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A peace deal in Istanbul won’t happen until NATO is off the table

Failure and being seen to fail on NATO will deliver a huge political blow to western leaders who will keep kicking the peace can down the road

Ian Proud, Jun 03, 2025, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/a-peace-deal-in-istanbul-wont-happen?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=165018630&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Russia will not end the war until, at the very least, Ukraine revokes its commitment to join NATO. If and when that happens, European leaders will have to confront their failure, justify it to their voters and explain why they prolonged the war for so long.

The next round of Istanbul peace talks commenced today, with UK media playing down the chances of a breakthrough. Helpful signs emerged of another prisoner exchange. Ukraine will consider Russia’s draft memorandum. There is a more clearly stated intent to continue talks towards a possible future meeting of leaders.

In a war that has long passed the one million mark in numbers of people killed or injured across both sides, no one will emerge from this process completely victorious when the fighting ends if, indeed, it ends this year.

But for President Zelensky and for western leaders, particularly in Europe, it is not victory but rather the fear of failure that presents the biggest stumbling block to a quick peace deal. Lacking sufficient financial and military support from western sponsors, and under pressure from the Trump administration to settle, Ukraine may at some point be forced to revoke its aspiration to join NATO.

NATO is by far the most stubborn ‘root cause’ that Russia is looking to address through negotiations, although the list of issues including on minority language rights, the division and status of territory, and Ukrainian children (raised today in Istanbul) is very long.

And NATO membership for Ukraine is an issue that President Trump and US officials including defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, negotiator Steve Witkoff and Ukraine Envoy Keith Kellogg have all acknowledged as unrealistic.

Undaunted, Zelensky, European leaders and the NATO secretary general still cling to an ever more tenuous line that the path to Ukrainian membership is irreversible.

That is untenable.

Russia has the military and economic means to continue the attritional fight, at a time when its slow but steady rate of progress in the Donbas is accelerating into the summer. There is not a scrap of evidence that Ukraine can recover its position, nor financial or military rabbits that increasingly cash and vote strapped European politicians can pull out of the hat.

Ukraine cannot win the war. It is cynical and self-serving for the hordes of mainstream politicos and pundits to suggest otherwise.

Ukraine will eventually have no choice but to let go of its demand for NATO membership. That will take Ukraine back to March to April 2022, when its negotiators agreed to the inclusion of a clause on neutrality in the draft Istanbul 1 peace treaty, that was derailed by Boris Johnson.

The key substantive difference between Istanbul 1 and a possible Istanbul 2 treaty, will be that Ukraine has since lost hundreds of thousands of troops to death or injury and is a matter of months from losing the whole of the Donbas.

After the first, brief, set of peace talks in Istanbul on 16 May, President Zelensky was quick to assert that there could be no return to the Istanbul 1 draft as a starting point for talks.

But I am afraid that the neutrality issue is not going away.

Ukraine is not going to join NATO.

Not joining NATO is the stinging nettle that Zelensky will sooner or later have to grip. And having clung so long to the NATO aspiration and sent so many Ukrainian troops to their deaths, the political ramifications will be searing

It is therefore this fear of failing and being seen to fail that is acting as the biggest stumbling block to a peace deal, as talks resumed today. That fear of failure is shared by Ukraine’s European sponsors.

Going back to the start of the war, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that ‘Putin must fail and must be seen to fail.’

Unfortunately for Johnson, when Ukraine is forced to give up its NATO aspiration, he will have failed and be seen to have failed.

Despite its enormous losses of men and materiel, Russia will have seen off the world’s biggest military bloc. The very idea of this is politically terrifying to the likes of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Keir Starmer who spent their time in office telling us that victory over Russia would be a doddle.

The UK mainstream media still clings to the victory narrative like a comfort blanket. Even today, the UK state-owned broadcaster, the BBC, reasserted the line that Putin failed in his bid to overrun Kyiv at the start of the war, remove Zelensky, and install a puppet government. And that is a legitimate claim to make.

But this war has never really been about the violent overthrow of a neighbouring Head of State. It is now and has been since 2022 an existential struggle to prevent further NATO expansion up to Russia’s border.

Western pundits argue endlessly that Russia has no right of veto over NATO. But when it boils down to it, governments decide the core strategic interests of their countries, not foreign pundits. NATO and its members should never have forced the issue of membership for Ukraine unless they were willing to fight Russia over it.

And NATO has never been willing to fight Russia for Ukraine’s right to choose.

The warning signs were there at President Putin’s 2007 Munich Security Conference Speech, during Russia’s brief war with Georgia in 2008 and following the overthrow of Ukrainian President Yanukovych in February 2014.

Through endless sanctions and efforts to impose international isolation, Russia’s position on NATO has never changed and will never change.

British and western media continue to promote a host of questionable assertions to keep hopes up that Russia really is losing and has been losing from the start. Russia’s imminent economic collapse, a likely coup d’etat made more real by Prigozhin’s rebellion, overwhelming battlefield losses of the Russian army, compared to the Ukrainian (even though there is a large body of analysis suggesting the picture is the complete opposite). And that just a few more billion dollars should be enough to finish the job.

The western propaganda path to victory has been gaslit like a badly cobbled Victorian street.

Putin must fail and must be seen to have failed.

Yet, when a peace treaty is finally agreed between Russia and Ukraine, it will become clear that western leaders failed. And they will be seen by their voters to have failed, with potentially disastrous domestic political consequences for traditional parties all across a Europe in economic and cultural decline.

Moreover, Europe will have to swallow the bitter pill of being pressured by Trump to accelerate Ukraine’s membership of the EU at a financial cost to ordinary European citizens far greater than the war itself. Little wonder then that indulging Zelensky and maintaining a slowly losing war has cynically been an easier choice for many, rather than striking for peace.

