Nuclear Notebook: French nuclear weapons, 2023
Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, July 17, 2023
France’s nuclear arsenal has remained stable over the past decade and contains approximately 290 warheads……….. Nearly all of France’s warheads are deployed or operationally available for deployment on short notice.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
France’s nuclear doctrine
Successive heads of state, including Presidents Sarkozy, Hollande, and now Macron, have periodically described the role of French nuclear weapons. The Defense Ministry’s 2017 Defense and National Security Strategic Review reiterated that the nuclear doctrine is “strictly defensive,” and that using nuclear weapons “would only be conceivable in extreme circumstances of legitimate self-defense,” involving France’s vital interests. What exactly these “vital interests” are, however, remain unclear.
In February 2020, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France’s “vital interests now have a European dimension,” and sought to engage the European Union on the “role played by France’s nuclear deterrence in [its] collective security” (Élysée 2020). Macron clarified in October 2022 that these vital interests “would not be at stake if there was a nuclear ballistic attack in Ukraine or in the region,” apparently attempting to avoid being seen as expanding French nuclear doctrine (France TV 2022). Explicitly ruling out a nuclear role in case of Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine appeared to contradict France’s statement at the August 2022 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which explained that “for deterrence to work, the circumstances under which nuclear weapons would [or would not] be used are not, and should not be, precisely defined, so as not to enable a potential aggressor to calculate the risk inherent in a potential attack” (2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 2022).
France does not have a no-first-use policy and reserves the right to conduct a “final warning” limitednuclear strike to signal to an adversary that they have crossed a line—or to signal the French resolve to conduct further nuclear strikes if necessary—in an attempt to “reestablish deterrence” (Élysée 2020; Tertrais 2020). Although France is a member of NATO, its nuclear forces are not part of the Alliance’s integrated military command structure.
If an aggressor is not deterred, President Macron explained in 2020, France’s “nuclear forces are capable of inflicting absolutely unacceptable damages upon that State’s centers of power: its political, economic and military nerve centers” (Élysée 2020).
…………………..The possibility of using the nuclear weapon first is assumed: our doctrine is neither that of no first use nor that of the sole purpose, according to which nuclear weapons are only addressed to the nuclear threat … Nuclear deterrence does not seek to win a war or prevent losing one” (Burkhard 2023; our translation).
…………………………………………………………………………… Under President Macron, France has engaged in a long-term modernization and strengthening of its nuclear forces.
……………………………………..Submarine-launched ballistic missiles
The French force of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) constitutes the backbone of the French nuclear deterrent.
………………………………………………….Air-launched cruise missiles
The second leg of France’s nuclear arsenal consists of nuclear ASMPA (air-sol moyenne portée-amélioré) air-launched cruise missiles for delivery by fighter-bombers operated by the Strategic Air Forces and the Naval Nuclear Aviation Force.
……………………………………………………………The French Ministry of the Armed Forces is also developing a successor to the ASMPA-R: a fourth-generation air-to-surface nuclear missile (air—sol nucléaire de 4e génération, ASN4G) with enhanced stealth and maneuverability that is scheduled to reach initial operational capability in 2035 and remain in service beyond the 2050s (Assemblée Nationale 2023)…………………………………..
The nuclear weapons complex
France’s nuclear weapons complex is managed by the Direction des Applications Militaires (DAM), a department within the Nuclear Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies renouvelables, or CEA). DAM is responsible for research, design, manufacture, operational maintenance, and dismantlement of nuclear warheads.
…………………………………………….more https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-07/nuclear-notebook-french-nuclear-weapons-2023/
Bulgaria’s President: Ukraine Insists on Fighting this War but Europe Pays the Bill
novinite.com, July 14, 2023
Ukraine insists on waging this war. But it should also be clear that the whole of Europe is paying the bill. And this war has many dimensions.
I say again, it is not only purely military – it has an economic, social and political dimension. It is a threat and a risk to all of Europe.”
This is what President Rumen Radev commented on Friday when asked about the NATO Summit in Vilnius. According to the head of state, it is high time to start thinking soberly and objectively about the war in Ukraine.
