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The US Is Playing A Dangerous Game Of Nuclear Chicken With Russia

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 26, 2024

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski revealed in his latest interview with The Guardian that “The Americans have told the Russians that if you explode a nuke, even if it doesn’t kill anybody, we will hit all your targets [positions] in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we’ll destroy all of them. I think that’s a credible threat.” If true, and there’s no reason to suspect that he simply made that up, then this amounts to the US playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken with Russia.

As was explained in this analysis here about why Russia is presently undertaking tactical nuclear weapons exercises, it hopes to deter NATO from a conventional military intervention in Ukraine, barring which it wants to signal that it could resort to these arms if those forces cross the Dnieper. From Russia’s perspective, the reportedly 100,000-strong force that NATO is preparing to invade Ukraine if its “red lines” are crossed could pose a threat to its territorial integrity if they attack its newly unified regions.

So long as they stay on the western side of the Dnieper, then there’d be no reason for Russia to countenance using tactical nuclear weapons, but they could realistically be employed in the event that they cross the river and credibly appear to be approaching that country’s new borders. In that scenario, Russia would have reason to drop them on the invading forces as a last resort out of self-defense to preemptively neutralize this threat in accordance with its nuclear doctrine.

Having brought the reader up to speed about the context within which Sikorski shared the US’ planned response to Russia potentially exploding nukes in Ukraine, it should now be easier to understand why this amounts to a dangerous game of nuclear chicken. Essentially, the US wants Russia to stand down from its signaled intent of possibly using tactical nuclear weapons if NATO’s reportedly 100,000-strong invasion force crosses the Dnieper, which could occur if Russia achieves a military breakthrough.

If this sequence of events unfolds – the front lines collapse, NATO conventionally intervenes in Ukraine, its reportedly 100,000-strong invasion force crosses the Dnieper, Russia drops tactical nukes on them, and then the US hits all of its forces in the newly unified regions – then World War III would break out. There’s no way that Russia would sit back and let the US directly attack any target within its borders since it’ll either respond in a tit-for-tat fashion or jump to the chase by launching a nuclear first strike.

The only way to avoid this worst-case scenario is for NATO to eschew its invasion plans under any circumstances, including a potential Russian military breakthrough. If they still go through with them, however, then they should keep their forces on the western side of the Dnieper and ideally rely on a neutral mediator like India to convey to Russia that they don’t intend to cross even if they approach it. Anything less is a dangerous game of nuclear chicken that could literally provoke the apocalypse.

May 28, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

‘Certain friends and foes’ want Georgia to send troops to Ukraine – official

RT | May 27, 2024

Georgia has been repeatedly pushed into a conflict with Russia, with “certain friends and foes” urging Tbilisi to impose sanctions on the country and even to deploy troops to Ukraine, the President of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, has said.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, the house speaker said the country has been repeatedly bombarded with such demands, both in public and in private.

“Certain friends and foes have been pushing us into this, so that we would send fighters to Ukraine, which would have directly meant war with Russia,” he explained.

Top Ukrainian officials, including the former head of the National Security Council Alexey Danilov, have repeatedly urged Georgia to open a “second front” against Russia, with the calls consistently shot down by Tbilisi.

While Papuashvili did not mention any actors in particular, he implied that members of the US-led NATO bloc were among them. With “such actions” demanded for some unknown reason from Georgia, NATO states themselves were abstaining from sending in their own militaries, he said. Apart from demands to enter the conflict directly, Georgia has for long been facing pressure to join Western sanctions against Moscow, he also noted.

Non-state actors have been pushing Georgia into war with Russia as well, Papuashvili claimed, stating that “non-governmental organizations that held rallies in Tbilisi with similar calls have also demanded our troops be sent to Ukraine.”

The speaker’s jab at the NGOs comes as the country continues to experience domestic unrest and foreign pressure over its draft “foreign agents” legislation, requiring those organizations and individuals receiving over 20% of their funding from abroad to register and disclose their sources of income. The controversial bill ended up being shelved amid mass protests and foreign pressure last year, with the new attempt to pass its slightly modified version running into the same troubles. However, the Georgian government has stood its ground and vowed to adopt the bill no matter what.

