
The United States and its European allies warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday against what they said was “dangerous” nuclear rhetoric after he announced plans to store tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a close ally of Moscow that shares a border with northern Ukraine. At the same time, Western powers said they saw no immediate danger or reasons to change their own strategic nuclear positions in the wake of his remarks. NATO called his comments, which he made Saturday on television, “irresponsible,” but said it had not seen any changes to Russia’s nuclear posture “that would lead us to adjust our own.” U.S. officials also downplayed the move, with John Kirby, communications coordinator for the National Security Council, telling CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that there was no indication Putin had “made good on this pledge or moved any nuclear weapons around.”
“We’ve seen nothing that would cause us to change our own strategic deterrent posture,” he said. On Saturday, Putin told Russian state television that Moscow would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus later this year following a request from Minsk. He said the plan would not violate Russia’s nuclear nonproliferation agreements — and likened the move to the United States stationing nuclear weapons in Europe. In a statement on Sunday, NATO dismissed this characterization as “totally misleading.”
Putin said: “We have agreed [with Belarus] that we will do the same thing. Without violating, I want to stress this, our international obligations on nuclear weapons nonproliferation. On July 1, we will finish building a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.” Russia, he said, would help Minsk refurbish aircraft to carry the weapons and had already transferred several Iskander missile systems to Belarus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/russia-putin-nuclear-weapons-nato-belarus/
Comment: Okay. We expressed our loud harumphs. Now move on. We have a hundred or so nuclear warheads stored on air bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkiye. Those countries are also modernizing their aircraft, F-35s, F-18 super Hornets and Eurofighter Typhoons, to carry those warheads. This is clearly a “people in glass houses” sort of thing. I think Russia desperately wants us to raise a stink. My advice is to STFU.
TTG
You Said It…TTG…Thats Been Putins Reaction Since He Gave His Own
Commanders 24 hours notice..on February 24th 2022..To Start the 34 Mile Parade to Kiev..Which Stalles for Four Weeks..giving Ukrainian Scouts time to Go in the Woods..Steal a Russian Map with all The Invasion Plans and Routes of Attack..and then a Russian Withdrawl of its 10 russian tactical batallions on March 19th..with Losses..
Today Russia losses were 15 Tanks..15 AVPs..and 8 Artillery Pieces…He Should Go Home..Now..
JT
Putin spoke about Russia’s ability to outperform the ‘Collective West’ in military production by a significant margin, which would doom the Proxy war in Ukraine for NATO. The ISW ‘translated’ it into press release stating that Russia is ‘still confident’ that it can win the war. As if the Russians had any doubts beforehand. But this is what you get if you refuse to listen to what your adversary is saying about his goals and desired outcome, supplanting them with your own ‘assessment’ or fantasies about a ‘land grab’ operation and Putin looking for a chance to include all of Ukraine into the Russian Federation. That was bad enough, but this focus on these nuclear warheads possibly stationed in Belarus when the construction of the required bunkers are complete, which was a footnote in the update he provided, is clearly meant to distract the Western audience from what is really happening in Ukraine, and keep this narrative of a ‘Russian Threat’ alive.
The ISW suggested that Putin would have to ‘compromise’ in order to find a solution in Ukraine. But that he was unlikely to accept such an outcome since he is clearly ‘digging in’ for a war which will not end soon. Like I myself, and quite a few others opined, this is called a ‘War of Attrition’, while the ‘Collective West’ is fighting a ‘War of Conquest’, hoping to add Russia to their belt of captured nations. That is a failure. And we need to expose it, or this thing will end in bitter tears.
The lesson.of WW1 was that attrition warfare – trenches, digging in – is to be avoided at all costs. Hence the blitzkrieg and maneuver warfare of WW2, which also should have been avoided at all cost but that has to do with human nature. If that’s what Russia has decided on then it only signifies colossal failure, but that’s obvious anyway. By the way within the past week two announcements were made by Russian higher-ups re tank production. Putin’s in the interview where he said 1600 tanks will be produced within 3 years and Medvedev’s who said 1500 would be produced in 1 year. I omit the extra phrases concerning “modernizing” some others etc out of laziness but don’t you think that’s a bit weird – the president and a former president not agreeing on something like that? I don’t think any particular conclusions can be drawn from that other than SNAFU.
No, I don’t think the two numbers are in conflict, exactly because this ‘modernizing’ bit adds to the total number, while not being brand new tanks. The core argument in Medvedev’s case was that NATO doesn’t come anywhere near the number of tanks ready for delivery to Ukraine, which clearly does include tanks which are in desperate need of a serious modernization, compared to what Russia is capable of producing.
Putin’s statement was about long-term planning, and would be referring to newly built tanks, which likely will include automated versions on the Armata platform. That figure is interesting when you want to compare planned production of similar systems in the ‘Collective West’, in part of replacement for the stuff they are now sending to Ukraine, and which will be shot to pieces before the year is over.