“In critical times, the Bulgarian rulers do not have their own thinking, opinion and position“, he also said.
Our rulers are frantically trying to convince us that by sending military aid, they are increasing our security. On the contrary – this conflict is definitely deepening – categorically!
The number of victims is increasing. The more weapons it absorbs, the more dead people and destruction there are,” added Radev.
There were repeated phrases about how the president was proven right when he claimed that Ukraine could not be accepted into NATO while there was a war there. This was confirmed in Vilnius, and “last year they lashed out with criticism“, noted Radev with an affected tone, with which he makes his comments lately.
The president did not miss the topic of the arms aid to Ukraine and the decision of the parliament to free the military warehouses of ammunition and other weapons, whose term expires.
“Should we wait, apart from the defense minister of Great Britain, who said that they cannot be a military warehouse for Ukraine, wait for other defense ministers, for our rulers to stop looking at our armed forces as a warehouse for another army?!
Our rulers are frantically trying to convince us that by sending military aid, they are helping to upgrade our armaments. This conflict is deepening,” Radev added……………………………………. https://www.novinite.com/articles/220847/Bulgaria%E2%80%99s+President%3A+Ukraine+Insists+on+Fighting+this+War+but+Europe+Pays+the+Bill
Nuked blood: PM Rishi Sunak is urged to uncover the truth on veterans’ missing health records
The PM has been told to fix his “broken promises” as MPs urge an investigation into missing blood records of nuclear veterans
Rishi Sunak promised to meet test veterans and back a police investigation into possible crimes committed against them, but has yet to do either
Mirror UK, By Susie Boniface, Reporter, 14 Jul 2023
Rishi Sunak has been told to fix his “broken promises” to nuclear test veterans by telling Parliament the full truth of their missing medical records.
Labour and Tory MPs have asked the Defence Select Committee to hold its own inquiry into the blood tests that Cold War veterans say are being illegally withheld from them.
Labour peer Lord Watson of Wyre Forest has written to the Prime Minister asking him to correct Ministry of Defence claims in Parliament that it does not hold the blood data, and fulfil the promise made last year to meet the test veterans in person.
“Given the series of misleading statements, broken promises, and unwarranted delays, the onus rests upon the PM to rectify this matter,” Lord Watson said……………….
Lord Watson added: “It is an affront to expect elderly veterans to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of the MoD, merely to ascertain partial truths.”
It followsthe Mirror’s revelations yesterday that veterans’ service records appear to have had health data, including blood and urine analysis which may have showed radiation damage during their time at the weapons tests, removed from the files.
It is potentially a criminal offence for any healthcare provider to withhold, falsify or destroy medical records, due to the likely impact on the health of patients who cannot later be properly diagnosed or treated.
A timeline of denial…
December 2018: Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood tells Parliament “the MoD is unable to locate any information AWRE staff took blood samples for radiological monitoring”
October 2022: Atomic Weapons Establishment confirmed in Freedom of Information requests it held the results of “a small number” of blood and urine tests; the same information is given to Parliament
February 2023: Royal Navy tells veteran’s son that “the AWE does not hold any evidence that such tests ever happened”
March 2023: Defence Minister Andrew Murrison tells Parliament “AWE does not hold the blood test results for Nuclear Test Veterans” but only “references” to them, which are “included in scientific documentation related to nuclear weapons trials”. He says veterans can request any information held, individually
June 2023: Murrison tells one Tory MP that AWE only has information about blood tests of “one individual”; 10 days later he tells a second Tory MP it holds “blood test data for a small number of individuals”……………………………………
Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck, who sits on the Commons defence committee, has urged it to consider launching an investigation. She said yesterday: “There is enough evidence to show blood tests were ordered, arranged, and taken, from large numbers of people. The results were stored and analysed. The veterans have always had a right to that information, and failing to provide it can cost lives.
“We must find out when and why they were removed from the medical records.”
Support has come from Tory backbencher Dr Julian Lewis, on behalf of a test veteran constituent, who has asked the committee chairman Tobias Ellwood to question the MoD further.
We have uncovered more than 200 pages of archive documents, ordering blood to be taken from servicemen at all of Britain’s nuclear weapons tests, from 1952 onwards.
