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Rosatom says nuclear cleanup in Arctic done – Far from the case, says Bellona.

The nuclear cleanup in the Arctic is not done, there is still radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel that needs securing.

Those items remaining to be cleaned up and secured include at least 11,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies at Andreyeva Bay, a former Soviet submarine base. They also include two sunken nuclear submarines, over a dozen nuclear reactors and barrels of radioactive waste scuttled by the Soviet Navy in the Kara and Barents Seas. Issues of securing spent fuel and radioactive waste stored on nuclear icebreaker service ships likewise remain unresolved.  

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said last week that more than two decades worth of efforts to rid the Arctic of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned submarines will now come to an end. Bellona fears Rosatom is leaving undone a raft of crucial projects initiated with international support.

June 7, 2023 by Bellona

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said last week that more than two decades worth of efforts to rid the Arctic of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned submarines will now come to an end. Bellona fears Rosatom is leaving undone a raft of crucial projects initiated with international support. 

” [This work]began back in the early 2000s with the analysis of large deposits of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear submarine reactors,” said Rosatom CEO Aleksei Likhachev in remarks reported by official Russian newswire Tass “In total, thousands of tons of radioactive materials have been handled, and today we are at the finish line of this work, returning these territories to public use under strict administrative, public, and international control.” 

Since the 1990s, the Bellona Foundation has been involved in discovering and documenting nuclear hazards and radiation threats in Arctic Russia and based on that experience, the organization asserts that Likhachev’s announcement is untrue — Russia is nowhere near the “finish line” in these efforts

Furthermore, Likhachev’s remarks contradict earlier statements from Rosatom that many of these cleanup operations would be ongoing until late in this decade. 

“Russian authorities are backtracking on earlier statements from May last year, and confirming Bellona’s fears that these projects will not be continued or completed, says Frederic Hauge, president of the Bellona Foundation. 

“The nuclear cleanup in the Arctic is not done, there is still radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel that needs securing – both in the former marine base at Andreeva Bay and at the bottom of the Arctic seas”, says underlines Hauge. 

Since the early 2000s, cleanup projects to rid the Arctic of the nuclear legacy of the Soviet Northern fleet have been ongoing in North-West Russia. These efforts were orchestrated through international cooperation between Russia and other countries and aided by large funding pledges from international donors.  

These multinational efforts continued until February of 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine. Since then, international assistance to Moscow has been put on ice. But even then, key figures at Rosatom pledged that cleanup work would continue, nonetheless.  

But Likhachev’s statement seems to put an end to that and declares victory well before the battle is finished  

Those items remaining to be cleaned up and secured include at least 11,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies at Andreyeva Bay, a former Soviet submarine base. They also include two sunken nuclear submarines, over a dozen nuclear reactors and barrels of radioactive waste scuttled by the Soviet Navy in the Kara and Barents Seas. Issues of securing spent fuel and radioactive waste stored on nuclear icebreaker service ships likewise remain unresolved. 

In 2022, after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities sought to assure their international counterparts that each of these projects would nonetheless continue, despite the withdrawal of international assistance.   

Bellona had since that time been concerned that Russia, in its state of war, would fail to prioritize these critical projects, and in November the organization warned that the efforts to lift sunken Soviet submarines would at best be indefinitely postponed  …………………………………

The issue of the sunken objects left by the Soviet Union will not be solved by itself. Ninety percent of that radiation from the sunken objects in the Kara and Barents seas is emitted by six objects that Rosatom has deemed urgent and targeted for lifting: two nuclear submarines; the reactor compartments from three nuclear submarines; and the reactor from the legendary icebreaker Lenin. …………….

“Why do they choose to say that the cleanup is done now – when that clearly is not the case? Rosatom has time and again underlined the importance of finishing the cleanup projects and lifting the sunken objects from the bottom of the sea, says Hauge. 

 “If we were to speculate, it might be that they are trying to force a renewed dialogue on financing of these projects, despite the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps they are fishing for reactions from Norwegian authorities and other western governments – perhaps particularly when it comes to the sunken objects,” continues Hauge 

“They know that the more delayed a decision to raise these subs is, the higher the risk of a lifting operation failing. Thus, such a statement can put pressure on former cooperation partners to reevaluate their decision to discontinue cooperation with Russia and financial support on these topics because of the invasion of Ukraine. If that is the correct interpretation, then it is a form of blackmail – nuclear blackmail,” Hauge concludes.  https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2023-06-rosatom-says-nuclear-cleanup-in-arctic-done-far-from-the-case-says-bellona

 

June 9, 2023 Posted by | ARCTIC, oceans, Russia, wastes | 1 Comment

Is nuclear fusion energy salvation?

the real reason for the race to fusion is actually to allow the stockpiling of nuclear weapons that are even more dreadful than present ones. Currently, a major difficulty in manufacturing nuclear bombs is “the need for highly enriched uranium or plutonium” to initiate the reaction. Research with nuclear fusion could provide an alternative path to accomplish the ignition.

Few know that “100 significant accidents happened in world’s nuclear power plants from mid-1950s to 2010.” The world’s press has given scant attention to how people were used as guinea pigs in testing sites such as the Marshall Islands.

mronline, By Don Fitz, Stan Cox ( Jun 07, 2023) Originally published: Dissident Voice  on June 3, 2023

Like a third rate zombie movie on Netflix, delusions of nuclear fusion repeatedly rise from the dead. The cover story in the June 2023 issue of Scientific American by Philip Ball, “Star Power: Does Fusion Have a Future After All?” recycles the corporate line which was broadcast on December 13, 2022. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had reached a “breakthrough” in developing an alternative to fission.

