How will free-spending Ford pay for Ontario’s $400-billion nuclear plans?

One of the central unanswered questions about the Doug Ford government’s nuclear expansion plans for Ontario has been: How they will be paid for?
Estimates of the capital costs of the government’s plans, based on past projects and recent experiences in the United States and Europe, exceed $400-billion.
Mark Winfield, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 24, 2026, Mark Winfield is a professor of environmental and urban change at York University and co-editor of Sustainable Energy Transitions in Canada (UBC Press 2023). https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-how-will-free-spending-ford-pay-for-ontarios-400-billion-nuclear-plans/#comments
One of the central unanswered questions about the Doug Ford government’s nuclear expansion plans for Ontario has been: How they will be paid for? The program includes new nuclear power plants at Darlington, Bruce and Wesleyville, and the refurbishments of existing reactors at the Bruce, Pickering and Darlington sites. Estimates of the capital costs of the government’s plans, based on past projects and recent experiences in the United States and Europe, exceed $400-billion.
The government’s plans envision an electricity system that is 75-per-cent nuclear in terms of output, up from approximately 50 per cent today. If the costs of these plans are to be paid for through the rates charged for the electricity produced, electricity bills will rise dramatically.
Estimates of the costs of electricity from new nuclear plants in Ontario range from the mid-20 cents a kilowatt-hour to more than 40 cents a kwh – double or even triple current consumer electricity costs. Such increases would undermine energy affordability, Ontario’s economic competitiveness and any plans for decarbonization through electrification.
Another alternative could be to hide the capital costs as debt, while keeping hydro rates low. That was the strategy followed by previous governments with the province’s original nuclear construction program between 1966 and 1993. In the end, the accumulation of debt flowing from that approach reached $38-billion (about $72-billion in current dollars), leaving the provincial utility, Ontario Hydro, economically inviable and effectively bankrupt.
A series of revelations over the past few months have made it clear that the province seems to have another, potentially equally problematic, plan in mind. It has become apparent that the 29-per-cent increase in electricity rates last Nov. 1 was directly related to the financing arrangements for the $25-billion Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington new-build reactor project, and the $26-billion refurbishment of the Pickering B nuclear station.
The impact on residential hydro bills of the November increase was mitigated through a near doubling of the province’s electricity rebate program, at a cost of approximately $2-billion a year, paid out of general revenues. In effect, that meant the province had begun paying for the capital costs of the Darlington and Pickering projects out of general provincial revenues. Moreover, recent changes to Ontario Energy Board rules have created an unprecedented situation in which ratepayers and taxpayers are now being asked to pay for nuclear projects that may never be completed or function.
The November increase in the rebate program brought the total costs of the province’s electricity rate subsidy programs to approximately $8.5-billion a year. These expenditures now amount to the equivalent of nearly two-thirds of the province’s deficit, exceed total expenditures in the justice sector, and are approximately double the annual capital investments in schools and health care.
The Pickering B and Darlington new-build projects are only the beginnings of the province’s nuclear expansion plans. Additional projects proposed for Wesleyville and the Bruce nuclear site could involve capital expenditures in excess of $300-billion.
If financed in the same way, the portion of the provincial budget consumed by electricity subsidies could reach $20-billion a year – nearly 10 per cent of the province’s total budget. That would force either dramatic increases in the provincial deficit to more than $30-billion a year, substantial tax increases or major reductions in spending in other – already in the view of many analysts – chronically underfunded areas such as health care, education, municipal and social services, and non-electricity public infrastructure.
There is, however, another, and better, option. None of the province’s plans have been subject to any external review in terms of their economic, technological or environmental rationality. Moreover, the province’s plans seem premised on assumptions of absolute technological, economic, social, environmental and political certainty reaching decades into the future. These are things about which, in a ruptured and destabilized world, there can only be absolute certainty of uncertainty. The situation adds to the risks of the province locking into a deeply inflexible energy pathway centred on large, high-cost and high-risk generating assets.
Ontario has been the subject of more efforts to develop and model alternative pathways for its electricity system, and the broader decarbonization of its energy system, than any other province in Canada. But there is no process to assess whether the directions set by the provincial government represent the best options for the province in economic and environmental terms relative to the alternative pathways that have been identified.