So don’t hold your breath for a quick peace deal out of Istanbul. The queue of European politicians lining up to kick the failure can down the road, from Von der Leyen, Rutte, Merz, Macron, Stubb, Starmer and the whole lot of them, is very long indeed.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Playing with Fire- Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb

Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb has crossed the threshold when it comes to triggering a Russian nuclear response. How Russia and the United States respond could determine the fate of the world.

Scott Ritter, Jun 01, 2025, https://scottritter.substack.com/p/playing-with-fire?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6892&post_id=164935563&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=191n6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that “The nuclear weapons remain the most important guarantee of Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and play a key role in maintaining the regional balance and stability.”

In the intervening years, western analysts and observers have accused Russia and its leadership of irresponsibly invoking the threat of nuclear weapons as a means of “saber rattling”—a strategic bluff to hide operational and tactical shortfalls in Russian military capabilities.

In 2020 Russia published, for the first time, an unclassified version of its nuclear doctrine. The document, called “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” noted that Russia “reserves the right to use nuclear weapons” when Moscow is acting “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” The document also stated that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in case of an “attack by [an] adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions.”

In 2024 Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear doctrine to be updated to consider the complicated geopolitical realities that had emerged from the ongoing Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, where the conflict had morphed into a proxy war between the collective west (NATO and the US) and Russia.

The new doctrine declared that nuclear weapons would be authorized for use in case of an “aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered as their joint attack.”

Russia’s nuclear arsenal would also come into play in the event of “actions by an adversary affecting elements of critically important state or military infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the disablement of which would disrupt response actions by nuclear forces.”

The threats did not have to come in the form of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the new 2024 doctrine specifically stated that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to any aggression against Russia involving “the employment of conventional weapons, which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity.”

Operation Spiderweb, the largescale assault on critical Russian military infrastructure directly related to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrence by unmanned drones, has demonstrably crossed Russia’s red lines when it comes to triggering a nuclear retaliation and/or pre-emptive nuclear strike to preclude follow-on attacks. The Ukrainian SBU, under the personal direction of its chief, Vasyl Malyuk, has taken responsibility for the attack.

Operation Spiderweb is a covert direct-action assault on critical Russian military infrastructure and capabilities directly related to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent capabilities. At least three airfields were attacked using FPV drones operating out of the backs of civilian Kamaz trucks repurposed as drone launch pads. Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan, Belaya airfield in Irkutsk, and Olenya airfield in Murmansk, home to Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers and A-50 early warning aircraft, were struck, resulting in numerous aircraft being destroyed and/or heavily damaged.

This would be the equivalent of a hostile actor launching drone strikes against US Air Force B-52H bombers stationed at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and B-2 bombers stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The timing of Operation Spiderweb is clearly designed to disrupt peace talks scheduled to take place in Istanbul on June 2.

First and foremost, one must understand that it is impossible for Ukraine to seriously prepare for substantive peace talks while planning and executing an operation such as Operation Spiderweb; while the SBU may have executed this attack, it could not have happened without the knowledge and consent of the Ukrainian President or the Minister of Defense.

Moreover, this attack could not have occurred without the consent of Ukraine’s European partners, in particular Great Britain, France and Germany, all of whom were engaged in direct consultations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the days and weeks leading up to the execution of Operation Spiderweb.

The Ukrainians have been encouraged by Europe to be seen as actively supporting the Istanbul peace process, with an eye to the notion that if the talks failed, the blame would be placed on Russia, not Ukraine, thereby making it easier for Europe to continue providing military and financial support to Ukraine.

There appears to be a major role being played by US actors as well—Senator’s Lyndsay Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, made a joint visit to Ukraine in the past week where they coordinated closely with the Ukrainian government about a new package of economic sanctions linked to Russia’s willingness to accept peace terms predicated on a 30-day ceasefire—one of Ukraine’s core demands.

Operation Spiderweb appears to be a concerted effort to drive Russia away from the Istanbul talks, either by provoking a Russian retaliation which would provide cover for Ukraine to stay home (and an excuse for Graham and Blumenthal to go forward with their sanctions legislation), or provoking Russia to pull out of the talks as it considers its options going forward, an act that would likewise trigger the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions action.

Unknown is the extent to which President Trump, who has been pushing for successful peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, was knowledgeable of the Ukrainian actions, including whether he approved of the action in advance (Trump appeared to be ignorant of the fact that Ukraine had targeted Russian President Putin using drones during a recent trip to Kursk.)

How Russia responds to this latest Ukrainian action is yet unknown; the drone attacks on Russian military bases came on the heels of at least two Ukrainian attacks on Russian rail lines that resulted in significant damage done to locomotives and passenger cars and killed and wounded scores of civilians.

But this much is clear: Ukraine could not have carried out Operation Spiderweb without the political approval and operational assistance of its western allies. The American and British intelligence services have both trained Ukrainian special operation forces in guerilla and unconventional warfare actions, and it is believed that previous Ukrainian attacks against critical Russian infrastructure (the Crimea bridge and Engels Air Base) were done with the assistance of US and British intelligence in the planning and execution phases. Indeed, both the Crimea bridge and Engels airbase attacks were seen as triggers for the issuing of Russia’s 2024 nuclear doctrine modifications.

Russia has in the past responded to provocations by Ukraine and its western allies with a mixture of patience and resolve.

Many have interpreted this stance as a sign of weakness, something which may have factored in the decision by Ukraine and its western facilitators to carry out such a provocative operation on the eve of critical peace discussions.

The extent to which Russia can continue to show the same level of restraint as in the past is tested by the very nature of the attack—a massive use of conventional weapons which struck Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrence force, causing damage.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to see this tactic being used in the future as a means of decapitating Russian strategic nuclear assets (aircraft and missiles) and leadership (the attack against Putin in Kursk underscores this threat.)