If Zelensky wasn’t creating ‘smoke and mirrors’ when he told Ukraine is out of weapons and ammo to this Japanese newspaper only this week, the Chinese offer to find a way to end this war may be the only game in town soon. It would leave Ukraine abandoned by its ‘friends’, much like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, buried in Dollar-denominated debt, with Poland ready to take control what the Russians will leave to Kiev as a truly Ukrainian state.
If so, we did them no favors.
The ISW, a known neocon mouthpiece, would like Putin to seek a compromise. He’s winning and the neocons are being hammered.
My unsolicited advice to the Russians is keep up the war of attrition and establish peace upon the battlefield.
I don’t know if the ISW is a neocon mouthpiece. Does anyone know; with what evidence. Maybe the ISW is spot on???
It’s more neocon than Count Dracula’s sense of dignity is insulted when he pulls his hearse limo into a school for abandoned underage hemophiliac children during an emergency blood donors drive during a famine. In other words it’s the gold standard of ultra-neocon neoconism on neocon steroids. Is that neocon enough? A true neocon will never think so.
If I get the time I will try to find a link to a long interview with the Kagan family member who is the brains behind it. But you are a person I value, and the man stares directly into the camera for over an hour without blinking or showing any emotion or sign of human empathy whatsoever, he makes a blood starved Count Dracula look like Mr Rogers after at long last meeting Captain Kangaroo, his boyhood idol. In other words, dangerous to health and well being in the extreme just like everything else they do.
@Fourth and Long
Your wording is always priceless. 😀
What a surprise. Two people see the same event differently. This is a colonial war of Russian imperialism. Ukrainian soldiers under fire w/say they are acting as NATO’s proxy. They are fighting, as they have for the past 100 years, against Russian oppression. Yet a war of attrition never favors the small so it is doubtful a nation of 44MM can hold off an oppressor of 144M. If Czar Vlad feeds enough men into the battle’s maul Russia will regain her empire. He will “win” millions of Ukrainians on his southwest who hate Russia for another 100 years and a twice resolved Baltic and Slavic sea who know that Russia has never changed her stripes. She has been a colonial oppressor since Peter. What strikes me as worthy of discussion is the nature of young Russian men who apparently feel elevated by hurting a weaker neighbor. “I’m tougher b/c I can beat up that little guy”. Human nature has not changed after all.
Jake, Putin will keep plugging away at least to Nov ’24 in hopes either his treasonist buddy Trump or territory expert DeSantis gets elected Pres.
AI, in my opinion Russia will continue to ‘plug’ until the ‘Collective West’ will return to earth, and understand the predicament they are in. Unable to ‘Regime Change’ Russia, and make their move on China, as they envisioned before the ‘SMO’ kicked off. This crude idea of Russia as a ‘gasstation’, still favored in some circles in the ‘Collective West’, may now be replaced by the US as a ‘Casino’ with its own money printing machine. Somehow throwing money at a problem is no longer enough to buy ‘Regime Change’ and the subservience of entire countries, outside Europe. And though the Germans sure know how to build state-of-the-art Porsches and Mercedes cars, producing tanks, ammo and whatever one needs for a ‘War of Attrition’ is outside their field of expertise these days. Even more so since the ‘Usual Suspects’ blew up ‘Northstream’. The US itself, promoted to ‘Go To’ merchant-of-death for the NATO countries, specialized in expensive gadgets of no real use, if they are not ‘grounded’ because of some software glitch. Stuff you can’t mass produce, even if you wanted to. And since the US has shifted its attention to the ‘human sciences’ to serve the ‘identity obsessed crowd’, away from engineering and stuff like that, relying on China and even ‘gas stations acting as a country’ to supply them with the raw materials and essential bits and pieces, the US is now trying voodoo, by the looks of it. Staking pins in ‘Bad Man Putin’ and ‘Bad Man Xi’. Good luck with that.
I can’t think of anything more eminently meriting reading than this Russian Dissent essay received here this morning. I was surprised that TTG didn’t avail himself of the opportunity to post some of the videos made by Russian servicemen recently in petitioning their authorities to pay attention to the plight caused by the criminal nincompoops in command there. I don’t know what to say because the criminals are not on their side only, not by any means.
Slaughterhouse 2/24
The fratricidal ruin of two countries
https://russiandissent.substack.com/p/slaughterhouse-224
Alexander Rybin
It is shocking to observe the suicidal tenacity with which Russian servicemen go to their deaths, marching to their graves on the orders of talentless Putin generals like Rustam Muradov. Belogorovka, Ugledar, and Marinka are all names of cemeteries where Putin’s generals send Russian servicemen, and the servicemen obediently go, all the while knowing that they are following an idiotic order.
Over the last six months, the patriotic Z-channels in Telegram have been increasingly active in reporting on the mediocrity of Putin’s generals. With thousands of Russian servicemen killed, missing, or captured, when the main “success” of the Russian army has been the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, their eyes have suddenly opened. (Continues at link)
Military history is filled w/stories of courage; courage b/y hope, personal sacrifice, what is the expression “uncommon courage”. I am in awe of it, humbled by it, and recognize that such bravery is not peculiar to any brand of men. It IS uncommon. But there is a commonness of plunging into fire poorly equipped, trained, and led expecting many will die but doing it anyway. Is this courage or submission? I wonder if the mind of the Russian grunt is no different today then 1914.