As Joshua Frank described the hype over nuclear fusion …

“there’s no toxic mining involved, nor do thousands of gallons of cold water have to be pumped in to cool overheated reactors, nor will there be radioactive waste byproducts lasting hundreds of thousands of years. And not a risk of a nuclear meltdown in sight! Fusion, so the cheery news went, is safe, effective, and efficient!“

After six months of the announcement’s being debunked, the Scientific American article admitted some of the inherent faults with fusion, repeated some of the original misstatements, and went on with detailed descriptions of technical tweaks necessary to make the technology viable in the second half of the century. Unfortunately, most of those who criticized fusion missed one of its most serious dangers—that discovering a source of limitless cheap energy would doom humanity’s future rather than enhance it.

The Terror

In order to interpret the spin of the military-industrial-pseudo-scientific (MIPS) complex, we need to appreciate the primary obstacle to expanding nuclear power. MIPS must overcome the intense terror of nukes.

The terror began with images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Photos of burnt bodies are burned into the minds of their viewers. MIPS seeks to discount the images with the myth that Japan had to be nuked, even though it was ready to surrender. The mythology continued with the “Atoms for Peace” false pretense that there could be a disconnect between nuclear power and nuclear bombs.

A few decades went by and on March 28, 1979 Three-Mile Island melted down. A good part of its infamy stemmed from repeated government lies that the event was not so serious and would have few long-lasting effects. Americans would never be convinced that nukes would only be dangerous if the Soviets or Japanese built them.

Then there was Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. In 2009 the New York Academy of Science published a detailed analysis estimating the total death count to be around 900,000 and the MIPS spewed forth venomous claims that it was not actually so bad, but was merely the worst human-caused catastrophe in history.

This was followed on March 11, 2011 with the Fukushima Daiichi apocalypse when 3 of 6 nuclear reactors melted down, spreading radioactivity into the neighboring Pacific Ocean and poisoning unknown quantities of aquatic life. So, each generation from World War II through today, has memories of horrendous nuclear events which MIPS has been totally unsuccessful at erasing.

But credit should be given where it is due, and there is an area where MIPS has done quite well in its plugola efforts. Those efforts have been to keep everyday leakage of nuclear material and “smaller” catastrophes either out of or reduced to short paragraphs in the corporate press. Few know that “100 significant accidents happened in world’s nuclear power plants from mid-1950s to 2010.” The world’s press has given scant attention to how people were used as guinea pigs in testing sites such as the Marshall Islands. Souma Dutta notes such events:

… in the Soviet nuclear test sites of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, Novaya Zemlya and others, the French nuclear test sites of Reggane & Akker in Algeria and the Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, the British test sites in the Australian territories of Monte Bello, Maralinga, Emu Field, and the Chinese test site of Lop Nur.

Denial Non-Stop

The Scientific American article lets us know which dangers of nuclear fusion that MIPS continues to deny six months after the NIF “breakthrough.” Despite a good amount of evidence to contrary, the article claims that nuclear fusion would (a) produce “near zero carbon emissions” but (b) “without creating the dangerous radioactive waste.”

……………………………Please remember that the goal of corporations is profit. That requires expanding production by increasing the amount of energy used to the maximum. If fusion were added to the energy mix, there would continue be little to no decrease in fossil fuel use.

Equally fallacious is the claim that nuclear fusion would not result in deadly waste. Essential for the fusion process is tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Its isotopes can permeate metals and pass through the tiniest spaces in enclosures. Since tritium can enter virtually any part of the human body, it can lead to a variety of cancers.

Nuclear fusion would be even more inefficient at water use than would fission reactors. Though not exactly a “waste product,” this wastage would seriously drain water supplies at a time when they are increasingly being exhausted.

Dirty Little Secrets Creep into the Open

Philip Ball’s article slyly admits the accuracy of several of the most frequent criticisms of the December 2022 “breakthrough” announcement. They appear as a hint to the MIPS complex that, in order to manufacture consent on the grandeur of nuclear fusion, its acolytes should modify some of their more outlandish claims if they are to be taken seriously.

First, nuclear fusion is far, far too expensive to provide energy “too cheap to meter” during upcoming decades. Not only is tritium (costing $30,000 per gram) necessary to start the initial reaction, reactors must be lined with expensive lithium. Equipment to make the tiny event happen is enormous, requiring space equal to three football fields. The complexity of the system requires twice as many employees—1000 for fusion vs. 500 for a fission reactor. This helps explain why original cost projections of $6.3 billion mushroomed to DOE’s current estimate of $65 billion.

Second, closely linked to cost is the contrast between the minuscule amount of electricity squeezed out with the use of 192 lasers in December 2022 and the gargantuan amount that would be needed to feed the grid. According to Brian Tokar, the Livermore blast lasted for one ten-billionth of a second. Nowhere close to powering a major city for a year, or a month or even an hour.

Third, the cost for such a frivolous amount of energy means that no one seriously suggests that fusion reactors will power homes in the foreseeable future. Many proponents now openly admit that claiming that the technology will be used to improve people’s lives is a hoax. Ball quotes an industry spokesperson bluntly stating that “There is not today a single project underway to build a fusion power plant that will produce energy.”

Fourth, the real reason for the race to fusion is actually to allow the stockpiling of nuclear weapons that are even more dreadful than present ones. Currently, a major difficulty in manufacturing nuclear bombs is “the need for highly enriched uranium or plutonium” to initiate the reaction. Research with nuclear fusion could provide an alternative path to accomplish the ignition.

Dr. M.V Ramana explains the search for “neutrons with the very short pulse widths characteristic of low-yield nuclear intercepts that can be used to establish lethal criteria for chemical/biological agents and nuclear warhead targets.” Thus, if experimentation with nuclear fusion were to be successful, it could further shorten the Doomsday Clock, increasing the probability of human annihilation.