While Tbilisi has maintained an explicitly neutral stance on the Ukrainian conflict, a sizeable number of mercenaries originating from the country have been fighting on Kiev’s behalf. According to the Russian military’s estimates, the country has provided some 1,042 mercenaries, with the figure beaten only by Kiev’s top backers, namely the US and Poland, with at least 1,113 and 2,960 fighters coming from those two countries, respectively. At least 561 Georgian nationals in the Ukrainian military’s ranks ended up killed during the hostilities, according to Moscow’s estimates.

May 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

As Ukrainian casualties soar, EU will move to conscript European youth to fight, warns Hungarian FM

Remix News | May 27, 2024

Ukraine’s high causality rates combined with its struggle to conscript its own population means the EU will increasingly move to conscript European youth, mostly in the geographical proximity of Ukraine, to fight against Russia, said Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó following a meeting with EU foreign ministers.

“Ukrainian casualties are becoming more and more unbearable, Ukrainian men are not being allowed out of Ukraine, and now they want to conscript European youth into the war. And obviously, as the escalation hits this neighborhood first, one can almost clearly hear the argument that the soldiers should be sent from the geographical proximity first. All this means that they want to send Central European youth, including Hungarian youth, to the war with mandatory European conscription,” said Szijjártó during an interview with Hungarian media.

The Hungarian foreign minister said he would be firmly opposed to any efforts to institute a European mandatory conscription effort, stating: “Hands off Central Europeans, hands off Hungarian youth, we will not allow Hungarian youth to be involved in the war, because this is not our war.”

Szijjártó did not disclose which foreign ministers or member states are exploring the possibility of a European conscription effort, but recently, several countries have said they would consider sending their own troops to Ukraine if Russia had a breakthrough on the Ukrainian front, including France and more recently, the Baltic states.

However, a long-term goal of the left-liberal establishment in Brussels is the creation of an EU military force, including removing the decision-making process about defense from member states and centralizing it in Brussels. Under such a proposal, a potential conscription effort could arise that applies to all EU member states.

Szijjártó described an extremely intense atmosphere at the Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels before the European Parliament elections. He stated that the mood turned sour when those present began to talk about the release of €6.5 billion for Ukraine, which the Hungarian foreign minister rejected, saying it would only escalate the war. However, his position came under extreme pressure from a number of other countries.

“And there was a big mess here. The German, Lithuanian, Irish, Polish and other colleagues fell against me in this matter, but this could not shake our position, despite the shouting of Europe’s pro-war politicians,” he said.

“They think that if they shout from many directions, then I will say that it is good, it is fine. However, they should already know us well enough to know this won’t happen,” he added.

May 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US-Ukraine Arms Scheme Could ‘Fail in All of Its Objectives’ – Ex-State Department Analyst

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 27.05.2024

No one will sign up to be part of a deal on Kiev-Washington arms co-production, given Russian precision strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure amid its proxy war with NATO, former US State Department counterterrorism analyst Scott Bennett told Sputnik.

The US State Department recently announced a $2 billion package for Kiev aimed at creating the so-called Ukraine Defense Enterprise Program (UDEP) fund.

In particular, the fund could be used to “strategically weaken Russia by transitioning partners away from Russian systems and supporting [foreign military financing] loans to partners and allies,” an unnamed State Department official was cited by the Defense One news outlet as saying.

“Without any doubt, the US funding package for Ukraine – intended to be used to stimulate Europe’s arms industry, fund US-Ukraine arms co-production, and lure countries away from the Russian arms market – will fail in all of its objectives,” former US State Department counterterrorism analyst Scott Bennett said in an interview with Sputnik.

He explained that “the US-Ukrainian arms development scheme will ultimately fail because the entire nation of Ukraine is now devolving into a failed state.”

Another aspect pertains to the fact that Ukraine “has no personnel able to create weapons anymore, and no ability to establish such an enterprise on its soil, as Russia would immediately target and destroy any such facilities before they could produce or deploy any weapons to be used against Russian soldiers,” per Bennett.

“The Ukrainians know this, and therefore no one would ‘willingly’ sign up to be part of any facility in Ukraine that does such activities because it would just be a matter of time before the building disappeared in a mountain of rubble,” the ex-State Department analyst pointed out.

When asked what specific types of arms or ammunition the US could co-produce with Ukraine, Bennett said that “these type of guerilla terrorist weapons might include drones, sea, air, and land bombs.”

He didn’t rule out that investor nations involved in the UDEP project “would most likely be Britain, France, Germany, and the Baltic nations.”

