This is starting to become very worrisome. Again, I feel the same tightening of my chest and tears behind my eyes that I felt as a kid wondering if we were all going to be blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast, or worse still, not be blown to smithereens and live through the initial strike, only to die a slow and agonizing death from radiation poisoning.
Vladimir Putin, after four days of shelling in Ukraine which has claimed many lives on both sides, has agreed to sit down in neutral territory with Volodymyr Zelensky and discuss peace. Just yesterday a story broke about the Russian Ministry of Health putting out the call to medical personnel to be prepared to swiftly relocate to deal with a “massive medical emergency” and we also learn that Putin put Russian nuclear forces on high alert in the past 16 hours (as of the time of this writing, 8:00 a.m. PST.) These are the breaking developments to bear in mind.
The massive medical emergency could come, obviously, if Putin would drop a nuclear bomb. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, here we come. And that’s only if we’re incredibly lucky. The potential for this madness to spiral out of control should not be underestimated. Daily Beast:
News of the talks came as it emerged that President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert, blaming NATO leaders’ “aggressive statements,” according to the Associated Press. The order paves the way for Putin to use nuclear weapons, which of course would lead to devastating consequences for all of Europe.
Putin gave the order on Sunday, asking his defense minister to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty,” according to the A.P. “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in televised remarks.
“Senior officials of the leading Nato countries also allow aggressive statements against our country, therefore I order the minister of Defense and the chief of the general staff [of the Russian armed forces] to transfer the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty,” Putin said.
“President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable, and we have to continue to condemn his actions in the strongest possible way, U.N. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greeenfield told CBS’ Face the Nation. Our voices have been unified with the Europeans and with the world that he needs to cease his aggressive actions toward Ukraine. And we will continue here at the United Nations and around the world to use every possible lever we have at our disposal to expose his actions.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos: “I’m not surprised at this information because Putin has tried every means possible to actually put fear in the world in terms of his action, and it just means that we have to ramp up our efforts here at the United Nations and elsewhere to hold him accountable.”
I never disagree with Jen Psaki, because the woman always talks sense and makes factual arguments, but I have to say, a madman on the other side of the world gearing up the nuclear dogs of war is terrifying. I’m sorry, I’m finding it difficult to be calm or matter of fact about this.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters in a briefing Saturday that Putin’s threats are very real and should be taken seriously—but it’s not necessarily clear what Putin’s next moves are, and officials are working to understand his next moves.
“We have no reason to doubt the validity of this order but how it’s manifested itself is not completely clear yet,” the senior defense official said. The official added the United States is prepared to defend against any threats to the homeland.
“It is always a priority to be able to defend the homeland and to make sure our strategic deterrence is capable, viable and ready at all times,” the official said. The news comes as Russian forces continue their all-out assault in Ukraine and are using about two-thirds of their forces to date, the U.S. has assessed, according to the official.
Putin’s tanks are running out of gas, as you read here yesterday, and his “siege” tactics, i.e. having Russian forces dress as Ukrainians for the purposes of sabotage, are falling fat. The Ukrainians know who’s who. Also, of the 320 missiles Russia has launched, a number of them have failed. This is most likely why Putin is rattling the nuclear arsenal sabers, it’s the only credibility he has left at this point, as farcical as his war effort has been so far.
But the threat of even one H-bomb going off on this planet is no farce. Not at all. The air and the water circulate globally. The dust from an explosion of that level can affect crops all over Europe, and that’s assuming this is a contained war. Once this madness starts, it can escalate out of control in a heartbeat. A dear friend of mine was a general in the Marines and he was present at the Bay of Pigs. He told me how close we came to annihilation at that time. We can’t go this direction.
He’s bluffing with an empty hand. Remember…Trump used the same kind of terror tactics against his alleged inferiors all the time. Where do you think he learned them from? This is no different than blowing up that oil farm in Kyiv last night (which will fail to deprive one Ukrainian tank of fuel) or those pair of missiles that just got shot out of Belarus (while delegations were meeting for a farce of a “peace negotiation”). This is about intimidation to gain leverage Putin no longer has.
The Moscow Maniac is NOT bluffing. He’s a complete madman & needs to be removed permanently. The sooner the better. This is like Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland on a false flag setup. The US and others did not want to get involved & we did not until Japan attacked us more than 2 years later at the end of 1941. By then Hitler had gained control of much of Europe along with a good chunk of its money manpower and industrial resources. The Moscow Madman WILL ABSOLUTELY give the order to use the ground based nukes he’s transported into Southern Belarus no matter how anyone responds. Time is of the essence. The time to strike is now when he’s less strong less organized and less prepared. The only questions at this point re: the nukes are: (1) Whether his Generals & men carry out the orders to launch them once the orders are given (most of the Russian infantry sent to fight Ukraine were not even told they were going to war – they were told it’s a training exercise); and (2) whether the missiles armed with the nuke warheads jam and/or explode on the ground (like North Korea’s) or launch.
The Moscow Madman’s short-term plan is to take over Ukraine by force then those ground-based nukes he’s moved into Southern Belarus to threaten & take over Poland. After that he plans to invade Finland by sea from his nuclear base in the Russian Kola Peninsula.
The Moscow Madman’s timing for this was originally to wait about 1-2 years after TFG (Putin’s put-in-puppet) was installed for a 2nd term; but everything was moved up after Biden began restoring US military equipment and manpower into Europe and Germany following TFG’s having reduced US military presence there to the lowest levels since before WWII as Putin had ordered him to do and plans were. Biden had also begun to move to increase aid to Ukraine to beef up its air defense systems in response to US intelligence on Russia, so the Moscow Madman knew it was now or never to launch his attack.