To Dream the Impossible Dream

………………………………………….. quest for limitless energy is a journey into oblivion. To dream the impossible energy dream is to hallucinate the most hideous nightmare. Richard Heinberg warns of the dangers of ignoring limits, noting that if nuke fusion were to remove limits on energy production, corporations would expand production to endlessly deplete soil and destroy species habitat.

Searching for infinite energy other than fossil fuels would present dangers as ominous as nuclear war. 

 Christopher Ketcham summarizes:

mainstream environmentalists have siloed climate change as a phenomenon apart from the broad human ecological footprint, separate from deforestation, overgrazing of livestock, megafauna kill-off, collapsing fisheries, desertification, depleted freshwater, soil degradation, oceanic garbage gyres, toxification of rainfall with microplastics, and on and on–the myriad biospheric effects of breakneck growth.

The attitude that “nothing is as threatening as climate change” has lured many into the abyss of ignoring (or minimizing) the humongous dangers of “alternative” energy (AltE). Stan explains how AltE contributes to ongoing threats, writing that the total quantity of “human-made mass”—which is everything made by people—has now exceeded the “the total weight of all living plant, animal, and microbial biomass on Earth.” This material mass is doubling every 20 years, it contributing to the “breakdown of of entire ecosystems” as well as climate change………………………….

The good news is that it does not have to be like this. We now have the knowledge and ability to provide good lives for people throughout the world if we have the sense to distinguish what humanity needs vs. what corporations are greedy for.

Do we really need to build rocket ships to Mars? Is the quality of our lives improved by having products that fall apart sooner and sooner? Must there be a car for every adult on Earth instead of having communities where people get 80% of what they use by walking or cycling?

Are Americans really safer by having over 700 military bases and the ability to exterminate every human many times over. Don’s book on Cuban Health Care documents how that country’s medical system produces less infant mortality and a longer life expectancy than the U.S. while spending less than 10% of what the U.S. spends per person annually.

Contrary to widespread propaganda, humanity does not desperately need more energy. We desperately need to live better with less energy. https://mronline.org/2023/06/07/is-nuclear-fusion-energy-salvation/

June 9, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | Leave a comment

Amid opposition, Japan takes 1st step to release nuclear waste water into ocean

China slams Tokyo’s ‘irresponsible’ actions on Fukushima’s contaminated water, urging safe disposal

Alperen Aktas  |07.06.2023

Despite mounting pressure, Japan has begun injecting seawater into a drainage tunnel of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as a first step to release treated radioactive wastewater into the ocean.

The tunnel was filled with water on Tuesday, triggering a sharp response from the Chinese mission in Tokyo.

Japan plans to release treated radioactive wastewater into the ocean, triggering opposition and concerns from local fishing communities and neighboring countries.

“The harm caused by the discharge of nuclear water into the sea is immeasurable,” China’s diplomatic mission in Japan said in a statement.

“Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are sending seawater into an underwater tunnel that has been built to release treated and diluted water from the facility into the ocean,” Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

“Once filled with seawater, the tunnel will guide treated water from the plant to a point about 1 kilometer offshore.”

The water release system is nearing completion, with the exception of a reservoir that will store treated water prior to its release. The utility aims to finish all construction tasks by the end of June……………………

Urging Japan not to put future generations at risk, the Chinese Embassy stressed that besides ocean discharge, formation injection, steam discharge, hydrogen discharge, and underground burial are also viable options. However, it is “irresponsible” for the Japanese side not to seriously consider and show other extermination options.

Zhang Kejian, Chairman of China Atomic Energy Authority, also criticized Japan’s “extremely irresponsible” act.

Japan disregarded the concerns of its people and other countries, providing no scientific answers or consulting with neighbors and stakeholders, he said at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors meeting held on Monday in Austria.

A signature campaign was launched in South Korea last week to oppose Japan’s intended discharge of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The campaign was initiated by South Korea’s leading opposition Democratic Party in the capital Seoul.

DP Chairman Lee Jae-Myung expressed his concerns, questioning how the president and the ruling party can support Japan and grant them immunity and permission to dispose of hazardous nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean.

Japan unveiled the water discharge plan in April 2021, triggering massive criticism from China, South Korea, North Korea, the island nation of Taiwan, and international bodies, including the UN…………………….  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/amid-opposition-japan-takes-1st-step-to-release-nuclear-waste-into-ocean/2916489

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Japan, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

Major Progress Made in Nuclear Talks Between U.S. and Iran in Preparation for a New Agreement

Amos Harel Haaretz 7 June 23

Israel expects an agreement to be reached within a few weeks, with the understandings expected to include an Iranian agreement to stop uranium enrichment at high levels in return for easing sanctions.

In an effort to reach an agreement on a nuclear deal, the contacts between the United States and Iran have made major progress in the past few days. Israeli defense officials say the talks are moving forward more rapidly than expected, with the possibility that the two sides will reach an agreement within weeks………. (Subscribers only)  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-07/ty-article/.premium/major-progress-made-in-nuclear-talks-between-u-s-and-iran/00000188-94bd-df21-a1b8-b7bd413d0000

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Ukrainian dam collapse ‘no immediate risk’ to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

But IAEA says damage to Nova Kakhovka dam raises long-term concerns for power station’s future

Julian Borger in Kyiv, 6 June 23  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/nova-kakhovka-ukraine-dam-collapse-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam and the draining of the reservoir behind it does not pose an immediate safety threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant further upstream, but will have long-term implications for its future, according to Ukrainian and UN experts.

The Ukrainian nuclear energy corporation, Energoatom, put out a statement on the Telegram social media platform saying the situation at the plant, the biggest nuclear power station in Europe, was “under control”.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said in a statement: “our current assessment is that there is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant.”