That situation needs to change rapidly. The province needs to engage in a serious, objective and independent assessment of its energy options for meeting future energy needs, while controlling costs, decarbonizing the province’s electricity system and advancing sustainability.
Britain must rethink its disastrous nuclear expansion – public protest can make it happen!

Sophie Bolt, CND General Secretary, 24 Feb 26, https://cnduk.org/britain-must-rethink-its-disastrous-nuclear-expansion-public-protest-can-make-it-happen/
Caroline Lucas is a former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and a vice-president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Here she writes ahead of Saturday’s national demonstration against Britain’s nuclear jets at RAF Marham and why public protest can make the government rethink its nuclear expansion plans.
With the end of the New START Treaty, the last remaining arms control agreement between the US and Russia, we now face the prospect of a new nuclear arms race without any limits on the two biggest nuclear armed states, who together own 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. Given the world-destroying power of these nuclear arsenals it is critical that pressure is brought to bear on both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to support its voluntary extension for at least another year. This would give space to kick-start a formal extension of the Treaty, bringing an element of stability and transparency to what is an increasingly dangerous and unstable world in which the threat of nuclear weapons being used is higher than at any time since the Cold War.
The expiry of New START was one of the reasons given by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to push forward the hands of the Doomsday Clock by four seconds. Now standing at 85 seconds to midnight, it acts as a stark warning of just how close we are to an irreversible catastrophe caused by humanity – through nuclear war or climate collapse. Rather than pursuing policies that will help push back the clock, nuclear states spent over $100 billion on these weapons in 2024, replacing and modernising them. Meanwhile, challenges to the nuclear taboo are intensifying with increasing calls for the use of so-called ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
Shamefully, Britain is part of the problem, with the ongoing replacement of its nuclear-armed submarine fleet and the announcement last summer of its decision to purchase US nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets. Based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, the first 12 jets will be delivered by 2030 and a total of 75 will be bought over the course of the programme’s 40-year lifespan.
Even before the first delivery, expenditure on the programme has already spiralled out of control. The MoD initially costed the F-35 programme – which also includes non-nuclear F-35Bs – at £57 billion. However, this failed to include any sustainment costs, including staff, fuelling and maintenance. The National Audit Office has now estimated the programme will cost at least £71 billion. But this still doesn’t cover any of the costs for the lengthy, involved process of NATO integration. As the Public Accounts Committee revealed, this is because the MoD themselves have yet to figure this out. Footing the bill for this ‘blank cheque’ purchase will be the British public, at the expense of public services and climate action.
The purchase also ties us closer to the dangerous leadership of Donald Trump. These jets and their crews will be assigned to NATO’s nuclear Dual Capable Aircraft mission and RAF pilots will be trained to carry US B61-12 nuclear bombs now likely deployed to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. One of these bombs has the destructive power three times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Modelling from Princeton University found that the use of these so-called ‘battlefield nukes’ could quickly escalate into a wider nuclear confrontation, leading to 2.6 million deaths in the first few hours alone. Rather than keeping us safe, these nuclear weapons undermine our security and ensure we are firmly on the frontline of a nuclear war.
The expansion also breaches international law. As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Britain is obliged to pursue disarmament in good faith. However, a new legal opinion argues ‘[t]he decision of the UK to purchase F-35A fighter jets rather than any other model is precisely because the aircraft can “deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons” and thereby enable the RAF to reacquire “a nuclear role for the first time since 1998.” Reinstating a nuclear role for the RAF represents a reversal of the UK’s long-term commitment to nuclear disarmament, including under the NPT.’
Given the grave consequences of this expansion, this would surely warrant a robust and serious debate in Parliament. Yet MPs were not consulted about the purchase ahead of Starmer’s announcement at last summer’s NATO summit. Since then, the government has stated it has no plans for such a debate.
Not surprisingly, there is widespread opposition to the decision, including from the Green’s Party Leader, Zack Polanski, and our MPs and Peers. They join many trade union leaders, faith communities, civil society and climate groups all calling for the government to rethink this disastrous nuclear expansion and instead pursue a foreign policy based on de-escalation, diplomacy, and international cooperation.