They show:
- The MoD had a “Director of Hygiene and Research” who organised blood tests of personnel and kept a “master record” of results
- Orders from the Air Ministry and War Office telling unit medical officers to arrange repeated “blood testing of personnel working regularly with radioactive sources”, from 1952 onwards
- The medical forms used and instructions on how to duplicate and store them
- Officers seeking guidance from government ministers on testing troops and civilians
- A task force commander demanding all RAF sampling and decontamination personnel, and 25% of other trades under his command, have blood tests
- RAF crews being blood-screened before leaving the UK, with some rejected for service as a result
- Proof that army blood tests were copied “from AWRE records” to be put into soldiers’ main medical files – where they can no longer be found
- Pathologists attached to the weapons trials were told to create a “special health register” to log the data, with “safety limits” set for the blood counts, and instructions to send home or withdraw from service anyone who tested below those levels.
We have uncovered documentary evidence that urine was taken from men ordered into the forward area after Britain’s first atomic bomb in 1952, and analysed by scientists. Everyone who served at nine subsequent bomb tests on the Australian mainland had their blood tested. And for another three atom bombs, and six hydrogen bombs, detonated at Christmas Island in the South Pacific, there is evidence that RAF and Army soldiers were tested too.
Almost 22,000 men took part in the weapons tests, which were the biggest tri-service operation since D-Day.
Alan Owen, who founded campaign group LABRATS, said: “It is inconceivable that with all these orders, and thousands of men involved over more than a decade, there isn’t a warehouse somewhere filled with the results. We understand they were held on microfiche at the AWE in Aldermaston, and may have been recently reclassified or moved.
“We are certain these records exist and are being withheld, and the only possible reason to do that is to limit compensation claims to those injured by the radiation the government has always denied they were exposed to.”
All the documents are available to view online at www.labrats.international/blood https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nuked-blood-rishi-sunak-promises-30464869
Novouralsk Nuclear Plant Blast—What We Know, as Russians Rushed to Hospital
More than 100 people have been hospitalized and one person was killed
after an explosion at a uranium enrichment plant in Russia’s Urals
region—the largest of its kind in the world—according to local media
reports.
Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, which owns the Ural
Electrochemical Combine in Novouralsk, said a cylinder with depleted
uranium hexafluoride was “depressurized” at around 9 a.m. local time.
Russian media outlets often use euphemisms such as “loud bang” or
“depressurized” instead of “blast” or “explosion,” allegedly to avoid
sowing panic and maintain a favorable information landscape.
Newsweek 14th July 2023
https://www.newsweek.com/novouralsk-nuclear-plant-blast-uranium-russia-hospital-latest-1813022
Crimea invasion to cost Kiev 200,000 soldiers: Ex-Zelensky aide
By Al Mayadeen ,16 Jul 2023, https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/crimea-invasion-to-cost-kiev-200000-soldiers:-ex-zelensky-ai
Aleksey Arestovich says any invasion of Crimea would break Ukraine and its economy, adding that the country should negotiate peace in return for NATO membership.
Invading Crimea would be too costly for Kiev, a former advisor to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week.
The former advisor, Aleksey Arestovich, told Yulia Latynina, a Russian journalist, that such a campaign would lead to hundreds of thousands of casualties, adding that there are “few prospects” of taking over the Russian Peninsula via military means.
“What will be the cost? Extermination of 200,000 of the adult male population?” he rhetorically asked. Arestovich also warned that the event would lead to the total destruction of the Ukrainian economy.
He added that Kiev is “totally dependent” on Western governments for military supplies and aid, adding that a break in the supply chain would not only severely hinder their counteroffensive, but would also make it difficult for Ukrainian forces to defend their current positions.
“Let’s be honest: Our foreign policy goals in this war contrast sharply with the foreign policy goals of our sponsors and backers,” he said, adding that the West is willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives in order to achieve its objectives.
“We need relations… based on real profits. That’s the only thing they [the West] understand.” He explained that “immoral policies… and inability to take serious decisions” are the “major weakness of the West.”