But there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years. Oleksiy, a former reactor operator and shift supervisor at the plant, pointed out that all six reactors had been shut down since the plant found itself on the frontline after the Russian invasion.

Five of the reactors are in “cold shutdown”, turned off completely and being cooled, and one is in “hot shutdown”, kept at 200-250C so it would be easier to restart if conditions allowed, and to supply winter heating to the neighbouring town of Energodar.

Oleksiy, who left after Russian forces occupied the plant in March last year and is now elsewhere in Ukraine, said the last reactor should be shut down and that the plant had sufficient resources to keep all reactor cores cool.

“I think that the damage of the dam doesn’t impact the plant immediately, because they are being cooled by the safety systems located at the plant, which are spray systems,” he said. “The plant has a cooling lake, about two or three kilometres in diameter.”

The Energoatom statement said the cooling lake was filled and was at 16.6 metres (54.5ft), “which is sufficient for the power plant’s needs”

Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian nuclear scientist, said: “The fact that there’s an artificial pond next to the ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant] where water can be maintained above the reservoir level, and the fact that the reactors are in cold shutdown, offers some reassurance and increased time to respond if ZNPP starts getting affected.”

But Budjeryn, who is a senior research associate on the project on managing the atom at Harvard University, added: “The bigger problem – who is going to do it? ZNPP is already down-staffed to bare bones.”

Oleksiy said that over time water would evaporate from the cooling lake and if it could not be filled from the vast reservoir created upstream of the Nova Kakhovka dam, the turbines and the power plant could not be operated.

In his statement, Grossi said that the cooling pond should last “for some months” but it was imperative it was not damaged in fighting. The water is used to cool not just the reactor cores, but also the spent fuel and the diesel generators used for safety systems.

more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/nova-kakhovka-ukraine-dam-collapse-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea

June 9, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | 1 Comment

Four nuclear myths

By Ramesh ThakurJun 8, 2023  https://johnmenadue.com/four-nuclear-myths/

The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. Here are four myths about the utility of nuclear weapons.

Myth one: The bomb ended the second world war

The belief in the utility of nuclear weapons is widely internalised owing in no small measure to Japan’s surrender immediately after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Yet the evidence is surprisingly clear that the close chronology is a coincidence. Hiroshima was bombed on 6 and Nagasaki on 9 August. Moscow broke its neutrality pact to attack Japan on the 9th and Tokyo announced the surrender on 15 August. As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, professor of modern Russian and Soviet history at the University of California Santa Barbara, professor of modern Russian and Soviet history at the University of California Santa Barbara, persuasively argued in The Asia–Pacific Journal in 2007, in Japan’s decision-makers’ minds, the decisive factor in the unconditional surrender was the imminent Soviet entry into the Pacific war against the essentially undefended northern approaches. They feared the likelihood of the Soviet

Union as the occupying power unless Japan surrendered to the US first.

Myth two: The bomb kept the peace during the Cold War

The big territorial expansion of the former Soviet Union across central and eastern Europe came in the 1945–49 years. The US held an atomic monopoly in this period. During the Cold War, no evidence exists to show that either side had the intention to attack the other at any time, but was deterred from doing so because of nuclear weapons held by the other side. Other possible explanations for that long peace include West European integration and West European democratisation.

After the Cold War, the existence of nuclear weapons on both sides was not enough to stop the US from expanding NATO’s borders to Russia’s borders, stop Russia invading Ukraine last year, or prevent NATO from rearming Ukraine. The more or less constant US–Russia nuclear equation is irrelevant to explaining the shifting geopolitical developments. We have to look elsewhere to understand the ongoing rebalancing of US–Russia relations.

Myth three: Nuclear deterrence is 100 per cent effective

Some profess interest in nuclear weapons in order to avoid nuclear blackmail. Yet there is not one clear-cut instance of a non-nuclear state having been bullied into changing its behaviour by the overt or implicit threat of being bombed by nuclear weapons, including Ukraine. Nuclear powers have accepted defeat at the hands of non-nuclear states rather than escalate armed conflict to the nuclear level (Vietnam, Afghanistan) and nuclear-armed Britain’s Falkland Islands were even invaded by non-nuclear Argentina in 1982.

Nuclear weapons cannot be used for defence against nuclear-armed rivals either. Their mutual vulnerability to second-strike retaliatory capability is so robust for the foreseeable future that any escalation through the nuclear threshold really would amount to mutual national suicide. Their only purpose and role, therefore, is mutual deterrence.

Nuclear weapons did not stop Pakistan from occupying Kargil in Kashmir in 1999, nor India from waging a limited war to retake it. Nor do nuclear weapons buy immunity for North Korea. The biggest elements of caution in attacking it are its formidable conventional capability to hit the heavily populated parts of South Korea, including Seoul, and anxiety about how China would respond.

Nuclear weapons did not stop Pakistan from occupying Kargil in Kashmir in 1999, nor India from waging a limited war to retake it. Nor do nuclear weapons buy immunity for North Korea. The biggest elements of caution in attacking it are its formidable conventional capability to hit the heavily populated parts of South Korea, including Seoul, and anxiety about how China would respond.

Myth four: Nuclear deterrence is 100 per cent safe

The world has so far averted a nuclear catastrophe as much owing to good luck as to wise management, with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis being the most graphic example. The number of times that we have come frighteningly close to nuclear holocaust owing to misperceptions, miscalculations, near misses, and accidents is simply staggering. For nuclear peace to hold, deterrence and fail-safe mechanisms must work every single time. For nuclear Armageddon, deterrence or fail-safe mechanisms need to break down only once. This is not a comforting equation. Deterrence stability depends on rational decision-makers being always in office on all sides: a dubious and not very reassuring precondition. It depends equally critically on there being no rogue launch,

human error or system malfunction: an impossibly high bar.