If Ukraine can position Kamaz trucks near Russian strategic air bases, it could do so against Russian bases housing Russia’s mobile missile forces.

That Ukraine would carry out such attack likewise shows the extent to which western intelligence services are testing the waters for any future conflict with Russia—one that NATO and EU members say they are actively preparing for.

We have reached an existential crossroads in the SMO.

For Russia, the very red lines it deemed necessary to define regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons have been blatantly violated by not only Ukraine, but its western allies.

President Trump, who has been claiming to support a peace process between Russia and Ukraine, must now decide as to where the United States stands considering these developments.

His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has acknowledged that under the previous administration of Joe Biden the United States was engaged in a proxy war with Russia. Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, recently acknowledged the same about NATO.

In short, by continuing to support Ukraine, both the US and NATO have become active participants in a conflict which has now crossed the threshold regarding the employment of nuclear weapons.

The United States and the world stand on the precipice of a nuclear Armageddon of our own making.

Either we separate ourselves from the policies that have brought us to this point, or we accept the consequences of our actions, and pay the price.

We cannot live in a world where are future is dictated by the patience and restraint of a Russian leader in the face of provocations we are ourselves responsible for.

Ukraine, not Russia, represents an existential threat to humanity.

NATO, not Russia, is responsible for encouraging Ukraine to behave in such a reckless manner.

So, too, is the United States. The contradictory statements made by US policy makers regarding Russia provide political cover for Ukraine and its NATO enablers to plan and execute operations like Operation Spiderweb.

Senators Graham and Blumenthal should be called out for sedition if their intervention in Ukraine was done to deliberately sabotage a peace process President Trump has said is central to his vision of American national security going forward.

But it is Trump himself who must decide the fate of the world.

In the coming hours we will undoubtedly hear from the Russian President about how Russia will respond to this existential provocation.

Trump, too, must respond.

By telling Graham and Blumenthal and their supporters to stand down regarding Russian sanctions.

By ordering NATO and the EU to cease and desist from continuing to provide military and financial support to Ukraine.

And by taking sides in the SMO.

Choose Ukraine and trigger a nuclear war.

Choose Russia and save the world.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer with extensive experience in arms control and disarmament, and an expert on US-Russian relations. His work can be found at ScottRitter.com. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Highway to Hell: The Armageddon Chronicles, 2014-2025, published by Clarity Press.Upgrade to paid

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June 4, 2025 Posted by | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The 2026 bill for the Ukraine war is already in the mail

Time to bring the gravy train to a halt. With talks stalled, Zelensky says he needs more money for next year

Ian Proud, May 31, 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war-2672231522/

Ukraine is already asking for more money to continue fighting into 2026, a sure sign that President Volodmyr Zelensky has no plans to end the war.

With the battlefield continuing to favor Russia, European leaders have their collective heads in the sand on who will pay. How long before President Trump walks away?

At the G7 Finance and Central Bank governors’ meeting in Banff on May 21, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko sought financial support for 2026, “including the provision of support to the Ukrainian army through its integration into the European security system,” according to reports.

I have said before that Ukraine cannot keep fighting into 2026 without a significant injection of European money. Even if the war were to stop tomorrow, Ukraine would still face a huge funding black hole. And that prolonging the war simply extends Ukraine’s indebtedness and delinquency, nudging it every closer towards the status of a failed state.

Making light of the price tag, German-based Kiel Institute has suggested extra EU support to Ukraine’s army would only need to cost an extra 0.2% of GDP or $43.3 billion per year. This assumes no additional U.S. funding under President Trump and is a figure practically identical to the $41.5 billion figure I forecast two months ago.


The Ukrainian side pointed out two assumptions that underpin their request — first, that funding Ukraine’s military supports macro-financial stability in that country. That is untrue. By far the leading cause of the increased financial distress of Ukraine is its vast and unsustainable prosecution of a war that it cannot win. As I have said before, ending the war would allow for immediate reductions to be made to military spending, which accounts for 65% of total government expenditure.

Second, that paying for Ukraine’s military is keeping Europe safer. It isn’t. The best route to European security would be to end the war tomorrow. The risk of escalation only grows for the longer the war continues and President Zelensky resorts to increasingly desperate tactics as the battlefield realities turn against him.

This latest request for money is a clear signal that Zelensky is not serious about U.S. demands for peace, and would prefer to continue the fight, drawing directly upon European funds. It has long been clear to me that Zelensky is evading peace because it would bring his presidency to a close, not to mention elevate risks to his personal safety.

He has therefore been piling on more pressure for Western leaders to impose more sanctions and other measures, which will only serve to prolong the war. Senator Lindsey Graham’s recent brain wave that the U.S. impose 500% secondary tariffs on countries that trade with Russia is a classic example. No doubt other countries, China in particular, would respond negatively to this, as it has already to the launch of Trump’s tariff war. It would kill President Trump’s efforts at engagement with Russia, by boxing him in to Beltway demands in an identical rerun of his first presidency, making him appear toothless in the eyes of Putin.

But these are not the real points. Having suffered over 20,000 sanctions already since 2014 yet maintaining a stable, growing economy, what makes people believe that Russia will back down to even more sanctions now?

The war continues to favor Russia on the battlefield. In recent days, in addition to expanding territory in the south of Donetsk, the Russian army has made major gains in the pocket around now-occupied Toretsk. Progress, as always, is slow and grinding as it has been since the start of 2024. Ukraine has undoubtedly mounted a formidable defence of its territory, for which its fighters deserve great credit.

But Russia has never fully mobilized the country for the fight in Ukraine, for various domestic political reasons. Putin also wants to maintain relations with developing country partners and a more devastating military offensive against Ukraine would make that harder.

Pumping more billions into Ukraine’s army will merely slow the speed of defeat. Even the Ukrainians now accept that they cannot reclaim lost territory by force. Ending the war would at least draw a line in the sand for future negotiations.