“Stop the war and join NATO? Many people would say it is a historical chance,” Arestovich underlined, stressing that this is the only consolation Ukraine can obtain from its venture into the conflict with Russia.
The former advisor described such a process as a “fairly good deal” for Ukraine. He said in order to convince Moscow to agree to a peace deal, the West has to partially lift the sanctions it imposed on Russian industries and entities.
The Russian government has consistently shown its readiness for peace talks with Kiev, blaming it for the closing diplomatic pathways, as the Ukrainian President signed a decree last year that prohibits talks with Russia as long as President Putin remains in power.
Russia says West is sponsoring ‘nuclear terrorism’ after Ukrainian drone strike
By Andrew Osborn, July 14, 2023 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-west-is-sponsoring-nuclear-terrorism-after-ukrainian-drone-strike-2023-07-14/
MOSCOW, July 14 (Reuters) – Russia accused the West on Friday of sponsoring “nuclear terrorism” after authorities said a Ukrainian drone had struck the western Russian town of Kurchatov, where a nuclear power station similar to the ill-fated Chernobyl plant is located.
Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region which borders Ukraine, said the Ukrainian drone had struck a residential apartment building in Kurchatov, a Soviet-era town built on the banks of a cooling pond for the Kursk nuclear power station which is still in service.
A drone crashed in the town of Kurchatov overnight,” Starovoit said on the Telegram messaging app. “Fortunately, none of the residents were injured. Critical facilities were not damaged as a result of the drone crash and its subsequent detonation.”
The only damage was to the facade and glazing of one apartment building, he added, saying the authorities would help residents restore their homes.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine, which is regularly subjected to massed Russian drone attacks and seldom comments on its own suspected drone and sabotage attacks inside Russia.
RUSSIAN FURY
The incident, which comes after Russia said it had destroyed two Ukrainian drones near the Kremlin in May, drew a furious reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry given the drone’s proximity to a nuclear power station.
“Are the countries that supply them (the drones) to the Kyiv regime planning to retire to Mars if there is a nuclear disaster? They won’t have time,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said sarcastically.
“People in NATO countries should realise that their governments are sponsoring nuclear terrorism by the Kyiv regime.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s air defence systems were working effectively amid unconfirmed social media reports that such systems had been used to repel the drone attack, but said it was obvious that Ukraine was continuing to try to strike targets inside Russia.
Russia’s FSB security service said in August last year that security around nuclear facilities had been beefed up after people it said were Ukrainian saboteurs destroyed electricity lines supplying the Kursk nuclear power plant, temporarily disrupting its functioning.
Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear corporation, told state TV on Thursday that security at nuclear power plants was “under control” and that all necessary measures had been taken, including air defence capabilities.
Russia and Ukraine have long accused each other of risking a nuclear catastrophe at another facility – the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Russian-controlled territory in southern Ukraine – through shelling.
Reporting by Andrew Osborn Editing by Gareth Jones and Peter Graff
Uranium Plant Explosion in Russia Sparks Nuclear Radiation Fears
An explosion at a uranium enrichment plant in Russia’s Urals region on
Friday prompted Russia’s state nuclear corporation to publish a statement
to ease fears. At around 9 a.m. local time, a cylinder with depleted
uranium hexafluoride “depressurized” in a workshop at the Ural
Electrochemical Combine in Novouralsk, the statement from Rosatom, which
owns the plant—the largest uranium enrichment plant in the world—said.
Uranium hexafluoride is a chemical used during the uranium enrichment
process.
Newsweek 14th July 2023
https://www.newsweek.com/uranium-plant-explosion-russia-nuclear-radiation-fears-1812966
How much water do French nuclear plants use?
Figures showing that the cooling of reactors could capture 30% of water resources have been removed from the site of the Ministry of Environment.
Le Monde ,By Perrine Mouterde, March 26, 2023,
How much do nuclear power plants contribute to total water consumption in France? This simple question no longer seems to have a clear answer. At the root of the confusion lies the Ministry of Environmental Transition’s removal of a background paper on the resourcing and use of water in France on around March 10. According to this fact sheet from the statistical service, power plant cooling represented the second most water-consuming activity in the country (31%), behind agriculture (45%) and ahead of drinking water (21%) and industrial use (4%). The annual volume of water consumed in mainland France, over the period 2008-2018, was estimated at 5.3 billion cubic meters.