A prospective Russia–NATO/US war is only one of five potential nuclear flashpoints, albeit the one with the gravest consequences. The remaining four are all in the Indo–Pacific: China-US, China-India, Korean Peninsula, and India-Pakistan. A simple transposition of the dyadic North Atlantic frameworks and lessons to comprehend the multiplex Indo-Pacific nuclear relations is both analytically flawed and entails policy

dangers for managing nuclear stability.

The geostrategic environment of the subcontinent, for example, had no parallel in the Cold War, with triangular shared borders among three nuclear-armed states, major territorial disputes, a history of many wars since 1947, compressed timeframes for using or losing nuclear weapons, political volatility and instability, and state-sponsored cross-border insurgency and terrorism.

Conclusion

The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. The extreme destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them qualitatively different in political and moral terms from other weapons, to the point of rendering them virtually unusable. Like the emperor who had no clothes, this might well be the truest explanation of why they have not been used since 1945.

The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. Remember, people are not aware of their actions while they are sleepwalking.

The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. The extreme destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them qualitatively different in political and moral terms from other weapons, to the point of rendering them virtually unusable. Like the emperor who had no clothes, this might well be the truest explanation of why they have not been used since 1945.

The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. Remember, people are not aware of their actions while they are sleepwalking.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Israel undecided on Saudi Arabia’s demand for civil nuclear technology

Israel’s security establishment is categorically opposed to the possibility of Saudi Arabia obtaining civil nuclear capabilities, but the political echelon in Israel has not made up its mind yet.

June 6, 2023, Ben Caspit @BenCaspit AL MONITOR

TEL AVIV — Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz expressed on Monday reservations about Saudi Arabia’s plans to establish a US-backed nuclear power program, in a first public statement on the issue by a senior Israeli official.

Katz made this statement as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was preparing to fly to Saudi Arabia for talks expected to include discussions of the nuclear program for which the Saudis are seeking US technology and know-how……………………………………………………………….

The Israeli defense establishment is not enthusiastic, to say the least, about Saudi access to nuclear energy, let alone uranium enrichment on its soil.

“We have been saying for years that a nuclear program in Iran will expose the entire Middle East to a nuclear arms race. This is no different in the Saudi case. With the Iranians enriching uranium to military grade and the Saudis on their way to doing so, there is no doubt that within a short time we will see progress toward nuclear weapons in Egypt, the Gulf and elsewhere as well. There is no vacuum on such a strategic issue, certainly not in the Middle East,” said an Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity………………………………..

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/06/israel-undecided-saudi-arabias-demand-civil-nuclear-technology#ixzz83zTNMzql

June 9, 2023 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Tucker Carlson steamrolls Ukraine propaganda in new show

US corporate media outlets treat curiosity as the “gravest crime,” the former TV pundit has said

7 June 23  https://www.rt.com/news/577602-tucker-carlson-twitter-show/

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has released the first episode of his new series on Twitter, taking Western news agencies to task for one-sided reporting on the conflict in Ukraine and open hostility toward anybody voicing dissenting views.

Dubbed ‘Tucker on Twitter’, the show’s first ten-minute segment was shared on the social media platform on Tuesday night. The clip opened with a monologue on the alleged Ukrainian attack on a major dam in Russia’s Kherson Region this week, which Carlson dubbed “an act of terrorism.”

“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more, and for precisely that reason the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” he said. Carlson went on to observe that a Ukrainian general had admitted to planning attacks on the Kakhovka dam facility in comments to the Washington Post last December.

While Carlson said he had little doubt that Kiev was behind the incident, he noted that several American media outlets had already suggested that Moscow may have arranged the attack, claiming they view Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as simply “too decent for terrorism.”

“Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint, a man in whom there is no sin,” he went on, describing the general attitude within the mainstream press.

The pundit drew comparisons to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry natural gas from Russia into Germany. Though Carlson argued it was “obvious” that Ukraine had carried out the sabotage, he said US media outlets had little interest in investigating, helping to make Americans among “the least informed people in the world.”

“Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” he continued, adding that while media outlets lie, “mostly they just ignore the stories that matter.”

Carlson parted ways with Fox in April, a major shake-up for the media giant, given the prominence of his prime-time program, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’. He later announced that would move his content to Twitter, where he has released other stand-alone segments similar to his former show. In his signoff for Tuesday’s episode, the host voiced hopes that Twitter would be a venue with “no gatekeepers,” but vowed to leave the site should that turn out to be false.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster, Ukraine | 4 Comments

Russia says U.S.-built F-16s could ‘accommodate’ nuclear weapons if sent to Ukraine

Reuters June 7, 20234

– Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further.

“We must keep in mind that one of the modifications of the F-16 can ‘accommodate’ nuclear weapons,” Lavrov said in a speech at a military base in Dushanbe in Tajikistan, according to a transcript on the ministry’s website…………………………………….

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has long appealed for the F-16 jets, saying their appearance with Ukrainian pilots would be a sure signal from the world that Russia’s invasion would end in defeat

Biden told G7 leaders last month that Washington supported joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighters.

U.S. National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, however, said there was no final decision on Washington sending aircraft.

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry and Marguerita Choy  https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-us-built-f-16s-could-accommodate-nuclear-weapons-if-sent-ukraine-2023-06-06/

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls for an international agency like the UN’s nuclear watchdog to oversee AI

By Associated Press  •  Updated: 07/06/2023 – 15:06

The creator of ChatGPT has suggested an international agency like the UN’s nuclear watchdog could police and regulate the technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) poses an “existential risk” to humanity, a key innovator warned during a visit to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, suggesting an international agency like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) be created to oversee the ground-breaking technology.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creator of wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT, is on a global tour to discuss the significance of AI.