Touching upon the issue of the weapons market, Bennett said the US “has been on a conveyor belt of producing weapons for the shallow purpose of enriching politicians and the military-industrial complex, and not for military efficiency purposes.” Per him, “This is a lethal flaw, and an impediment which the rest of the world sees and therefore consciously and unconsciously views US-NATO weapons on a lower level than the Russian weapons.”

Bennett referred to Russian weapons as something “designed to defeat the US-NATO Ukrainian military,” which he said is viewed as “the main destabilizer of the world.”

So, he went on to say, “It is logical to assume that Russian weapons will be valued and sought after as the natural antidote or best defense against future Western Empirical operations — which they openly boast is coming with fatalistic and narcissistic indifference.”

As such, the US-Ukrainian arms development scheme “will once again confirm to the American and European peoples — currently held hostage by their governments — that the real enemy of Western peoples are the tyrants in their own government who are using the war to bleed money from citizens and construct an endless excuse for absolute authoritarian political control using endless fear and ‘rumors of war’,” the ex-State Department analyst concluded.

May 27, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Orban Foresees Dire Consequences If EU Militarism Continues Unchecked

Sputnik – 26.05.2024

BUDAPEST – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday that he had never seen greater irresponsibility than Europe getting involved in the conflict in Ukraine without calculating what it would cost.

“Europe is becoming so involved in the war that it does not even have an estimate of the scale of the costs and means necessary to achieve its military objective. I have never seen anything more irresponsible in my life,” Orban said in an interview with the Patriota YouTube channel.

He added that, in his opinion, NATO wanted to become a party to the conflict in Ukraine and “the chances that the alliance can be kept from doing so are limited.”
Budapest is against having decisions on the service of Hungarian citizens made “in Brussels or Germany,” Orban emphasized.

“We don’t want anyone else to be able to make decisions about conscription and sending our young men of draft age anywhere. We have to forget about a European army with compulsory conscription, this is a crazy idea,” the prime minister stressed.

Earlier in May, Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party, the largest one in the European Parliament, suggested reinstating compulsory military service across the entire European Union.

If Weber’s idea was implemented, “Hungarian families would be told from Brussels or Germany that their children would be compulsorily conscripted into the European army and told where they would go,” Orban added.

In the years to come, current events may be seen as a prelude to World War III or even its first episode if Brussels’ militarism is not countered, the Hungarian prime minister warned.

“Perhaps in 10 years the current processes will be called a prelude to World War III. It cannot be ruled out that if things go badly and we fail to control the military psychosis developed in Brussels, the history of these years will also be an episode of the first years of the big world war,” Orban said in an interview with the YouTube channel Patrióta.

Although European politicians see nuclear weapons as a deterrent, unforeseen worst-case scenarios could come to life, the Hungarian prime minister emphasized.

“In my opinion, European politicians think of the nuclear bomb as a tactical deterrence tool and not as something that should really be used, but what they don’t consider at the beginning of a war can still happen at the end, thus worst-case scenarios can come to life,” Orban explained.

Previously, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that the United States threatened Moscow with the “destruction” of Russian forces in the special military operation zone if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitriy Medvedev said Poland should understand that an American strike on Russian troops would mean the beginning of a world war.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Expends 530 Munitions, Over $1 Bln Fighting Houthi Hellfire Raining Down on Its Carrier Group

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.05.2024

The US and Britain hastily assembled a coalition of the willing in December 2023 to target the Houthis, a month after the indefatigable Yemeni militia began a campaign of ship seizures, drone and missile attacks targeting Israeli-linked merchant vessels in the Red Sea, in solidarity with Gaza.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower supercarrier-led US Navy strike group has expended over 500 munitions targeting Houthi-launched missiles, UAVs and drone boats over and in the Red Sea, and positions inside Yemen, a new tally of Navy data has revealed.

The figures, seen by Business Insider, reportedly included almost 430 instances of US warships and aircraft engaging “planned and dynamic Houthi targets,” with the Eisenhower’s onboard F/A-18 Super Hornet strike jets flying over 27,200 hours across roughly 12,100 sorties, launching 350+ air-to-surface missiles and 50+ air-to-air missiles.

Guided-missile destroyers and cruisers accompanying the Eisenhower have reportedly launched 100 Standard Missile-2 interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles at Houthi aerial and ground targets.

The figures offer the most detailed insight to date into the expenses the US-led anti-Houthi mission in the Red Sea has sustained to date.

Last month, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers from the Senate Appropriations Committee that the US had spent nearly $1 billion in the Middle East, including against the Houthis, since the Israeli-Hamas escalation in October, and asked for more money.