That’s why I’m urging all those who want to halt this deadly nuclear expansion to join CND’s upcoming demonstration at RAF Marham, in Norfolk, on Saturday 28 February. Not only is this base the central hub for the government’s notorious F-35 fighter jet programme, from where parts for these jets have been transported to Israel. It is also where these new nuclear-capable jets will be stationed. Of course, the government doesn’t want you to know what goes on at this base. And it certainly doesn’t want peaceful protesters shining a spotlight on it. But protest has always been central in making political leaders step back from the nuclear brink and take action to disarm nuclear weapons. It is a rich part of Britain’s history. And we need this now more than ever.
New Book: The Dangers of Ionising Radiation

A Scientific Guide to
Radiation Risks for Government Agencies, Legal Professionals and Medical
Clinicians, by Dr Ian Fairlie.
Ethics Press 25th Feb 2026,
https://ethicspress.com/products/the-dangers-of-ionising-radiation
National Endowment for Democracy leader cut off in Congress after boasting of ‘deploying’ 200 Starlinks to Iran amid violence.

The National Endowment for Democracy’s president, Damon Wilson, bragged to a House committee of his group’s aggressive efforts to spark unrest in Iran, including by smuggling Starlink terminals and fashioning anti-Iran narratives for the media.
Max Blumenthal and Wyatt Reed, The Grayzone, February 24, 2026

Damon Wilson, the head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was interrupted by a member of Congress during a House oversight hearing on February 24 after revealing that his agency “began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on” amid the violence which swept through Iran last month.
Before he could finish the sentence, he was cut off by the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Rep. Lois Frankel, who told Wilson: “You know what, I’m going to interrupt you – we’d better not talk about it.”
Wilson’s comments had been prompted by a question from Frankel, who requested details of what appears to be a new and apparently secret initiative by the State Department to provide Starlink terminals to Iranians.
Wilson appeared to take credit for both the recent unrest and Iran and subsequent media framing of the chaos. “What we’re seeing today, the Endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks… that allowed information to go both in and out of the country,” he stated.
According to the New York Times, the Elon Musk-produced internet systems had been smuggled into the country by a “ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers [who] pierced Iran’s digital barricades.” It is clear now that the NED was at least partly responsible for funding and coordinating that network.
With Starlink emerging as a key weapon in the information war waged against Iran, it’s unclear how anti-government actors have managed to smuggle the devices into the country. But a recent incident in which a senior Dutch diplomat was caught trying to sneak multiple Starlink units and satellite phones through security at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Airport gives a hint.
The National Endowment for Democracy was founded in 1982 under the auspices of then-CIA Director William Casey to topple socialist and independent governments through the direct sponsorship of NGO’s, media organizations and political parties. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” NED co-founder Allen Weinstein said of the Endowment’s work in 1991.
Despite its mission of promoting transparency and “fundamental freedoms” abroad, the NED is now a dark money group which conceals the names of its local partners under a “duty of care” policy announced in 2025. During his congressional testimony this February, Wilson insisted the policy was necessary for the security of grantees on the ground.
The NED’s work to smuggle Starlink terminals into Iran is therefore a covert operation aimed at promoting unrest. And according to Wilson, it is now a key part of the Endowment’s most aggressive initiative.
Iran “has been a huge priority for the Endowment. Iran has been, since I arrived at the Endowment, our fastest-growing program,” Wilson told Frankel.
“It’s now one of our largest programs globally, that involves both direct partners – Iranian groups – as well as our core institutes.”…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Violent regime change riots erupted again this January 8 and 9 across Iran, resulting in the burning of police stations, hundreds of mosques and worship sites, government buildings, marketplaces and lethal mob assaults on unarmed guards as well as police officers. The violence only stopped when Iranian security services imposed an internet blackout and neutralized thousands of Starlink terminals.
The Iranian government has provided the names and identification numbers of over 3000 citizens who were killed during the two days of rioting. But as The Grayzone reported, the NED-funded NGO, Human Rights Activists in Iran, initially claimed the death toll was over twice as high.
Now, as mainstream outlets like The Guardian cite dubious monarchist sources to exaggerate the death toll even further, the NED’s Wilson has revealed that his organization is working with “human rights networks” to “provide international media and other credible sources of what’s happened.”