In the midst of the review of the parliamentary bill to accelerate the construction of new reactors, the figure of 31% was being used by opponents of atomic energy to demonstrate that this energy source was not adapted to climate change. “Once and for all, let’s say it, simply and firmly: at this rate, there will soon not be enough water in our rivers to cool the nuclear power plants!,” stated Marine Tondelier – the national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV, Greens) – on March 7, based on this data.
Three days later, the Ministry of Environmental Transition………….(subscribers only)
U.S. Cluster Bombs Have Arrived in Ukraine
SCHEERPOSTA, by EDITOR, July 15, 2023, By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com
AUkrainian general told CNN on Thursday that Ukraine has received a shipment of US cluster bombs, controversial munitions that have a devastating impact on civilians.
“We just got them, we haven’t used them yet, but they can radically change the situation on the battlefield,” Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said.
The Biden administration announced last week that it was sending Ukraine cluster munitions in the form of 155mm artillery shells as part of an $800 million weapons package.
It’s not clear how many have arrived in Ukraine so far, but Pentagon officials have said they will provide “hundreds of thousands” of rounds.
The cluster munitions are being provided using the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to ship Ukraine weapons directly from US military stockpiles……………………………….
The administration’s rhetoric on cluster munitions has radically changed since the beginning of the war. On February 28, 2022, the White House said the use of cluster bombs in the Ukraine war would be a “potential war crime.” https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/15/u-s-cluster-bombs-have-arrived-in-ukraine/
Nothing to see here: Great British Nuclear farce once again postponed
To the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities, Great British Nuclear appears to be an initiative which follows the pattern established for new nuclear projects the world over – being large on hype and delivered late.
Originally ‘launched’ as part of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s much vaunted Energy Security Strategy in April 2022, Great British Nuclear is a government-funded arm’s-length body that was supposedly created to drive delivery of new nuclear projects.
In his Spring Budget earlier this year, Chancellor Phillip Hammond alluded to its ‘relaunch’ without attaching any new public money to the venture, but subsequently an interim Chief Executive, Chair and senior staff have been appointed to keep up the appearance of progress.
Today (13 July) it was anticipated that Energy Secretary Grant Shapps would – third time lucky – finally ‘do the business’, and in so doing begin the delayed competition to assess and take forward into full evaluation prospective designs for new Small Modular Reactors.
However once more the rug was pulled from under the poor minister’s feet, as the gig at the Science Museum was cancelled at the eleventh hour, with Rishi Sunak’s increasingly beleaguered government being more focused on the fallout over public sector pay and with rumours that there is insufficient public finance to push forward his nemesis’ 24 GW nuclear generation dream.
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee said: “Great British Nuclear appears to be a farce like the Ealing comedies of old, but this time the script is written by 10 Downing Street.
“Whilst the world witnesses increasingly dramatic changes in weather that are in large measure the legacy of mankind’s obsession with burning fossil fuels, more precious months slip by in which the government could be investing in the insulation that are needed in many British homes to reduce fuel usage and consumer bills and in the proven renewable technologies that can deliver the green and affordable electricity that we need right now.
“Instead, government ministers, from the Prime Minister down, continue to waste time and public money chasing the vapid and impossible dream of having in place 24 GW of nuclear electricity generating capacity by 2050.
“Once more today, when it comes to GBN, the verdict must be ‘nothing to see, move along here’.”
Russia prevents Ukraine attack on Crimea’s Sevastopol
Russian forces claim to have shot down nine Ukrainian drones over the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Sunday.
Jerusalem Post, By REUTERS, JULY 16, 23
Russia’s Sevastopol Naval baseRussian forces claim to have shot down nine Ukrainian drones over the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Sunday.
Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had prevented Ukraine from attacking the Black Sea port of Sevastopol on Sunday, destroying seven aerial and two underwater drones.
“This morning, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by seven unmanned aerial vehicles and two unmanned underwater vehicles on objects on the territory of the Crimean Peninsula near the city of Sevastopol was thwarted,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
There were no casualties and no damage, the ministry added.