“We face serious risk. We face existential risk,” said Altman. 

……………………. Hundreds of industry leaders, including Altman, have signed a letter in May that warns “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”…………………………………….. more https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/06/07/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-an-international-agency-like-the-uns-nuclear-watchdog-to-over

June 9, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | Leave a comment

Content of radioactive element in fish at Fukushima’s Nuclear Power Plant 180 times of safe limit

CGTN 6 June 23

The radioactive elements in the marine fish caught in the harbor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan far exceed safety levels for human consumption, according to a report issued by the plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on Monday. In particular, the data released show that the content of Cs-137, a radioactive element that is a common byproduct in nuclear reactors, is 180 times that of the standard maximum stipulated in Japan’s food safety law.

CGTN downloaded the English version of the report available on TEPCO’s official website. According to the data, the sampled black rockfish contains the radioactive element Cs-137 with a content of 18,000 becquerels per kilogram. Data available on the website of Fukushima Revitalization Station run by Japan’s Fukushima prefectural government shows that Japan’s current limit of radioactive cesium in general food which contains fish is set at 100 becquerels per kilogram.  

According to the report, the location where the sampled fish was caught is at the port area of Units 1 to 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where a breakwater is built and nuclear wastewater with a high concentration of radioactive substances flows in. TEPCO said it will set up multiple protective nets to prevent fish from swimming out of the harbor.

A Chinese news website sina.com.cn quoted experts noting that the radioactive elements in the nuclear wastewater could penetrate into fish, shrimp and other seafood, and later accumulate in the human body after consumption. ……………………

TEPCO on Monday started sending seawater into an underwater tunnel to be diluted before releasing the nuclear wastewater into the ocean. The company said that all facilities for the water release system are expected to be completed by the end of this month.

Local fishing communities say their businesses and livelihoods will suffer still more damage. Neighboring countries such as China and South Korea and Pacific Island nations have raised safety concerns. Environmental groups including Friends of the Earth oppose the release.  https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-06/Radioactive-element-in-fish-at-Fukushima-plant-180-times-safe-limit-1kpOlJEH9xm/index.html

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, oceans, radiation | Leave a comment

Journalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers To Hide Their Nazi Patches, New York Times Admits

AZOV soldier, UKraine

BY TYLER DURDEN

The New York Times has been forced to very, very belatedly deal with something which had long been obvious and known to many independent analysts and media outlets, but which has been carefully shielded from the mainstream masses in the West for obvious reasons. 

The surprising Monday Times headline said that “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History.” This acknowledgement comes after literally years of primarily indy journalists and geopolitical commentators pointing out that yes indeed… Ukraine’s military and paramilitary groups, especially those operating in the east since at least 2014, have a serious Nazi ideology problem. This has been exhaustively documented, again, going back years. 

But the report, which merely tries to downplay it as a “thorny issue” of Ukraine’s “unique” “History” – suggests that the real problem for Western PR is fundamentally that it’s being displayed so openly. Ukrainian troops are being asked to cover those Nazi symbols please!–as Matt Taibbi sarcastically quipped in commenting on the report.

The authors of the NYT report begin by expressing frustration over the optics of Nazi symbols being displayed so proudly on many Ukrainian soldiers’ uniforms. Suggesting that many journalistic photographs which have in some cases been featured in newspapers and media outlets worldwide (typically coupled with generally positive articles on Ukraine’s military) are merely ‘unfortunate’ or misleading, the NYT report says, “In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.”

NATO itself has in the recent past been forced to delete images on its official social media accounts due to Nazi imagery being present among Ukrainian troops during photo shoots.

The following line from the report says everything you need to know about the so-called “paper of record” and its one-sided and ultra-simplistic coverage of what many are finally waking up to realize is a war with a deeply complex reality (to say the least), and far from the MSM’s goodies vs. baddies Hollywoodesque narrative of Putler vs. the free world which is typical of networks from CNN to Fox to NBC…

From the NY Times: 

“In November, during a meeting with Times reporters near the front line, a Ukrainian press officer wore a Totenkopf variation made by a company called R3ICH (pronounced “Reich”). He said he did not believe the patch was affiliated with the Nazis. A second press officer present said other journalists had asked soldiers to remove the patch before taking photographs.”

Oops!

…………..The iconography of these groups, including a skull-and-crossbones patch worn by concentration camp guards and a symbol known as the Black Sun, now appears with some regularity on the uniforms of soldiers fighting on the front line, including soldiers who say the imagery symbolizes Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.

Some are writing more appropriate and apt headlines for the NYT story…

Only very recently Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and even President Zelensky’s office was caught in the act: 

In April, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a photograph on its Twitter account of a soldier wearing a patch featuring a skull and crossbones known as the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head. The specific symbol in the picture was made notorious by a Nazi unit that committed war crimes and guarded concentration camps during World War II.

The patch in the photograph sets the Totenkopf atop a Ukrainian flag with a small No. 6 below. That patch is the official merchandise of Death in June, a British neo-folk band that the Southern Poverty Law Center has said produces “hate speech” that “exploits themes and images of fascism and Nazism.”

To be expected, the Times still tries to run cover while desperately seeking to ‘reassure’ its audience by writing that “In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be ‘de-Nazified’ — a position that ignores the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.”