…………………………………………… Rep. Frankel closed the session by suggesting that the US government was mirroring many of the repressive tactics the NED condemned abroad: “Political enemies being imprisoned by autocratic leaders. Masked men going into homes and terrorizing people. Certainly can understand why so many people are fleeing their countries. Unfortunately, it sounds very sad, because it sounds like the story that’s going on here.” https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/24/ned-congress-starlinks-iran-violence/
Webinar March 18 @ 1 PM EST: An Assessment of SMR Projects: The Case of Canada

Everyone invited • register for the zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o8BIIOUvQ2ONJR1nta65DQ#/registration
Host: Nuclear Transparency Watch • Paris, France
Co-host: Sustainability Learning Lab, St. Thomas University • Fredericton, NB, Canada
Speakers:
Susan O’Donnell, PhD • St. Thomas University
M.V. Ramana, PhD • University of British Columbia
Moderator:
Madis Vasser, PhD • Senior expert on SMRs for Friends of the Earth Estonia
An Assessment of SMR Projects: The Case of Canada
In 2018 Canadians were first introduced to a strategic plan coordinated by the federal government and several provinces to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) across the country.
Since then, the federal and provincial governments in Canada have spent more than $4.5 billion on SMR activities. No SMR is operating in Canada. Although an SMR is to be built at the Darlington site, so far concrete has not been poured into the ground, which marks the traditional start of reactor construction.
Our webinar will review SMR activities, briefly introduce the different SMR designs that have been considered, and discuss the different players engaged in and profiting from SMR activities.
Wednesday, March 18 at 1 PM EST (2 PM Atlantic) • Zoom registration:
Susan O’Donnell is Adjunct Research Professor in the Sustainability and Environmental Studies Program and Primary Investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
M.V. Ramana is Professor; Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security; Director pro tem School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Everyone who registers will receive a link to the report by the same authors, to be published in March 2026 by the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University: “Eight years on the roadmap: Assessing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in Canada”
This webinar notice is also on the web, share the link:
The End of Baseload Power as We Know It
By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Oil Price, Feb 23, 2026,
- China and France are retrofitting coal and nuclear plants to operate more intermittently, reflecting how growing renewable penetration is reshaping traditional base-load generation economics.
- Gas remains the dominant new-build fuel in the U.S. for now, but examples like California show renewables plus storage steadily displacing fossil generation.
- Coal plants may see short-term life extensions, while new nuclear looks economically uncompetitive.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-End-of-Baseload-Power-as-We-Know-It.amp.html
Democratic congressional leaders are working to stop War Powers Resolution opposing Trump’s criminal Iran war.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 26 Feb 26
Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are horrified that a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to stop Trump’s planned criminal war on Iran might actually come to a vote this week.
The last thing they want is for Democrats, including themselves, to go on record to stop Trump from his dastardly planned attack. Why? Both leaders, like many fellow Democrats, support the likely upcoming Trump attack but are loathe to admit such. They either truly believe the nonsense Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and represents a threat to the homeland…or they are simply aligning themselves with Israel’s interests, not America’s, due to the millions pumped into Democratic campaign coffers by the Israel lobby.
Neither Schumer nor Jeffries utter a word about their pro Israel, pro Iran war beliefs. They know a large majority of voters reject Trump’s rush to war to cater to Israel’s military interests over America’s national security interests. Schumer and Jeffries stay silent so Trump can self-destruct when US body bags arrive home from Iran’s missile killing fields.
Unlike pro Israel Republican lawmakers who brag about their fealty to Israel and the need to topple Iran into failed state status, Democratic lawmakers want it both ways. Destroy Iran while laying the blame for all the lethal blowback killing Americans on Trump’s doorstep.
Schumer and Jeffries had no issue supporting the War Powers Resolution to stop Trump from invading Venezuela to kidnap its president. That resolution neither affected Israel nor was likely to incur massive US casualties. Voting for the resolution, bound to fail due to solid Republican support, brought no political fallout.
Schumer and Jeffries will not publically oppose bringing the Iran War Powers Resolution to a vote. They can’t leave any fingerprints on their opposition to it. Behind the scenes they offer process concerns, objections and caucus unity arguments to slow down the march to a vote; indeed possibly prevent it before Trump launches possible the most catastrophic war this century.
Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries want their cake and eat it too. Destroy Iran and the Trump presidency by remaining AWOL from the most critical issue they have ever faced. You cannot get more cynical than the Schumer, Jeffries tag team allowing Trump to blunder into catastrophic war to serve a foreign government.
US-UK tech talks restart with a focus on nuclear projects.