But the Navy figures cited by Business Insider suggest the costs could be much higher. For example, F/A-18 jets have an average per hour flight cost of more than $30,400, meaning if the Navy-provided data are correct, the US has spent close to $827 million on sorties alone, not counting expended missiles. The latter include AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, priced between $125,000 and $400,000 apiece, and AGM-88 HARM air-to-surface missiles, which go for between $284,000 and $870,000 each.
Ship-launched standard Missile-2 interceptors cost $2 million apiece, with the more advanced Standard Missile-6 – which the US carrier strike group has also deployed against the Houthis, costing $4.3 million each. Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, meanwhile, have a price tag of roughly $2 million.

The Pentagon’s anti-Houthi strategy has recently taken flak from US lawmakers over its exorbitant cost.

“In the Red Sea, the Houthis are sending $20,000 drones and we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost $4.3 million. The math doesn’t work on that, gentlemen. It just doesn’t work. What are we thinking?” Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King said earlier this month during a grilling of senior DoD officials on the (apparently) shambolic state of America’s air and missile defense capabilities.

US-led military operations in the Red Sea, dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian, have failed to stop or even scale back the extent of Houthi attacks, with the militia ramping up its strikes in the Red and Arabian Seas in recent months, and expanding drone and missile forays into the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin hinted at the intensity of Houthi operations on Friday, revealing that the USS Carney guided-missile destroyer alone had had 51 “engagements” with Houthi missiles and drones over six months, “which is the most direct Navy engagement with a foe since World War II.”

The Carney returned home to Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida on May 19 after its long Red Sea deployment.

Separately on Friday, the Houthis announced that they had targeted three more Israeli-linked ships, including the MSC Alexandra and the Greek-owned Yannis bulk carrier (which the militia said was heading toward Israel) in the Red Sea, and the Essex LPG carrier – a Liberia-registered vessel managed by Zodiac Maritime, owned by Israeli tycoon Eyal Ofer, in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean attack came just a few days after an anonymous Pentagon official confirmed to reporters that the Houthis have weapons that could reach the body of water – situated over 2,000 km from militia-held areas of Yemen.

Along with their attacks on ships, the Houthis have been stepping up their efforts to target US military assets operating over Yemeni airspace. Last week, the group downed its fifth MQ-9 Reaper drone using a “locally-made” surface to air missile while the $32 million aircraft was “carrying out hostile acts” over Marib province in western Yemen.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine attacked key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella — Russian senator

RT | May 25, 2024

The US should be seen as directly responsible for a Ukrainian strike on a key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella, Senator Dmitry Rogozin has said, warning that such attacks could lead to the collapse of the entire global nuclear security architecture.

In a statement on Telegram on Saturday, Rogozin, a senator who previously headed up the Russian space agency Roscosmos and is now in charge of a military technical center called Tsar’s Wolves, said that the attack targeted a nuclear early warning system in the southern Krasnodar Region. The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the matter, while the extent of the damage remains unclear.

Rogozin suggested that it was extremely unlikely that the strike, which Ukrainian media reported involved several drones, was carried out at Kiev’s sole initiative and without US involvement.

According to the senator, Washington has always sought to achieve military superiority over Moscow since the very dawn of the nuclear age, but this rivalry was mostly limited to a battle of minds between scientists, strategists, and policymakers.

This seems to have changed, however, as “the US has commissioned a crime by hiring an irresponsible bandit” to attack Russia’s early warning system, the official said, apparently referring to Vladimir Zelensky.

Rogozin claimed that Washington’s “deep involvement in the armed conflict and total control over Kiev’s military planning means that the version that the US does not know about Ukrainian plans to strike Russia’s missile defense system can be discarded.”

Thus, we stand not on the precipice, but on the very edge… If such enemy actions are not stopped, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of nuclear powers will begin.

The attack apparently targeted an advanced Voronezh radar station in the city of Armavir, which went into operation in 2013. The system can detect incoming cruise and ballistic missiles at a range of 6,000km and can track up to 500 targets. During the inauguration of the system, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it would significantly increase the country’s defense capabilities in the southern and southwestern directions.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Prelude to WWIII: Italy Slams NATO Chief’s Proposal to Allow Ukraine to Strike Deep Into Russia

By Sergey Lebedev – Sputnik – 26.05.2024

NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg earlier urged Western nations to lift restrictions on allowing Ukraine to conduct attacks deep into Russia using Western weapons.