It said that two aerial drones were shot down over the Black Sea at a great distance from the coastline, while five were intercepted by Russia’s electronic warfare forces.
Two unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), known as underwater drones were discovered in the northern part of the Black Sea, and destroyed by fire, the ministry said………………………
No comment from Ukraine
…….Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine but has been saying in recent months that destroying Russia’s military infrastructure helps Kyiv’s counteroffensive. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-750213
Russia’s Northern Fleet will not send nuclear sub to main Navy parade
Amid Baltic Sea NATO expansion and growing east-west mistrust, Russia has decided not to sail a nuclear-powered submarine from the Kola Peninsula to the annual high-profile naval parade taking place in St. Petersburg on July 30.
Barents Observer, By Thomas Nilsen, July 14, 2023
State-controlled TASS news agency quotes unnamed military officials confirming the non-appearance of Russia’s most potent naval assets.
“Nuclear submarines of the Northern Fleet will not take part in the Main Naval Parade 2023, unlike previous parades,” the new agency’s source said.
This is the first time since the current Navy Day format was established in 2017 that no nuclear subs from the Northern Fleet sail south to participate. ………………………………………………….
With Finland joining NATO in April and Sweden given the green light just ahead of this week’s NATO Summit in Vilnius, Russia is surrounded by NATO members in the Baltic Sea. Previous Northern Fleet subs at Naval Parade in St. Petersburg:
20% of Ukrainian weapons destroyed in just two weeks – New York Times
Rt.com 15 Jul 23
Kiev’s Western-supplied tanks and armored vehicles “all burned,” one soldier told the newspaper
The Ukrainian military lost 20% of the equipment it sent to the battlefield during the first two weeks of its counteroffensive, the New York Times reported on Saturday. This high attrition rate was reportedly a key factor in Kiev’s decision to pause the operation.
Beginning in early June, Ukrainian forces launched a series of attacks all along the front line from Kherson to Donetsk. Advancing through minefields and without air support, the Ukrainian military lost 26,000 men and more than 3,000 pieces of military hardware, according to the latest figures from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Ukrainian losses were at their highest during the initial two weeks of the offensive, the New York Times claimed, citing unnamed American and European officials. These officials said that up to 20% of Ukraine’s tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed in this period, including many Western-provided vehicles.
For some units, Western equipment was lost at an even higher rate, the Times continued, citing figures from a pro-Ukrainian organization. Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade – a NATO-trained unit – apparently lost 30% of its 99 Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicles in two weeks, while the 33rd Mechanized Brigade lost nearly a third of its 32 German-made Leopard tanks in a single week………………………………………………….
With little territorial gain to show for Kiev’s losses, Western officials have expressed disappointment at the pace of the offensive, according to a steady trickle of media reports since mid-June. Zelensky and some of his top officials still insist that the decisive phase of their counteroffensive has yet to begin.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Western backers are running low on ammunition, particularly 155mm artillery shells. US President Joe Biden admitted this week that “we’re low” on these shells, explaining that the shortage compelled him to send controversial cluster munitions in their stead. The US has also stalled on approving the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, something that Kiev insists will help restart the faltering counteroffensive. https://www.rt.com/russia/579761-ukraine-counteroffensive-vehicles-lost/
Cracks in NATO’s Ukraine Project
Years of successfully pulling the wool over people’s eyes and Western fawning over him since February 2022 led Zelenskiy to overestimate the power of his personality and his communication skills. There was never any chance that the NATO summit in Vilnius would offer Ukraine membership, a membership action plan (MAP), or a shortcut to membership no matter how charismatic Zelenskiy imagines himself to be.
we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that Washington and Brussels pushed Ukraine into the claws of the aggressive, angry bear they themselves riled and aggravated. No matter. United together, ‘we will not waver’: Ukraine will fight ‘as long as it takes’ to defeat the bear on behalf of the United States and its subservient allies.