London and Washington have tentatively restarted work on their
multibillion-pound “tech prosperity deal”, which was paused last year
after President Donald Trump piled pressure on the UK to cede ground in
wider trade talks.
Senior US and UK officials have initiated discussions
about collaboration on civil nuclear technologies and on hosting a joint
summit on fusion technologies, according to multiple people briefed on the
talks. They described the deal as “unsticking”. The US-UK “tech
prosperity deal”, which was announced in September last year during
Trump’s state visit, aimed to spur co-operation between the two countries
in areas including AI, quantum computing and nuclear energy.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said at the time that the two nations were
embarking upon a “golden age of nuclear” energy, with more
transatlantic co-operation and speedier regulatory approvals for atomic
projects. The deal was touted by the UK as including £31bn worth of
investment from America’s top technology companies.
However, the US
suspended the deal in early December, with UK officials claiming the Trump
administration was pushing for wider trade concessions outside the tech
partnership. One of the projects announced was an agreement between UK
energy company Centrica and US nuclear group X-energy to build advanced
high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors in Hartlepool. Aerospace and
engineering company Rolls-Royce also said it had entered the US regulatory
process for its small modular reactors, signalling its intent to roll them
out in the US.
The tech deal was paused late last year after US officials
became increasingly frustrated with the UK’s lack of willingness to address
so-called non-tariff barriers in its wider trade negotiations, including
regulations governing food and industrial goods.
FT 25th Feb 2026, https://www.ft.com/content/0992b6d0-5d10-4a7a-a505-6cda84946e6d
SpaceX and Blue Origin abruptly shift priorities amid US Golden Dome push

Thursday, Feb 19, 2026, https://www.defensenews.com/space/2026/02/19/spacex-and-blue-origin-abruptly-shift-priorities-amid-us-golden-dome-push/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dfn-space
Just a year ago, SpaceX majority owner Elon Musk dismissed going to the moon as a “distraction.” Now, SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing toward it, and the Pentagon may be the reason why.
Within weeks of each other, the two largest U.S. commercial space companies abruptly shifted their priorities toward lunar development. The moves came as the Department of Defense accelerates plans for a next-generation missile shield known as the Golden Dome, raising questions about whether America’s return to the moon is as much about defense as it is exploration.
In early February, SpaceX announced it would redirect plans for a future city on Mars to establishing one on the moon. The reversal was striking, as Musk previously insisted Mars was the only meaningful destination.
Just days prior to this announcement, Blue Origin quietly paused its New Shepard tourism program for at least two years to increase focus on lunar development, framing the move as part of the nation’s goal of returning to the moon.
However, the timing may suggest a more strategic approach.
In December 2025, the White House issued an executive order calling for a missile shield prototype by 2028, critical for the Golden Dome initiative.
This order also set a timeline for an American lunar return by 2028, with elements of a permanent moon presence targeted for 2030.
Defense officials, such as Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. Shawn Bratton, have emphasized that commercial partnerships will be essential to achieving these goals.
SpaceX is reportedly in line for a $2 billion Pentagon contract to build a 600-satellite constellation supporting Golden Dome tracking and targeting, though the award has not been formally confirmed.
The project would rely on low Earth orbit satellites capable of rapid, near-real-time missile detection. Such systems improve coverage, but remain vulnerable to anti-satellite attacks from adversaries.
The company’s shift to the moon could change that equation. Lunar-based infrastructure would sit far beyond the reach of most anti-satellite capabilities, offering more resilient communications and sensing layers.
In this scenario, the moon could become a strategic “high ground,” which could offer the Pentagon a more durable and far-reaching view for missile detection and surveillance.
Just 15 days before Blue Origin announced its shift toward the moon, the Missile Defense Agency added the company to its $151 billion SHIELD contract, a Pentagon program allowing firms to compete for Golden Dome-related work.
While no specific awards are guaranteed, the timing is noteworthy. Blue Origin is now putting lunar logistics front and center, pausing the New Shepard program to focus resources on that effort.
The company’s Blue Ring vehicle is designed for orbital maneuvering and refueling, capabilities that could one day support sensor deployment and flexible positioning beyond Earth’s orbit, where they are less vulnerable to attack and can provide broader global coverage.