The Italian government has slammed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s plea to lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons supplied to Kiev regime.

“We will not send a single Italian soldier to Ukraine, and the military equipment that Italy sends should be used on the territory of Ukraine,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted as saying by the Adnkronos news agency on Saturday.

He added that Italy “must always work for peace and lower the tone.” While Italy is a part of NATO, “every decision must be made collectively,” he pointed out.

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lega party Matteo Salvini voiced the same position, stressing that no one seeks a “prelude to a Third World War”.

“Italy is not at war with anyone, and while it was right to assist Ukraine militarily, lifting the ban on Kiev to strike military targets in Russia is out of the question. Similarly, I reiterate that Lega opposes sending even a single soldier to fight in Ukraine. We seek peace, not a prelude to a Third World War,” he underscored.

Earlier, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged partners to formally allow Kiev to use Western-supplied long-range missile systems to strike deep into Russian territory.

Russian officials repeatedly warned against military supplies to the Kiev regime, stressing that this move only fuels the conflict with no chance of affecting the ultimate course of the special operation.

Moscow’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed that everyone who goes “to the so-called ‘peaceful conference’ in Switzerland” on Ukraine should be well aware of Stoltenberg’s recent words.

Russian parliamentary representative from the Crimea region in turn dubbed Stoltenberg’s words an “obsession with war” and “desire to harm Russia at any cost with no regard to catastrophic consequences for the population of Western nations.”

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO Cries Wolf Over Finnish Islands to Hype ‘Russian Threat’ Narrative

Finland’s autonomous Aland Islands. © AFP 2023 / ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 25.05.2024

Western-peddled fears of an alleged potential threat posed to NATO by Moscow have become the norm amid the alliance’s relentless expansion closer to Russia’s borders and hiked up military spending benefiting the military-industrial complex.

NATO is increasingly crying wolf over an archipelago in the Baltic Sea as part of its “Russian threat” propaganda.

The Åland Islands have been dubbed the “Achilles’ heel” of the alliance’s newest member — Finland — Bloomberg reported.

The self-governing, demilitarised Swedish-speaking region of Finland sits at the crossroads of major trade routes worth an estimated $160 billion annually. Key energy and communication infrastructure, undersea electricity and internet cables are located in the area.

But what has NATO stymied is the fact that “Russia is tasked with enforcing an accord that has banned any military presence on its shores for over a century,” the news site pointed out.

Now the Nordic country is a NATO member, warmongering hawks see the archipelago as a huge blind spot, “giving Moscow an open field should it ever decide to invade.”

“If you have all the Åland Islands, you can block maritime traffic both to the Gulf of Bothnia and to the Gulf of Finland… Then we are pretty screwed,” claimed Pekka Toveri, a former major general in Finland’s armed forces.

Finland’s demilitarized Aland Islands. © Photo : Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission; Finnish Border Guard; Finnish Navy

The Agreement between the-then Soviet Union and Finland on the Åland Islands was signed in 1940 following the end of the Winter War. The Finnish side pledged “to demilitarise the Åland Islands, not to fortify them, and not to put them at the disposal of the armed forces of foreign states.” A Soviet Consulate was established in Åland’s capital, Mariehamn.

According to Toveri, the Russian consulate on the Åland Islands needs to be shut down, and Finnish forces must begin training there.

The member of parliament for the center-right National Coalition Party added that archipelago is more important to Finland than Gotland Island is to Sweden. As with Gotland, control of Åland is perceived as key to military dominance in Baltic waters.

In the summer of 2022, Sweden hosted NATO’s BALTOPS 22 exercises on Gotland Island. After Stockholm joined NATO, abandoning long-standing neutrality, Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson expressed openness to “reinforcing” Gotland’s defenses, in a nod to NATO plans for the Baltic. Sweden’s plans to create a NATO base on the island of Gotland were slammed as provocative by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

After a recdnt review of the Åland islands’ status, the Finnish government saw no need to make any changes. That stance is backed by recent polls among Åland’s residents.

Bloomberg acknowledged that shredding any international demilitarization agreements would be a time-consuming feat, and is unlikely to happen, “for now.”

Developments around both Gotland and the Åland Islands fit the ongoing “Russia threat” narrative NATO has been pushing — while continuing its eastward expansion.