Russian and Eurasian politics , by GORDONHAHN, July 13, 2023
Cracks are emerging in NATO’s anti-Russian alliance centered on Ukraine. NATO’s Vilnius summit exposed growing tensions between NATO members and between them and their Ukrainian client state as a result of growing risks of defeat in their proxy war. These tensions are destined to grow as Kiev’s position on the front continues to deteriorate. In Kiev, signs of panic and the likelihood of rising civil-military tensions pose the grave threat to the West’s plans to deal Russia a strategic defeat and to prompt Putin’s removal. Western and Ukrainian hopes and expectations have been unrealistic all the way around from the start.
The Failing Ukrainian Counteroffensive
With Ukrainian forces failing in the long-planned and much-touted counteroffensive, the stakes already are much higher half a year later, even putting aside for the moment the issue of the crucial NATO summit in Vilnius.[1] Western and Ukrainian expectations and claims regarding the potential of the counteroffensive are exposing the hideously phantasmagorical expectations of most in Washington, Brussels, and Kiev.
After six weeks of Ukraine’s highly costly counteroffensive, instead of territorial gains Kiev’s forces are being routed, experiencing enormous casualties, losses of territory on the Oskol river, an operational encirclement of Avdiivka, and successful Russian advances on the Kupyansk-Liman front lines.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on July 11th that the Ukrainians have suffered 26,000 casualties and lost 3,000 units of equipment, including 1,244 tanks and fighting vehicles as well as APCs, artillery pieces, and mortars, since June 4th when the counteroffensive began.[2]
To put this into the perspective of Ukrainian weapons requests and NATO capacity and willingness (or unwillingness) to meet them, in December 2022 last year Zalyuzhniy told The Economist that he needed “300 tanks, 600-700 IFVs, 500 Howitzers.” In such case, he thought it “completely realistic to get to the lines of February 23rd.” But the Ukrainians never received anything like this, and the West nevertheless pressed Zelenskiy to underataken the ill-considered idea of a broad counter-offensive against the revived Russian army.
The Ukrainians have lost more equipment in just six weeks of the counteroffensive than Zalyuzhniy had requested; this without even reaching the first line of the Russian forces’ three well dug-in defense lines in the south and making even less progress in the east. Ukrainian forces have not been able to take and hold even one small settlement along the entire line of contact extending from Kherson to Kharkov. They take territory at great loss of life and equipment only to relinquish the same territory a few days layer with more losses. Not surprisingly, cracks are appearing in the Ukrainian ranks.[3]
On this background it is hardly surprising that tensions between Kiev and its Western patrons are running high, with each side blaming the other for the military farce………………………………….
Summit of the Deluded, Dismayed and Defeated
Zelenskiy entertained and publicly promoted the most unfeasible, inflated expectations. He regards too highly his ability to charm, cajole, and convince people to do and succeed in doing what he wants, whether it is accepting Ukraine into NATO here and now, receiving ever increasing arms supplies from NATO members’ whose stocks are depleted and defense industries have been wound down, or pushing through three reinforced lines of defense 35 miles deep with a few tanks and a hodgepodge of trained soldiers and a larger coteries of poorly trained soldiers recently scraped off the streets of Kiev, Lvov, and Sumy………………………
At any rate, the effect of the counteroffensive in failure is to ensure that NATO would do what it was going to do and has been doing anyway: hanging Ukraine out to die on the altar of NATO expansion ‘as long as it takes’ in the hope of provoking a color revolution in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties, destroyed cities and towns, millions of refugees, and tens of millions of ruined lives have and will not cause NATO to throw out the playbook. They just will edit it a little: a security guarantee with loopholes, a NATO-Ukrainian Committee, dispensing with a ‘membership action plan’ for a Ukraine that may not exist ‘after victory.’
Years of successfully pulling the wool over people’s eyes and Western fawning over him since February 2022 led Zelenskiy to overestimate the power of his personality and his communication skills. There was never any chance that the NATO summit in Vilnius would offer Ukraine membership, a membership action plan (MAP), or a shortcut to membership no matter how charismatic Zelenskiy imagines himself to be.