New levels of cope indeed…

But then still, the NYT concedes awkwardly, “More broadly, Ukraine’s ambivalence about these symbols, and sometimes even its acceptance of them, risks giving new, mainstream life to icons that the West has spent more than a half-century trying to eliminate.”  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/journalists-are-asking-ukrainian-soldiers-hide-their-nazi-patches-nyt-admits

June 8, 2023 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Kakhovka dam breach raises risk for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – receding waters narrow options for cooling

The Conversation June 7, 2023, Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California

A blast on June 6, 2023, destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in eastern Ukraine. The rupture lowered water levels in a reservoir upriver at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar. The reservoir supplies water necessary for cooling the plant’s shutdown reactors and spent fuel, which is uranium that has been largely but not completely depleted by the fission reaction that drives nuclear power plants.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspectors on-site to monitor effects of the war at the plant, issued a statement saying that there was no imminent danger. Nevertheless, the destruction of the dam increases the risk of a disaster at the plant, a risk already heightened by ongoing combat in the area.

The Conversation asked Najmedin Meshkati, a professor and nuclear safety expert at the University of Southern California, to explain what the dropping water level means for the safety of the nuclear power plant and the ongoing risks to the plant’s spent fuel.

Why are dropping water levels a threat to the power plant?

The immediate situation is becoming very precarious. The dam is downstream from the plant, meaning that the flooding will not jeopardize the plant. But the plant draws water from a major reservoir on the river for its cooling system. This reservoir is draining because the downstream dam has been damaged.

The plant doesn’t need the massive amount of water it otherwise would because its six reactors are in cold shutdown. But the plant still needs water for three purposes: to reduce the residual heat from the shutdown reactors, to cool the spent fuel, and to cool the emergency diesel generators if the plant loses off-site power.

The plant’s operators pumped water from the reservoir into a cooling pond, which is why the IAEA said the plant has enough water for several months. But that’s the last resort, which is why the agency also said that it’s vital that the cooling pond remains intact. If the plant loses the cooling pond, the only hope would be to try something like they did at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. They brought in huge water pumps to pump saltwater from the Pacific Ocean into the reactors to cool them down. The plant operators may need to try to pump water from the Dnieper River.

The two lifelines of any nuclear plant, whether operational or closed down, are water and electricity. The newly launched Ukrainian counteroffensive puts these two lifelines in further jeopardy. Since the Russian occupation, the plant has suffered a lot and lost off-site power seven times. My immediate concern is that if the plant loses its last remaining power line, which powers the cooling pumps, then it needs to rely on emergency diesel generators. There are 20 generators with on-site storage of only 10 to 15 days of fuel supply. Getting fuel while the counteroffensive is going on is another major challenge.

What does it mean to have a nuclear reactor in cold shutdown?………………………………………………………………..

What are the risks from the spent fuel at the plant?

The plant still needs a reliable source of electricity to cool the six huge spent fuel pools that are inside the containment structures and to remove residual heat from the shutdown reactors. The cooling pumps for the spent fuel pools need much less electricity than the cooling pumps on the reactor’s primary and secondary loops, and the spent fuel cooling system could tolerate a brief electricity outage.

One more important factor is that the spent fuel storage racks in the spent fuel pools at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant were compacted to increase capacity, according to a 2017 Ukrainian government report to the IAEA. The greater number and more compacted the stored spent fuel rods, the more heat they generate and so more power is needed to cool them.

These massive concrete cylinders store spent nuclear fuel rods. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant stores much of its spent fuel outdoors in casks like these. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

There is also a dry spent fuel storage facility at the plant. Dry spent fuel storage involves packing spent fuel rods into massive cylinders, or casks, which require no water or other coolants. The casks are designed to keep the fuel rods contained for at least 50 years. However, the casks are not under the containment structures at the plant, and though they were designed to withstand being crashed into by an airliner, it’s not clear whether artillery shelling and aerial bombardment, particularly repeated attacks, could crack open the casks and release radiation into the grounds of the plant.

………………………..This situation is rapidly evolving. And if something happens and there is a radiation release, it’s going to spread around the world. https://theconversation.com/kakhovka-dam-breach-raises-risk-for-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-receding-waters-narrow-options-for-cooling-207192

June 8, 2023 Posted by | incidents | 1 Comment

Washington Post reported Ukraine conducted a test strike with HIMARS on the Kahovka dam last year

the Washington Post reported in December 2022 that Ukraine had previously carried out a test strike using American HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) on a dam located on the Russian-held side of Ukraine along the Dnieper River in Kahovka. They cited Ukrainian Major-General Andriy Kovalchuk.

Human Events Media Group 06/06/2023

A dam on the Dnieper River was destroyed on Tuesday, flooding a substantial amount of the area where Ukrainian and Russian troops are engaged in fighting, after Ukraine launched their much-anticipated counter-offensive. The dam was in Russian control, and has been since shortly after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Ukraine claimed Russia blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam and said it was a war crime, while Russia has said that it was Ukraine who “sabotaged the dam, to distract attention from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering,” Reuters reports.


Ukraine’s counter offensive has been in the works for some time, specifically targeting the Russian-held city of Kherson, and was just recently launched. 


“Russian terrorists,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram. “The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land.”

However, the Washington Post reported in December 2022 that Ukraine had previously carried out a test strike using American HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) on a dam located on the Russian-held side of Ukraine along the Dnieper River in Kahovka. They cited Ukrainian Major-General Andriy Kovalchuk.

“Kovalchuk considered flooding the river,” the Washington Post reported. “The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort.”………………..  https://humanevents.com/2023/06/06/wapo-reported-ukraine-conducted-a-test-strike-with-himars-on-the-kahovka-dam-last-year

June 8, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Ukrainian “counter-offensive”: A new stage in the US-NATO war against Russia

Every aspect of the war, including the “counter-offensive,” is being directed by the Biden administration, the Pentagon and NATO. It is being led by forces trained by NATO and armed with NATO weapons, including depleted uranium shells supplied by the UK. Operationally, it is organized from Washington and the Pentagon. The masses of Ukrainians are being exploited as cannon fodder. Among the first divisions thrown into the battle, many are raw draftees with little or no training.