At the Antalya Diplomacy Forum held in Turkey earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took Finland and Sweden to task for abandoning their longstanding neutrality to join NATO.

He said that their decision marked the end of “decades of good neighborliness.” Lavrov also warned that Russia would respond by taking additional measures “appropriate to the threats that could appear on the territory of Finland and Sweden.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently scotched those claims, highlighting NATO’s hostile posture towards Moscow.

“They’re trying to intimidate their own population with an imaginary Russian threat. This is an obvious fact,” Putin noted in his interview with Tucker Carlson, adding that “smart people understand perfectly well that this is a fake.”

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Russia Muting Musk’s Starlink Satellites Using Sophisticated Electronic Warfare Tools

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 24.05.2024

The Russian military possesses perhaps the most comprehensive, multilayered and multi-domain electronic warfare capabilities in the world, using an array of short, medium, long and ultra-long range systems to effect throughout the course of the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine.

The Russian military continues to ramp up its ability to disrupt the Starlink internet capabilities Ukraine’s troops use to coordinate their forces, collect intel and launch drone attacks on Russian frontline positions, causing mass “outages” in the Kharkov area of the front and playing a role in the rapid pace of Russia’s recent advances.

That’s according to Ukrainian officials, soldiers and electronic warfare specialists queried by the New York Times to find out why Russia’s EW operations had slowed frontline troops’ ability to communicate using Starlink internet to a crawl, forcing troops to resort to simple text messages.

NYT warned that if Russia’s massed efforts to disrupt Starlink “continue to succeed, it could mark a tactical shift in the conflict, highlighting Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on the service provided by Mr. Musk’s company,” while raising “broader questions about Starlink’s reliability against a technically sophisticated adversary.”

“We’re losing the electronic warfare fight,” a deputy commander from the Ukrainian 92ndAssault Brigade’s drone battalion told the newspaper. “One day before the attacks, it just shut down. It became super, super slow,” he complained.

A Ukrainian drone operator confirmed the connectivity issues. “During the first hours the front line was very dynamic. The enemy was moving. And we were moving as well. We needed to be to be fast in communicating,” the soldier said, complaining that the loss of Starlink connectivity “made everything more complicated” and “time consuming.”

Starlink, which operates by beaming internet down to portable Earth-based terminals using vast constellations of satellites, has been in Russia’s crosshairs since the early months of the Ukrainian crisis.

Sputnik has detailed the technical minutiae of some of the tools Russia has at its disposal to jam Starlink’s operations in Ukraine without breaking international law – including the use of ground-based radars to detect the operation of and pinpoint the location of Starlink terminals, and jamming signal transmission directly. The Borshchevik is one such system.

Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov told the NYT that Russia’s latest attacks against Starlink appeared to be using more advanced technology, saying the Russians were “testing different mechanisms to disrupt the quality of Starlink connections because it’s so important for us.”

Fedorov did not elaborate on the nature of these “powerful” Russian EW systems, but said Kiev has maintained constant communication with Starlink to try to resolve the problems.

Experts from NATO countries aren’t entirely certain what’s causing the signal loss – improved and more precise Russian jamming equipment, or a new breed of special electronic warfare weapons mounted on drones to confuse the GPS signals. NYT also didn’t rule out that “solar storms” may be responsible for random outages.

Russia has demonstrated a mounting technological advantage over Ukraine in recent months, blasting through heavily fortified defensive lines in the Donbass – which Ukraine’s military had spent nearly a decade building up with NATO’s help, and advancing rapidly in the Kharkov region to create a “sanitary zone” after repeated Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, including the border city of Belgorod.

Retired US Army Lieutenant General and former spec ops commander Mike Nagata warned last week that America was “falling behind” its adversaries in electronic warfare despite its best efforts.

“The gap between where the United States should be and where we are, in my judgement, continues to expand not everywhere, but in far too many places,” Nagata said at a Special Operations Forces Week conference in Tampa, Florida.

The former commander’s assessment was echoed by Hudson Institute senior fellow Daniel Patt in recent Congressional testimony. Patt warned in March that Russian EW systems had resulted in a dramatic drop in the effectiveness of some US GPS-guided munitions sent to Ukraine from 70 percent to as low as six percent.

Over the past two years, Russia has fine-tuned its electronic warfare capabilities to jam NATO artillery shells and JDAMs, heavy and long-range strike drones, and missiles. An informed source told Sputnik last October that Russia’s EW troops were preparing equipment to suppress F-16s when they arrive in Ukraine.