These hopes were as delusional as were the repeated Ukrainian decisions not to forego NATO membership before and after Maidan, before and after Minsk, before and after Putin’s proposals on a new European security architecture and his massing of troops on Ukraine’s borders, before and after his February 2022 invasion, and before and after the March 2022 agreement to end the war by Kiev renouncing the goal of NATO membership and returning to the Minsk format.
……………………………………………………. we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that Washington and Brussels pushed Ukraine into the claws of the aggressive, angry bear they themselves riled and aggravated. No matter. United together, ‘we will not waver’: Ukraine will fight ‘as long as it takes’ to defeat the bear on behalf of the United States and its subservient allies.
……………………………………………………………… Zelenskiy attended the Vilnius summit. Reports from the show Vilnius revealed a desparate Zelenskiy resorting to frantic backroom cajoling in order to beg for concessions on NATO membership. This would bring the alliance closer to entering the war and more of its arms at a sufficient level to defeat an increasingly powerful Russian force, or it might provoke the Kremlin into actions that would inspire NATO to finally take Kiev’s neck out of the noose into which NATO itself put it.[5]
……………………………………… Zelenskiy’s desperate, ultimately failed attempt to get Ukraine moving more rapidly to NATO membership ended up alienating his ‘allies. In a social media post Zelenskiy essentially accused US President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders of showing disrespect for Ukraine by not admitting her for membership now—a measure that would require NATO to enter the war.
…………………………………….. Entering a war NATO itself fomented is not in NATO’s plans. Washington and Brussels prefer that Kiev fight a far superior military power ‘for as long as it takes’ to do what is in the West’s interests—that is, weaken Russia. Despite the weapons, training, intelligence, and pats on Zelenskiy’s back, it can be said not just of Moscow but of Washington and Brussels as well: “They wept for Ukraine, but they destroyed it.”[8]
Rising Tensions in Ukrainian Civil-Military Relations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
It is very likely that Zalyuznyi and Zelenskiy will be at odds again if they are not already. One Ukrainian source in the Office of the President claims that the Biden administration has given up on any progress in the counteroffensive and that “a complete collapse” of Zelenskiy’s foreign policy regarding Western support, which is now expected to decline sharply…………………………………………………………………………………………
CONCLUSION
The tensions between Zelenskiy and his Western backers, on the one hand, and Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s military high command will untenable for continued stability in the NATO-Ukraine war effort should failure on the front persist, let alone should a Russian counteroffensive produce more territorial gains for Moscow in Odessa, Kharkov and/or left bank Kiev.
Zelenskiy must either cease the offensive to please the latter and thereby displease the former, or he can push forward with the offensive to satisfy his backers and to keep the military equipment flowing and thereby alienate the Ukrainian military.
One way out of this conundrum is victory on the battlefield, and that seems most improbable.
The other exit path is NATO’s abandonment of expansion to Ukraine and the opening of peace talks with the Kremlin, and that seems equally as implausible.
In months, crunch time may be coming in Kiev. …………….more https://gordonhahn.com/2023/07/13/cracks-in-natos-ukraine-project/
Drone crashes in Russian ‘atomic city’ – governor
Rt.com 14 July 23
There were no injuries or damage to critical infrastructure resulting from the incident in Kurchatov, Roman Starovoyt says
A drone went down and exploded early on Friday in the Russian city of Kurchatov, an industrial hub adjacent to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, the governor of Kursk Region has said.
“Fortunately, none of the residents were hurt. Critical facilities weren’t damaged,” Roman Starovoyt wrote on his Telegram channel.
…….. Earlier, several Telegram channels reported a loud explosion in Kurchatov. Videos from the scene also captured locals finding what appear to be parts of a drone on the ground.
The city of Kurchatov is located in Kursk Region, which shares a border with Ukraine. It was founded in the late 1960s and named after physicist Sergey Kurchatov, dubbed the “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb.
The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant sits roughly 4 kilometers (2.4 miles) outside urban areas in Kurchatov. The Energotex company, which makes equipment for nuclear reactors, is also based in the city, home to 40,000 people.
A “powerful explosion” was also reported by local media overnight in the city of Voronezh, the capital of the region to the east of Kursk. ……………………………………… more https://www.rt.com/russia/579676-kurchatov-drone-attack-reports/
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