For their part, Europe simply can’t afford to pump another $40 billion per year into Ukraine’s army, at a time when member states are trying to boost their own militaries, revive their flagging economies and deal with an upsurge in nationalist political parties that want to end the war.

An April pledge for extra military donations in 2025 elicited just $2.5 billion per year from Germany, and reconfirmed the £6 billion from the UK already committed, without pledging new funds. Keir Starmer’s government is in the process of making an embarrassing U-turn on previously agreed cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners.

I seriously doubt that British people would consider another big increase in funds for Ukraine’s war would be a sensible investment if peace was on the table. That this isn’t actively discussed in Britain, in a way that it is in the United States, is driven by the complete lockdown of debate in the UK and European mainstream media.

Right from the beginning, the war in Ukraine has been an attritional battle of who can sustain the fight for the longest period of time. A longer war will always favor Russia because the economic liability Europe faces will ratchet up to the point where it becomes politically unsustainable. We make the assumption that Russia’s aims in Ukraine are to prevent NATO expansion and to protect the rights of native Russian speakers in that country, and of course, on the surface, they are.

But on the current track, Putin gets the added benefit of watching the European Union project slowly implode, without the need to go all in on Ukraine.

President Trump for his part continues to walk a fine line that involves criticizing both Putin and Zelensky for the continuance of the war. In the face of intransigence on all sides, I wonder how long it will be before he washes his hands of the mess and walks away.

Ian Proud

Ian Proud was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019. Prior to Moscow, he organized the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, working out of 10 Downing Street. He recently published his memoir, “A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.”

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine Targets Russian Airfields in Major Drone Attack

According to Reuters, Ukrainian spies hid the drones in wooden sheds that were loaded onto trucks and driven near bases deep inside Russia

by Dave DeCamp June 1, 2025 https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/01/ukraine-targets-russian-airfields-in-major-drone-attack/

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a large-scale drone attack deep inside Russian territory on Sunday that targeted several Russian airfields.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack targeted five Russian regions, including the Amur Oblast in Russia’s far east, which is over 3,000 miles from Ukraine, and a base in the Irkutsk Oblast, over 2,500 miles from the Ukrainian border.

The attack also targeted the northern region of Murmansk and the western oblasts of Ivanovo and Ryazan. The Russian Defense Ministry said that “several aircraft” caught fire in Murmansk and Irkutsk and that the attacks were launched “in the exact proximity” of the airfields in the region.

The Defense Ministry said the attacks were “repelled” in the other three regions. “No casualties were reported either among servicemen or civilians. Some of those involved in the terror attacks were detained,” the ministry said.

A Ukrainian official told Reuters that the SBU was able to pull off the attack by hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds. The sheds were loaded onto trucks driven near the bases, and the roof panels were lifted off by a remotely activated mechanism, allowing the drones to fly out.

Videos on social media show drones flying out of a truck near the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk. Ukrainian officials said the attack was planned for more than a year and claimed it destroyed 41 Russian aircraft, including TU-95 long-range bombers, though the number hasn’t been confirmed by the Russian side.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a “brilliant operation” in his nightly address. ” It took place on enemy territory and was aimed exclusively at military targets – specifically, the equipment used in strikes against Ukraine. Russia suffered truly significant losses – entirely justified and deserved,” he said.

US and Ukrainian officials claimed that the Trump administration was not notified ahead of the attack, although the CIA is deeply involved with the SBU and helped build up Ukraine’s intelligence services following the 2014 US-backed coup that ousted former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Also on Sunday, a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian military training site killed 12 Ukrainian troops and wounded 60. Ukrainian officials said that on Sunday, Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, marking the largest Russian drone barrage of the war.

Both sides have dramatically stepped up their drone attacks in recent weeks despite the US push for peace talks. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are expected to hold a second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Sunday.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK to build up to 12 new attack submarines

Paul Seddon, Political reporter,Jonathan Beale, Defence correspondent, BBC 1 June 25

The UK will build “up to” 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister has announced, as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday.

The new conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines will replace the seven-strong Astute class from the late 2030s onwards.

The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to “warfighting readiness” to deter growing threats faced by the UK.

Sir Keir Starmer said the government will adopt a “Nato-first” stance towards defence, so that everything it does adds to the strength of the alliance.

The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson, which was commissioned by Labour shortly after it took office last July.

The report will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of its publication, Sir Keir said the danger posed by Russia “cannot be ignored” and the “best way” to deter conflict was to prepare for it…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Other announcements in the review will include:

  • Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an “always on” munitions production capacity
  • Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces
  • Pledge to set up a “cyber and electromagnetic command” to boost the military’s defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace
  • Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing
  • £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers

…………………………Submarine plans

The Astute class is the Royal Navy’s current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles.

As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles.

The sixth submarine in the current Astute series was launched last October, with the seventh, the final one in the series, currently under construction.

The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal announced in 2021 under the previous Conservative government.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it expected the rollout of the new generation would see a submarine built every 18 months.

It added the construction programme would see a “major expansion of industrial capability” at BAE Systems’ shipbuilding site in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, as well as the Derby site of Rolls-Royce, which makes nuclear reactors.

Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident missiles is already under way.

The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government’s commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.

In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards.

The MoD’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2jr1m49no

June 4, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Off to War We Go: Starmer’s Strategic Defence Review

June 3, 2025, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/off-to-war-we-go-starmers-strategic-defence-review/

Unpopular governments always retreat to grounds of lazy convenience. Instead of engaging in exercises of courage, they take refuge in obvious distractions. And there is no more obvious distraction than preparing for war against a phantom enemy.