WSWS Joseph Kishore, David North, 5 June 2023

The US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine is entering a new stage this week, with reports of a significant increase in fighting along a broad front Monday and enormous casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on its official Telegram channel that Russian forces countered a Ukrainian offensive on the Vremevka outpost in South Donetsk, which is currently controlled by Russia. It stated that over 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and that Russia seized 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks.

Russia also reported an offensive of Ukrainian troops toward the south, against the territory along the coast of the Sea of Azov that connects Crimea and the Donbas, both held by Russia or pro-Russian forces since 2014. A Russian-appointed official in the city of Zaporizhzhia said that the fighting in the south involved extensive shelling and strikes by Ukraine using British-French Storm Shadow missiles.

It is apparent that Monday’s operations mark the beginning of the long anticipated “summer counter-offensive.” While there is, at present, limited information, one thing can be said with certainty: The fighting will result in a vast increase in the number of deaths, both Ukrainian and Russian.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that “a large number of soldiers are going to die,” but “we are going to do it.” Reliable estimates place the death toll of Ukrainians in the war so far at 300,000.

Every aspect of the war, including the “counter-offensive,” is being directed by the Biden administration, the Pentagon and NATO. It is being led by forces trained by NATO and armed with NATO weapons, including depleted uranium shells supplied by the UK. Operationally, it is organized from Washington and the Pentagon. The masses of Ukrainians are being exploited as cannon fodder. Among the first divisions thrown into the battle, many are raw draftees with little or no training.

The US and the NATO powers are determined to inflict a Russian defeat, with dreams of a military parade of NATO troops in the streets of Moscow. The Financial Times wrote on Monday that “there has been a notable change of tone among senior western officials, who have appeared increasingly skeptical about Russian military capabilities. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, last week made a clear case for an outright Ukrainian victory based on ‘territorial integrity’ [that is, retaking all territory presently controlled by Russia] in a speech that also disparaged Russia’s military ‘as the second-strongest in Ukraine.’”

The FT also cited comments by Ben Wallace, the UK defense secretary, that Ukraine could take back Crimea as part of the offensive. “What we’ve seen on the battlefield is that, if you punch Russian forces in the wrong place, they’ll actually collapse,” he said.

Such statements combine propaganda with self-delusion. The Ukrainian military has been bled white over the past 15 months. It is entirely reliant on the US and NATO, not only to provide training and weaponry, but increasingly the manpower necessary for escalating the war.

The operations in Ukraine are only one part of a barely disguised, undeclared war between NATO and Russia, which is expanding in intensity and geographical scope.

Developments on the ground in Ukraine have been timed to coincide with a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo, Norway late last week. This meeting itself was to prepare a full NATO war summit next month in Vilnius, Lithuania, only a short drive from the Russian border. Behind closed doors, the leaders of the NATO powers are discussing and implementing the next stage in the escalation.

Already, Ukraine, operating under the direction of the US, has launched drone strikes targeting Moscow, begun shelling Russian cities, and organized incursions into Russian territory, using vehicles and equipment provided by the US and its NATO allies. Poland has become directly involved in the conflict, with members of the so-called “Polish Volunteer Corps” of Polish citizens participating in cross-border raids from Ukraine into Russia.

An article in the Washington Post (“Defend ‘every inch’ of NATO territory? New strategy is a work in progress”), published Monday, opens with a description of French paratroopers being dropped into Estonia, which borders Russia and is only 150 km from St. Petersburg. The Post notes that the French war exercises in Estonia are “part of a stepped-up rehearsal of what it would take to reinforce a [NATO] battle group” in the country.

Speaking of what can only be described as a massive military mobilization, the newspaper writes, “NATO has bolstered its eastern flank in part by establishing battle groups in four additional countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia,” with 10,000 troops across eight battle groups. Dozens of ships and hundreds of planes, along with ground-based air defense, have been sent to countries on Russia’s border, particularly the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

War games are taking place currently throughout Europe, including the massive “Defender Europe 2023” exercise, which began on April 22 and involves 26,000 troops from the US and its allies. The final component of the operations, “Saber Guardian 23,” began last week and is centered on the Black Sea, to the south of Ukraine. It involves soldiers and sailors from Albania, Bulgaria, Belgium, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia and the United States.

Given the statements of leading US and NATO officials that they are committed to the military defeat of Russia, the Putin government will be compelled to interpret all these actions as possible preparations for NATO incursions into Russian territory. The purpose of all these operations is to support the Ukrainian offensive by distracting Russian military commanders from exclusive focus on the Ukrainian front and compelling them to divert forces to other border regions.

In the capitals of the NATO powers, a mood of reckless hysteria prevails. Over the weekend, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, confronted by protesters at a gathering of his Social Democratic Party outside of Berlin, unleashed a Hitlerian rant against Russia and denounced Putin as a “murderer” and a “warmonger.”

The White House has rejected calls for a ceasefire or negotiated settlement to the conflict that does not include full capitulation by Russia. Encouraged by Russia’s failure to respond to each escalation, the Biden administration has concluded that there is no “red line” that it cannot cross.

In an article published under the headline “Biden Administration Shrugs Off Ukraine’s Attacks in Russia,” the New York Times wrote on Monday that the White House has discarded the pretense of discouraging direct attacks in Russia by Ukraine, using US-supplied weaponry. “Behind closed doors,” the Times wrote, “senior administration officials have seemed even less fazed. ‘Look, it’s a war,’ one senior Pentagon official said last Thursday. ‘This is what happens in a war.’”…………………  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/06/pers-j06.htm

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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