I think maybe Putin needed something to talk about other than the ongoing ground war which he isn’t doing too well at. Belarus may well have some warheads for as long as its dictator is a Putin stooge.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11906291/How-Putins-winter-offensive-failed.html
This has been the tale of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. After a year of bloody battles and missile & drone strikes of Ukrainian cities & infrastructure, Putin is no closer to achieving his aims through military means than when he ordered the invasion of his neighbor.
The Ukrainian army has demonstrated not only their ability to blunt the Russian army offensives but was able to push the Russian army out of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. What will they achieve when they restart their counter-offensive?
Sam Ukrainian efforts have not been for free. The question in my mind is what do the Ukrainians have left in the tank for a spring offensive of their own. Its April, springs here, and Ukrainian units are holding on by the skin of their teeth. Aren’t they?
“…Ukrainian units are holding on by the skin of their teeth. Aren’t they?“
Bill,
The punditry has consistently underestimated the Ukrainian army’s performance. Prior to the invasion as the Russian army was massing so many were forecasting the fall of Kyiv. Larry Johnson, Doug McGregor, Scott Ritter, et al. They’ve all been proven wrong, yet they keep predicting the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian army. The exception being Col. Lang & TTG.
From preventing the airborne assault of Hostomel airport to forcing the Russian thrust from Belarus to high tail and then forcing the Russian army out of Kharkiv and Kherson regions the Ukrainian army have performed better than most expected. Now in the recent battles in Bakhmut and Vuledar once again they prevented Russian army victory.
Don’t count them out, yet anyway. If the Russian army with their superiority haven’t been able to breakthrough Ukrainian defensive lines it is not evident they can make them kowtow.
The Photo above looks like MIG 31 with a Hypersonic Missle….On Purpose…
Real World shows Train Cars with T 54/55s..From Siberia…and Probably Several Prisoners to Drive Them around in a Field since they are So Easy to Operate..
y Tanks..But With SABOTS…HEAT..And HE Fragmentation. and many many rounds..
.
So..Do The Russians use That Profile..or Stop in Sparkys Garage..Take The Turrets off Put Wheels on Them…And Roll Those Down ther Streets..>Berlin Style..??
War is Mental Illness…Multiple Personalitys..Who Like Experimenting With Human Beings..Like Putin Did With His Rats as a Child..And in The WEST…Its Regime and Commerce Relocation Liberation Expiraments..With Population Adjustments Of Class and Color..To Create New Cultures…Like in The United States..Iraq..Syria..Turkey..and A New Europe…Starting With the German Experiment..and its 2.4 Million New Refugees from Ukraine and 16 Million Immigrants..That Have Dramatically Changed A Country ..that Those from the 1970s
would No Longer Recognize..In SHOCK and AWE.
..Just Like Past American Generations Would React..To The American Experiment..
Now…or its Strange New Flag..or Flooded Fields Of Green..Death…Like Rice Fields
In Viet Nam..and other Asian Markets…. Bye Bye…American Pie..Never More.?
JT
Nukes in Belorussia are not necessarily a problem, but a sign of things to come.
If the current iteration of the START treaty is to fail completely, this would be a big problem.
Here’s another sign of things to come… A technology and material transfer from Russia to China that enables China to increase its nuke inventory by a thousand new warheads.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-22/china-russia-deepen-nuclear-concord-that-has-pentagon-on-edge
Looks like Biden knew it all back in 1997 (this was before evil Putin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmnCBnfMxfI
United States President Joe Biden made a bizarre joke about eating ice cream before making a statement on the US school shooting incident that took place at an elementary school in Nashville in which three children and three adults were killed.
https://www.wionews.com/world/watch-biden-opens-statement-on-nashville-school-shooting-with-ice-cream-joke-576513
***********
Our president is unworthy of being hired on as a ghoul working as a manservant apprentice in Count Dracula’s remote Carpathian Alpine retreat for kidnapping young pizza delivery boys because he thinks the tomato marinara sauce looks like his favorite food.
Another step closer for Finnish accession to NATO:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/03/28/finlands-nato-membership-whats-next.html
Not anything new. Finland’s Rapid Deployment Force has trained with NATO forces and in the past served alongside NATO in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
What is Putin’s move when, or if, the Turkish Parliament also ratifies?
One more nation that America obligates itself to defend. What do we gain out of that expansion?
Nothing. Maybe in the year 2089 an oilygarch named, let’s see .. hmm, er, Marcia Sufferberg gets to see her net worth as reported in Forbes Magazine to be somewhere between $3.9 Trillion to $5.2 Trillion, depending on what day of the trading week it’s measured. Little else. Oh – maybe Macdonald’s menu includes McInsect Burgers, yes, there’s that. Free t-shirt for the names of Wendy’s and Burger King’s competing products. Here’s a clue for the kids in the back row:
Fill in the missing 9 letters for a free H2O tablet:
Spicy Double Whopper becomes … Licey Double __________ er.