That is exactly where the government of Sir Keir Starmer finds itself. Despite a mammoth majority and a dramatically diminished Tory opposition, the Prime Minister acts like a man permanently besieged, his Labour Party seemingly less popular than Typhoid Mary. His inability to be unequivocal to questions of whether he will contest the next election suggest as much.

The same cannot be said about his enthusiasm for the sword and sabre. There are monsters out there to battle, and Sir Keir is rising to the plate. Sensing this, the military mandarins, most prominently General Sir Roland Walker, head of the Army, have been more than encouraging, seeing the need to ready the country for war by 2027. Given the military’s perennial love affair with astrology, that state of readiness could only be achieved with a doubling of the Army’s fighting power and tripling it by 2030.

Given that background, the UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) was commissioned in July 2024. Led by former Labour Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, the freshly released report promises a fat boon for the military industrial complex. Like all efforts to encourage war, its narrative is that of supposedly making Britain safer.

Starmer’s introduction is almost grateful for the chance to out the blood lusting enemy. “In this new era for defence and security, when Russia is waging war on our continent and probing our defences at home, we must meet the danger head on.” The placing of noble Ukraine into the warming fraternity of Europe enables a civilisational twist to be made. The Russian military efforts in Ukraine are not specific to a murderous family affair and historical anxieties but directed against all Europeans. Therefore, all Europeans should militarise and join the ranks, acknowledging that “the very nature of warfare is being transformed” by that conflict.

In pursuing the guns over butter program, Starmer recapitulates the sad theme of previous eras that led to global conflict. As Europe began rearming in the 1930s, a prevalent argument was that people could have guns and butter. Greater inventories of weaponry would encourage greater prosperity. So, we find Starmer urging the forging of deeper ties between government and industry and “a radical reform of procurement,” one that could only be economically beneficial. This would be the “defence dividend,” another nonsense term the military industrial complex churns out with such disconcerting ease.

The foreword from the Defence Secretary, John Healey, outlines the objectives of the SDR. These include playing a leading role in NATO “with strengthened nuclear, new tech, and updated conventional capabilities”; moving the country to a state of “warfighting readiness”; nourishing the insatiable military industrial Moloch; learning the lessons of Ukraine (“harnessing drones, data and digital warfare”); and adopting a “whole-of-society approach”, a sly if clumsy way of enlisting the civilian populace into the military enterprise.

The review makes 62 recommendations, all accepted by the grateful government. Some £15 billion will go to the warhead programme, supporting 9,000 jobs, while £6 billion will be spent on munitions over the course of the current Parliament. A “New Hybrid Navy” is envisaged, one that will feature Dreadnought and the yet to be realised SSN-AUKUS submarines, alongside “support ships” and “autonomous vessels to patrol the North Atlantic and beyond.” Submarine production is given the most optimistic assessment: one completion every 18 months.

The Royal Air Force is not to miss out, with more F-35s, modernised Typhoons, and the next generation of jets acquired through the Global Combat Air Programme. To his splurge will be added autonomous fighters, enabling global reach.

Mindless assessments are abundant in the Review. The government promises a British army 10 times “more lethal to deter from the land, by combining more people and armoured capability with air defence, communications, AI, software, long-range weapons, and land drone swarms.” Some 7,000 new long-range weapons will be built and a New CyberEM Command established “to defend Britain from daily attacks in the grey zone.” Keeping those merchants of death happy will be a new Defence Exports Office located in the Ministry of Defence, one intended “to drive exports to our allies and growth at home.”

The fanfare of the report, festooned with fripperies for war, conceals the critical problems facing the British armed forces. The ranks are looking increasingly thinned. (In 2010, regular troop numbers stood at 110,000; the current target of 73,000 soldiers is being barely met.) Morale is ebbing. The state of equipment is embarrassingly poor. The UK’s celebrated submarine deterrent is somewhat less formidable in the deterrence department, with its personnel exhausted and subject to unpardonably lengthy stints at sea. The 204-day patrol by HMS Vanguard is a case in point.

Whether the SDR’s recommendations ever fructify remains the hovering question. It’s all very good to make promises about weapons programmes and boosting a country’s readiness to kill, but militaries can be tardy in delivery and faulty in execution. What saves the day may well be standard ineptitude rather than any firebrand conviction in war. To the unready go the spoils.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Jubilation at Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb – but is this joy justified?

A web, or a trail to Armageddon?

Noel Wauchope, 3 June 25, https://theaimn.net/jubilation-at-ukraines-operation-spiderweb-but-is-this-joy-justified/#google_vignette

The news media is agog with the glorious success of drones sent deep inside Russia to damage 41 planes. Ukraine claims that these were A-50 surveillance planes, the supersonic Tu-160 and Tu-22 bombers, and the massive Tu-95s, which were developed to carry nuclear bombs and now launch cruise missiles.

The damage is estimated to be $7billion. The targets reached inside Russia included  Belaya airbase over 4,000km) from Ukraine, and three other distant airbases. the complex operation was planned in secret, over 18 months.

It was such a clever operation, involving smuggling of drones into Russia and placing them inside containers, which were later loaded on to trucks. Remotely activated mechanisms opened the containers allowing the drones to fly out and make their distant attack.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant” Ukrainian drone attack’ –  “produced by Ukraine independently”. 

Wow! We’re all delighted, aren’t we, at this surprise, this ingenuity, done all alone by Ukraine – such a demonstration of how the clever Ukrainians will beat the stupid boorish Russians?

There are just a few questions that I would like to see posed, in the corporate media.