Meanwhile, its Blue Moon MK1 and MK2 landers can deliver multi-ton payloads to the lunar surface, which could be enough to deploy communications systems, sensors or other infrastructure to remote locations, potentially supporting Golden Dome-like operations.
Taken together, these developments could suggest a broader transformation in the strategic landscape of space, one that increasingly intersects with homeland defense and global security.
Schumer, Jeffries blink…Senate, House to vote on War Powers Resolution next week to stop Trump’s criminal war on Iran

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition, 27 Feb 26
The two Democratic leaders in Congress failed in their attempt to quash a bi partisan War Powers Resolution demanding Trump hold off any war on Iran till he makes the case before Congress. That’s not just morally required, it’s constitutionally required.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would much prefer Congress to remain constitutionally silent. They both would like to see Trump demolish Iran on behalf of Israel, while self-destructing his presidency when the toll of senseless war visits the homeland. But they’re now on board, bowing to pressure from congressional Democratic peace advocates and the majority of Americans who loathe the rush to war to serve Israel’s regional hegemonic interests, not America’s national security interests.
Alas, the vote next week could be seven long days from now, plenty of time for Trump to act unilaterally, the Congress, the Constitution, the American people be damned.
DOOMSDAY: The Suicide Pact Nobody Voted For

COMMENT. I really do not know what to think about this one.
I am aware that Russia busily does lots of propaganda – which we must read with a sceptical eye. But so does the West.
And I’m sorry to say it -but the idea that the West might supply Ukraine with some sort of covert nuclear weaponry – that’s not such a wayout idea.
Islander Reports, Gerry Nolan, Feb 25, 2026, https://islanderreports.substack.com/p/doomsday-the-suicide-pact-nobody
Russia accuses Ukraine of seeking to acquire nuclear weapon with help from UK and France
Reuters, Wed, February 25, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-accuses-ukraine-seeking-acquire-nuclear-weapon-with-help-uk-france-2026-02-24/
DOOMSDAY is the only word that fits — but let’s name the madness with the surgical clarity this moment demands. On the fourth anniversary of a war they have already lost, London and Paris have apparently decided the answer is not negotiation, not dignity, not the elementary statecraft of knowing when you are beaten — but nuclear escalation into the abyss. We are well past the point of any strategy on NATO’s part — there is only one word to describe the insanity, and that word is pathology.
Russia’s SVR names the weapon with the kind of clinical specificity that cannot be dismissed as propaganda: France’s TN75 miniaturized thermonuclear warhead, the crown jewel of the M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile — to be covertly dismembered, smuggled in components, transferred to Kyiv, and cosmetically disguised as a Ukrainian “indigenous development.”
A lie so architecturally transparent it insults every arms inspector, every treaty signatory, every breathing human being who has spent eighty years constructing the fragile scaffolding of nuclear non-proliferation. Kiev on cue calls it an absurd lie. Paris calls it blatant disinformation. London says there is “no truth to this.” And yet not one of them has called an emergency press conference to repudiate. Not one has or will provide anything of material and consequence to clear their name. They have issued banal statements — the diplomatic equivalent of a man caught with his hand in the vault saying he was simply checking the lock.
And here is the question that neither London nor Paris can answer — because no democratic process on earth has ever asked it. No voter in France went to the polls to authorise the covert transfer of thermonuclear warheads to an active war zone. No British citizen marked a ballot for a policy that Russian doctrine formally classifies as a joint act of war against a nuclear power. No electorate in Europe or America — not one — was consulted on the decision to sleepwalk their children to the edge of the nuclear precipice. Power of this magnitude, exercised in this darkness, over consequences this irreversible, was simply taken — pocketed in the corridor of an intelligence briefing, ratified by no one, answerable to nothing.
These are not the moves of men who believe they are winning. These are the desperate, clock-burning sacrifices of players who have already lost the board — and are now reaching across the table to upturn it entirely, praying the chaos spares them the humiliation of checkmate. Four years of weapons, treasure, blood, and Western credibility fed into the Ukrainian furnace — and the front line tells the only truth that matters. The empire of narrative cannot survive contact with artillery mathematics. They know the position is lost. This is what lost looks like when the men responsible have nuclear access and no accountability.