Electronic warfare has been a traditional Russian strong suit going back to Soviet days, when doctrines emphasized the “total integration of electronic warfare and physical destruction resources” on the battlefield.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Should Quit Sending Money to Ukraine, Try to Negotiate Peace — Congressman Massie

Sputnik – 25.05.2024

WASHINGTON – The United States should stop sending money to Ukraine and attempt to negotiate peace as soon as possible, US Congressman Thomas Massie told Sputnik on Friday.

“I think we should quit sending money there. I think we should try to negotiate peace as soon as possible,” Massie said on the sidelines of the 2024 Libertarian National Convention.

US lawmakers are showing dwindling support for sending military aid to Ukraine each time the matter comes to a vote, Massie highlighted.

“The support for sending weapons to Ukraine is weakening in the US Congress, as you can see with each subsequent vote,” the congressman emphasized.

There should be some effort made to bring both Ukraine and Russia to the upcoming conference in Switzerland as it is hard to imagine negotiations without Russia, Massie stressed.

“This sounds kind of hard to negotiate a peace if they don’t have Russia at the table. So I think there should be some effort to have Ukraine and Russia there,” the congressman said.

Talks Must Go On

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden could help solve the conflict in Ukraine, and even lower-level discussions between top diplomats could help achieve progress, Massie highlighted.

“I think it could help,” Massie said when asked whether talks between Biden and Putin could help solve the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. “Although, even lower-level negotiations would help as well, I think.”

When asked at what level such discussion should be held, the congressman said, “Maybe at the secretary of state level, for instance.”

Massie expressed his view that it is “wrong” that communications between the US and Russia are limited.

“I think there should be talks,” he said.

‘Very Short-Sighted Policy’

The US government freezing of foreign assets, including those of Russia, is a very short-sighted policy and sends a message to the international community that the United States may stop honoring transactions, the congressman emphasized.

“I think it’s very short sighted of our government to freeze for instance, Treasury assets, that are held by other countries, such as Russia, because it sends a message to the world that if you buy our debt, then we may not honor the transaction at some point,” Massie explained.

The representative added that US moves to freeze foreign assets are “extremely dangerous” because they will increase the price that Washington has to pay to finance its debt.

“I’m sure that our closest allies will still trust that we’ll be good on our word, but other sovereign funds will have a diminished appetite for financing our debt,” Massie said. “So, I think it’s very short-sighted of us to do that.”

Moscow has maintained that any attempt to confiscate its frozen assets would violate international law, with the Russian Foreign Ministry labeling such an action as theft.

No More Money to Ukraine

The congressman argued that he opposes the US government sending more money to Ukraine unless such assistance achieves peace.

“I told our own speaker – if you want to send $60 billion and the goal is to achieve some kind of peace, I might be compelled to vote for it. But I’m not voting for $60 billion that will then only necessitate another $60 billion,” the representative clarified.

Massie also said that both sides to the conflict in Ukraine will eventually run out of people if fighting continues.

“I think it’s immoral to grind up people in this war on both sides,” Massie added.

Earlier on Friday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the United States was providing a new weapons package for Ukraine worth $275 million.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday the United States has already delivered many of Ukraine’s “top-priority requirements” and much more assistance is on the way.

Austin added that he expects a steady flow of US assistance for Ukraine on a weekly basis.

Russia has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Ukraine by the collective West, saying they would only prolong the conflict but would not change the situation on the ground.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

No Velocity Whatsoever: Hyper-Velocity Pipe-dreams

By Bill Buppert | The Libertarian Institute | May 24, 2024

Since October 2021, it has either failed the flight test or scrubbed launches.

Three years.

The joint Army/Navy Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, that despite the $8.3 billion in R&D invested in it have so far failed to successfully fire a single AUR, All Up Round, it doesn’t fill you with confidence after the cancellation of the Air Force AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), both are/were hyper-sonic glide missiles.

Don’t believe the January 2023 estimates of 41 million per missile if it ever gets off the ground. Yet another signature failure of the sclerotic and arthritic Pentagon spending sprees using an acquisition system the Soviets would blanch at.

The US remains the most expensive paper tiger in the history of the Earth.

The ARRW program was launched in April 2018 and originally planned to achieve initial operational deployment in 2022. However, in November 2023, after conducting two test flights in August and October 2023, the ARRW hypersonic program was officially cancelled.

The U.S. Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW): Dark Eagle

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

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