​ I hardly know where to start. Can we believe that: 

  1.  This was done over 18 months completely without the knowledge of  Ukraine’s European partners, in particular Great Britain, France and Germany, who were all consulting with Ukraine over that period, and especially in the last few weeks?
  2. Without the knowledge of the USA, while Senators Lyndsay Graham  and Richard Blumenthal, in Ukraine in the past week where they coordinated intensely with the Ukrainian government?
  3. Why was this attack timed exactly at the time of the Istanbul peace talks between Ukraine and Russia? 
  4. Did Zelensky not understand that this would at least cast a damper on those talks, upsetting Russia  – a bit like the effect on USA if someone attacked  US Air Force B-52H bombers and B-2 bombers ? 
  5. Well, if Zelensky did understand that, was his intention to sabotage the talks, and provoke Russia into a retaliation, which  might bring Europeand even the USA into the war?

The jubilation of the media seems to completely ignore Russia’s stated policy on its use of nuclear weapons, updated in 2024 – nuclear weapons would be authorised for use in response to  “attack by [an] adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions”. 

We don’t know how Russia will respond to this remarkable and unprecedented attack.

We don’t know how President Trump will respond.

What is clear is that the Istanbul peace talks have been wrecked, and a whole new phase now opens in the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It started out with the intention of a limited attack – the Russians still call it a Special Military Operation. Now Putin has no other option than to declare it a full scale war.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Christina's notes, Ukraine | Leave a comment

UK plan for fighter jets carrying nuclear bombs is slammed.

 THE UK Government has been accused of “lurching towards war” after
reports suggested ministers were looking to purchase fighter jets capable
of carrying and firing tactical nuclear weapons.

If the Labour Government went through with the purchase, reportedly to counter the growing threat by Russia, it would be the biggest expansion of the UK’s so-called nuclear
deterrent since the Cold War. The Sunday Times reports that the Government
is taking part in “highly sensitive” talks and that US firm Lockheed
Martin’s F-35A Lightning stealth fighter jet and other aircrafts are
under consideration.

SNP MSP Bill Kidd said: “Many Scots will have concerns
about Labour spending billions of pounds of taxpayer money to expand the
UK’s nuclear arsenal at a time when many families continue to face the
impact of the cost of living crisis. “The UK’s nuclear capability is not
independent, has leaked in recent years putting workers and wildlife at
risk, frequently fails in safety tests and is highly unlikely to ever be
used.

We want an end to these dangerous weapons in Scotland, but Labour are
determined to write them another blank cheque. “Any further expansion of
the UK’s nuclear arsenal must therefore come before parliament for
democratic scrutiny.”

 The National 1st June 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25206192.uk-plans-fighter-jets-carrying-nuclear-bombs-slammed/

June 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How many nuclear submarines does the UK have – and are they ready for war?

Britain currently has a fleet of nine submarines, including four Vanguard vessels armed with the Trident nuclear system

Alex Croft, Monday 02 June 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2jr1m49no

Britain will build up to 12 new nuclear-powered submarines, Sir Keir Starmer will announce as he unveils his much-anticipated defence review.

In a bid to “ensure the UK rises to the challenge” of growing global security threats, the prime minister will say that the 130-page review is a “radical blueprint” signalling a “wave of investments” into military infrastructure and weaponry.

An extra £15bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

The plans will significantly increase the UK’s conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, with the new vessels built under a joint deal with the US and Australia, known as the Aukus partnership.

Here’s all you need to know about the UK’s fleet of nuclear-deterrent submarines, and the proposed plans for its future:

How many submarines does the Royal Navy currently have?

The Royal Navy currently operates nine submarines, including five Astute-class conventionally armed nuclear-powered attack vessels. The Astute class is Britain’s largest and most advanced fleet of submarines.

The remaining four are Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), which carry the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system.

A new group, the Dreadnought class, will be introduced in the early 2030s. These will be both nuclear-powered and ballistic missile-armed.

How many submarines will the UK have in the future?

Two further Astute-class submarines, HMS Agamemnon and HMS Agincourt, are set to enter service in late 2025 and late 2026 respectively.

Agamemnon is currently going through trials with the Royal Navy as part of a test and commissioning programme, while Agincourt remains under construction.

As part of the joint defence deal between the US, Australia and the UK – known as Aukus – the UK is set to significantly boost its fleet of submarines following the defence review.

An added 12 submarines would bring the UK’s fleet up to more than 20 in total. This remains far smaller than the US’s fleet of 71, and China and Russia’s fleets of 66 each.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine drone strikes hit nuclear bombers deep inside Russia

Japan Times, Jun 2, 2025

Ukraine staged a dramatic series of strikes across Russia, deploying drones hidden in trucks deep inside the country to hit strategic airfields as far away as eastern Siberia.

Around the same time, Moscow launched one of its longest drone and missile attacks against Kyiv, escalating tensions ahead of crucial peace talks this week.

More than 40 Russian aircraft, including the Tu-95 and Tu-22 M3 long-range bombers capable of deploying conventional and nuclear weapons as well as the A-50, are reported to have been damaged in the operation on Sunday, an official in Ukraine’s Security Service said on condition of anonymity as the details are not public. Ukraine’s Security Service chief Vasyl Malyuk led the operation and losses are assessed to be at least $2 billion, the person said…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/06/02/world/ukraine-drone-nuclear-bombers-russia/

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Putin’s demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say.

By Guy Faulconbridge, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ukraine-peace-wants-pledge-halt-nato-enlargement-sources-say-2025-05-28/

President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield.

After speaking to Trump for more than two hours last week, Putin said that he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum that would establish the contours of a peace accord, including the timing of a ceasefire. Russia says it is currently drafting its version of the memorandum and cannot estimate how long that will take. Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.

“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” said one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The three Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards – shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics.

Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said. The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”. The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment on Reuters’ reporting.

Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said any peace deal must address the “root causes” of the conflict – Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine. Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russia should not be granted veto power over its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says it needs the West to give it a strong security guarantee with teeth to deter any future Russian attack.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration did not respond to a request for comment. NATO has also in the past said that it will not change its “open door” policy just because Moscow demands it. A spokesperson for the 32-member alliance did not respond to Reuters’ questions. Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. Russia currently controls just under one fifth of the country. Though Russian advances have accelerated over the past year, the war is costing both Russia and Ukraine dearly in terms of casualties and military spending. Reuters reported in January that Putin was growing concerned by the economic distortions in Russia’s wartime economy, amid labour shortages and high interest rates imposed to curb inflation. The price of oil, the bedrock of Russia’s economy, has declined steadily this year.

Trump, who prides himself on having friendly relations with Putin and has expressed his belief the Russian leader wants peace, has warned that Washington could impose further sanctions if Moscow delays efforts to find a settlement. Trump suggesting on social media on Sunday that Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” by unleashing a massive aerial attack on Ukraine last week. The first source said that if Putin saw a tactical opportunity on the battlefield, he would push further into Ukraine – and that the Kremlin believed Russia could fight on for years no matter what sanctions and economic pain were imposed by the West.

A second source said that Putin was now less inclined to compromise on territory and was sticking to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.

“Putin has toughened his position,” the second source said of the question of territory.

NATO ENLARGEMENT

As Trump and Putin joust in public over the outlook for peace in Ukraine, Reuters could not determine whether the intensification of the war and the toughening of positions heralds determination to reach a deal or the collapse of talks. In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.

In addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Russia currently controls almost all of Luhansk, more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. It also occupies a sliver of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, and is threatening Dnipropetrovsk.

Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces. Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.

At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union.

Trump has said that previousU.S. support for Ukraine’s NATO membershipbid was acause of the war, and has indicated that Ukraine will not get membership. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Putin, who rose to the top Kremlin job in 1999, has repeatedly returned to the issue of NATO enlargement, including in his most detailed remarks about a possible peace in 2024.

In 2021, just two months before the Russian invasion, Moscow proposed a draft agreement, with NATO members that, under Article 6, would bind NATO to “refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.” U.S. and NATO diplomats said at the time that Russia could not have a veto on expansion of the alliance. Russia wants a pledge on NATO in writing because Putin thinks Moscow was misled by the United States after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastwards, two of the sources said.

There was such a verbal promise, former Central Intelligence Agency Director Director William J. Burns said in his memoires, but it was never formalised – and it was made at a time when the collapse of the Soviet Union had not occurred.

NATO, founded in 1949 to provide security against the Soviet Union, says it poses no challenge to Russia – though its 2022 assessment of peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area identified Russia as the most “significant and direct threat”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that year prompted Finland to join NATO in 2023, followed by Sweden in 2024.

Western European leaders have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the Ukraine war, it could one day attack NATO itself – a step that would trigger a world war. Russia dismisses such claims as baseless scaremongering, but has also warned the war in Ukraine could escalate into a broader conflict.

Comment: Putin wants a deal, Trump wants a deal, Zelensky…wants.

June 2, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year

Exclusive: researchers say defence spending boosts across world will worsen climate crisis which in turn will cause more conflict

Damien Gayle 29 May 25, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/29/nato-military-spending-could-increase-emissions-study-finds

A global military buildup poses an existential threat to climate goals, according to researchers who say the rearmament planned by Nato alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200m tonnes a year.

With the world embroiled in the highest number of armed conflicts since the second world war, countries have embarked on military spending sprees, collectively totalling a record $2.46tn in 2023.

For every dollar invested in new hardware, there is not only a corresponding carbon cost but also an opportunity cost to potential climate action, critics say. This is on top of the huge death toll resulting from armed conflicts.

“There is a real concern around the way that we are prioritising short-term security and sacrificing long-term security,” said Ellie Kinney, a researcher with the Conflict and Environment Observatory and a co-author of the study, shared exclusively with the Guardian.

“Because of this kind of lack-of-informed approach that we’re taking, you’re investing in hard military security now, increasing global emissions for that reason, and worsening the climate crisis further down the line.”

That in turn is only likely to lead to further violence, with climate change itself now increasingly seen as a driver of conflict, albeit indirectly. In Sudan’s Darfur region, conflict was linked to competition over scarce resources after prolonged droughts and desertification. In the Arctic, receding sea ice is leading to tensions over who should control newly accessible oil, gas and critical mineral resources.

Few militaries are transparent about the scale of their fossil fuel use, but researchers have estimated that collectively they are already responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

That figure is expected to rise as tensions escalate in a number of regions and as the US, for decades the world’s biggest military spender, indicates that it expects its Nato allies to devote significantly more resources to their armed forces.

According to the Global Peace Index, militarisation increased in 108 countries in 2023. With 92 countries involved in armed conflict, in places ranging from Ukraine and Gaza to South Sudan and DRC, with tensions seething between China and the US over Taiwan, and with the frozen conflict between India and Pakistan flaring, governments fearful of war are investing heavily in their militaries.

In Europe, the increase has been particularly dramatic: between 2021 and 2024, EU states’ weapons spending rose by more than 30%, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In March, the EU, disconcerted by Donald Trump’s cutting of military aid and diplomatic support for Ukraine, indicated this would go further, with proposals for a further €800bn spend across the bloc outlined in a plan called “ReArm Europe”.

In analysis for the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, Kinney and colleagues looked at the potential impact of increased militarisation on meeting climate goals. What they found was sobering: the likely increase in emissions from Nato’s remilitarisation alone would be the equivalent of adding the cost of a country as large and populous as Pakistan to the world’s remaining carbon budget.

“Our analysis specifically looks at the impact on sustainable development goal 13, which is climate action – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” Kinney said. “And what our analysis finds, looking at the various sub-targets of that … [is] that there is a real threat to global climate action caused by global increase in military spending.”

Of all functions of states, militaries are almost uniquely carbon-intensive. “First of all, with the equipment that they purchase, which is mainly a lot of steel and aluminium, which is very carbon-intensive to produce,” said Lennard de Klerk, of the Initiative on the GHG Accounting of War, another co-author of the study.