And Germany — Germany, the nation that carries within its civilizational bone marrow the precise and irreversible cost of catastrophic military hubris — said no. Berlin walked. The SVR records it with almost contemptuous brevity: Germany “wisely refused to participate in this dangerous adventure.” Let that land like a sentence from a war crimes tribunal. The country that gave the twentieth century its two defining lessons in what happens when European leaders mistake belligerence for strategy — that country looked at the plan, looked at the men presenting it, and quietly pushed back its chair. The defeated always betray themselves in their final moves. Nothing in the entire arc of this conflict has announced strategic bankruptcy with more devastating eloquence than the moment your most historically scarred, most catastrophe-literate ally looks at your masterstroke and walks out without a word.
Russia’s nuclear posture requires no interpretation, no Kremlinology, no specialist decoder. It is written in language so unambiguous that ignorance is impossible and innocence is forfeit: aggression by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power constitutes a joint attack — on both. Not metaphor. Not negotiating flourish. A published military-legal framework with four years of enforced red lines behind it. A wall of iron. The Federation Council has formally called on London, Paris, the UN Security Council, and the IAEA to investigate. Peskov has confirmed it enters the Geneva room. Medvedev has said what follows in language requiring no translation. They are not bluffing. They have never needed to. And yet here are Starmer and Macron — Dr. Strangelove without the self-awareness, without the dark comedy, without even the saving grace of fictional distance — triggering, knowingly, what their own doctrine names as nuclear war.
Look at the photograph used by Reuters capturing the arrogance and incompetence like so many other photos do. Four incompetent men outside the black door of Number 10 — handshakes, dark suits, the performance of gravity. They do not look like men who know they are already ghosts. That is the most terrifying thing about them — they never do. What we are witnessing in real time, on the precise anniversary of the war’s ignition, is not statecraft. It is not strategy. It is not even desperation with a plan. It is a collective suicide pact authored by a defeated establishment so hollowed out by its own mythology, so physically incapable of absorbing the verdict of the battlefield, that they are still pushing pawns across a board with no squares remaining — too blind to see the checkmate, too arrogant to hear the piece hit the floor.
History will not struggle to name what this was. The tragedy is that there may be no historians left to write it.
Nuclear power station workers ‘failed to ensure safety’ after incident.

Nuclear watchdog said the electrical cabling failing presented a ‘significant potential risk’
Matthew Fulton, STV News, Feb 25th, 2026
Workers at a nuclear station in Ayrshire “failed to ensure safety” after an electrical cabling incident, according to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
The ONR issued an improvement notice to EDF Energy following the incident at its Hunterston B site near West Kilbride.
In November, workers failed to ensure that the electrical cabling was “deployed safely” while undertaking work on the cooling water valves in one of the facilities on the site.
The independent nuclear regulator said that although no injuries were sustained, the incident presented a “significant potential risk to worker safety”.
The notice requires EDF Energy to review, revise and implement arrangements to ensure that all 415V portable equipment at Hunterston B is appropriately constructed, maintained, tested and controlled.
ows an incident at Hunterston B .
Feb 25th, 2026 at 10:59
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Last updated Feb 25th, 2026 at 11:02
Workers at a nuclear station in Ayrshire “failed to ensure safety” after an electrical cabling incident, according to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
The ONR issued an improvement notice to EDF Energy following the incident at its Hunterston B site near West Kilbride.
In November, workers failed to ensure that the electrical cabling was “deployed safely” while undertaking work on the cooling water valves in one of the facilities on the site.
The independent nuclear regulator said that although no injuries were sustained, the incident presented a “significant potential risk to worker safety”.
The notice requires EDF Energy to review, revise and implement arrangements to ensure that all 415V portable equipment at Hunterston B is appropriately constructed, maintained, tested and controlled.
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The ONR called for EDF to “strengthen its risk assessment processes” and improve arrangements for personnel undertaking electrical work on the site.
Tom Eagleton, ONR’s Head of Safety Regulation, Decommissioning, Fuel and Waste sites, said: “The safety of workers at nuclear licensed sites is a key priority for us. While no one was hurt on this occasion, the potential for serious harm was significant.
“It’s essential that EDF Energy implements the necessary improvements to ensure this cannot happen again.”
The energy firm is required to comply with the notice by March 20……………….. https://news.stv.tv/west-central/hunterston-nuclear-station-workers-failed-to-ensure-safety-after-electrical-cabling-incident
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