaged and unstable munitions into surrounding areas.

Leila Sadat, a professor of international law at Washington University in St. Louis and a special adviser to the International Criminal Court prosecutor since 2012, said there was a huge degree of weapon contamination that then Ukrainians have to address, assuming they can come back to these areas.

Ukraine, Prof. Sadat said, could become a wasteland.

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What Hundreds of Photos of Weapons Reveal About Russia's Brutal War Strategy - The New York Times