“Secondly is during operations, armies are very mobile. And in order to move around they use fossil fuels – that’s diesel for ground operations and kerosene for air operations. Or for maritime operations it’s mainly diesel as well, if they’re not nuclear-driven.”

Given the secrecy that usually surrounds militaries and their operations, it is difficult to know just how much greenhouse gases they are emitting. Only Nato countries report enough of their emissions for scientists to attempt an estimate.

“We took Nato because they are the most transparent in terms of spending. So it’s not that we particularly want to focus on Nato, but simply because they have more data available,” De Klerk said.

The researchers calculated by how much greenhouse gas emissions would increase if Nato countries excluding the US – since it already spends far more than the others – made a two percentage point increase in the share of GDP they devoted to their militaries.

Such an increase is already under way, with many countries in Europe significantly increasing military spending in response to the crisis in Ukraine. Although Nato countries have publicly committed to increasing spending to 2% of GDP, the researchers say the ReArm Europe plan could lead to an eventual rise to 3.5%, from about 1.5% in 2020. The researchers assumed a similar eventual increase in Nato members that are not members of the EU, such as the UK.

Borrowing methodology from a recent paper that argued each percentage point increase in the share of GDP devoted to military spending would lead to an increase in national emissions of between 0.9% and 2%, they estimated that a two percentage point spending shock would lead to an increase across the bloc of between 87 and 194 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year.

The researchers say that not only would such a huge increase in emissions supercharge climate breakdown but the increase in global temperatures would hurt the economy. Recent estimates of the social cost of carbon – a monetary indicator of the damage of CO2 emitted – put it at $1,347/tCO2e, suggesting the annual cost of Nato’s military buildup could be as much as $264bn a year.

And that is only a fraction of the true carbon cost of militarisation, Kinney points out. “The calculation in the paper, it’s 31 countries – that only represents 9% of total world emissions. If you consider … the impact of that, there’s a lot of the world that we haven’t taken into consideration of this specific calculation.”

The analysis notes that spending more money on militaries also reduces resources available for policies aimed at mitigating climate change. This already seems to be the case, with the UK, for example, funding its increase in spending by reducing its overseas aid budget – a move mirrored in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

“This increase in military spending is impacting the kind of core trust that is necessary for multilateralism,” Kinney said. “At Cop29, global south countries like Cuba in particular pointed out the hypocrisy in the room of states being willing to spend increasing amounts on their military spending, but offering … completely, unacceptably low climate finance commitments.”

The Guardian has contacted Nato for comment.

June 2, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Britain to buy fighter jets to carry nuclear weapons.

 Britain wants to purchase fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear
weapons, in a major expansion of the deterrent intended to counter the
growing threat posed by Russia. Sir Keir Starmer’s government is in
highly sensitive talks over the move, which would represent the biggest
development in the UK’s deterrent since the Cold War and a recognition
that the world has entered a more dangerous nuclear era.

 Times 31st May 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/review-fighter-jets-nuclear-weapons-x9vldt0sv

June 2, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is back. Will it work out this time?

 Britain used to lead the world but lost its way over decades of false starts. The planet’s
first small reactors could win us energy independence — at a price. The
energy secretary was very clear about the urgency of the problem. “The
British nuclear power programme has been in decline over the last
decade,” he told the House of Commons. “If we are to reverse this trend
and ensure that the industry is on a sound footing we must act now.”

This would be a very fair summary of Britain’s nuclear industry today. But
these comments were made nearly half a century ago, by David Howell in
December 1979. Fortunately, Howell, a key member of Margaret Thatcher’s
cabinet (and future father-in-law to one George Osborne), had a plan to put
things right. Construction would begin on ten new nuclear power stations in
the decade from 1982 — one a year. “We consider this a reasonable
prospect,” he assured the Commons.

Yet only one of those stations was
ever built: Sizewell B on the Suffolk coast. It was switched on in 1995.
Britain hasn’t completed a station since. This failure is not down to a
lack of ambition. Thirty years after the hubris of Howell, Ed Miliband,
during his first stint as energy secretary, again announced ten new power
stations. When he re-entered the energy department last summer, another 15
years later, construction had started on only one: Hinkley Point C.

On June 11, Milliband will confirm £2.7 billion of funding for Sizewell C, in
Suffolk, where ground preparation has begun. He will also announce a new
generation of small modular reactors (SMRs) — factory-built miniature
nuclear power generators that are seen by many as the future of the sector.
SMRs will cost a fraction of the price and take a fraction of the time to
build, and by the early 2030s will be sending vital power into our homes
… in theory.

Nobody in Britain, or indeed anywhere else, has even built a
prototype SMR. Why, one wonders, is it so fiendishly difficult to build
nuclear power stations in this country? With the sector’s questionable
safety record and such eye-watering costs, to be met through our energy
bills, do we even need new nuclear power? Next week Great British Nuclear
will announce the winner of a competition to build the UK’s first SMRs,
which will also be the world’s first if they get a move on. Four
companies are in the running: GE Hitachi, Rolls-Royce, Holtec and a
restructured Westinghouse.

 Times 1st June 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/energy/article/british-nuclear-energy-what-went-wrong-future-wx2qtxqnd

June 2, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Lincolnshire County Councillors move to pull the plug on nuclear waste site talks

 Councillors have moved to pull the plug on talks to bury nuclear waste in
open countryside near the coast. Members of Lincolnshire County Council’s
Overview and Scrutiny Management Board have recommended the council’s
Executive withdraw from a community partnership it joined with Nuclear
Waste Services (NWS) in 2021, ending Lincolnshire’s involvement in the
Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) siting process.

 Lincolnshire Live 30th May 2025, https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/lincolnshire-county-councillors-move-pull-10225069

June 2, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

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