The Moscow Madman had ordered TFG to stop/delay weapons flow to Ukraine from the US to defend itself from Russia. Examples of this include TFG trying to blackmail Zelensky in July 2019 to make up lies against Biden/Biden’s son to reduce his chance of winning the 2020 election in exchange for releasing $250 Million in weapons aid to Ukraine that had already been approved by Congress – which of course led to TFG’s First Impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. And even before that, on orders from the Moscow Madman, TFG denied Ukraine’s August 2018 public request to the US to buy $750 million worth of air defense system equipment to upgrade its air defense system against Russia. Also in August 2019, TFG, on orders from the Moscow Madman ended the 1987 Nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia that allowed the Moscow Madman to increase his stockpile of nukes to eventually use against the West. If TFG had been installed for another term, then one of the first things the Moscow Madman would have ordered him to do was to withdraw the US from NATO as a major step in weakening and destroying NATO entirely.
Like a cancer the Moscow Madman has to be lanced like a boil before he takes over more and more countries & kills millions of people. Insane Bullies never respond to anything other than brute force. There is no negotiating with him. His ultimate goal is just like Hitler’s: Take over the world, steal & control everyone and everything of value, torture and murder anyone in his way including civilians, mothers, babies & make the Ruble the currency standard of the world. He must be stopped now. The nukes guidance and operating systems need to be hacked, jammed and dismantled; and he himself needs to be eliminated permanently.
I won’t say I’m not concerned because I am. I was quite young (in Kindergarten) in October, 1962 but I remember the fear I could see on the face of every adult in my little corner of the world. Of course I didn’t know why they were so terrified and even if they’d explained that nuclear missiles had been installed in Cuba and that the world as it was known would end in a massive exchange of nukes I wouldn’t have understood. But even a kid my age could sense the fear during those weeks. It was palatable.
Has Putin lost a measure of his grip on reality? Is he so angry at the world for not recognizing him and his country at least as a superpower if not THE superpower, and worse realizing the economic damage his way down the list country is going to suffer developing the mentality of those people who kill partners and then themselves? The “If I can’t have them then no one can” writ large? Is he willing to see unthinkable destruction to his own country and the rest of the world because he isn’t being granted what he believes is his rightful place at the top of world leadership? I don’t discount that possibility.
At the same time I know that like Trump had some real crackpots telling him what he wanted to hear after the election including on Jan. 6 there are as there was with Trump people more clear eyed that could stop the worst of things. And they did, starting with the military and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs who made it clear from the top on down that our armed forces would NOT be drawn into the election fraud crap and violate both norms and Posse Comitatus in support of Trump. Both civilian and military leaders had also even prior quietly agreed that if Trump went round the bend that a wrench would be thrown in the works of any nuclear order he might issue.
Yes, there are surely super hawks in the Russian Chain of Command but like our guys there are far more who view the concept of using nukes with horror, and the same is true of those who would actually turn the keys or press the buttons to fire them. Not over this.
As you say, even one would be awful and crack the lid on Pandora’s Box which is a terrible thing to have to think about. And it IS in fact possible regardless of how many people down the chain from Putin that would do all they could to prevent even one from being launched. So yes, I am concerned but I don’t feel anything like the terror that I know adults felt back in 1962. A lot of those civilian and military leaders remember when they were young and I’m sure saw the same terror you and I saw in the adults around us. Even if retired now it’s relatively recently so and they are still plugged into things the same way retired top level officers and civilian DOD types are in our country and you can bet they are if not burning up phone lines with their successor right there in command centers getting up in their faces.
It’s clear a large chunk of the Russian populace doesn’t support even the ground war, and that’s reflected in the actions or rather half-hearted actions by the troops carrying out that war. So I have what I believe is a calculated realistic hope that if Putin really has lost it or does soon that cooler, saner heads will prevail over there. If his increasing self-isolation is causing him to lose grip on reality, it is also providing space for those who matter to save their country and the rest of us from the worst.
I can understand losing sleep over this. I’m sure part of why I got so little last night was that late breaking news. But while Russia (nor us for that matter, or even China) doesn’t have what I believe are enough controls in place when it comes to nuclear release authorization they do exist. Putin can’t launch nukes himself. Others have to carry out his order to do so and there ARE links in the chain between an order from Putin and any given nuke being fired. I believe there are some in that process who well before this war was launched realized it wouldn’t be the cakewalk that Putin and SOME of his close advisors (including his top military ones who are as out of touch with the ground truth as Putin or plain afraid to tell him the truth) thought it would be, and that they started preparing some “just in case” contingency plans for this scenario.
PUTIN PUT HIS NUCLEAR DETERRENT FORCES ON HIGH ALERT, BLAMING NATO LEADERS’ “AGGRESSIVE STATEMENTS,” Oh noes, aggressive statements! Horrors! Compared to the actual aggressive actions that only one person/country has committed???? Vlad the Putz is really ticking me off with his bi-czar behavior. It has to be projection. He knows what he’s got planned and would like to do, so assumes every other country is thinking the same thing. I really wish some of his comrades would see the damage he’s bringing to his own country and solve our Putin problem, before it gets any further out of hand. Wonder if they’ve read Julius Caesar. The Ides of March ARE just around the corner.
given the prevailing wind, in Europe as well as everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere, is from west to east, unless he does a full out nuclear attack, he will basically be killing his own people. Is he really going to go full out nuclear? He’s stupid but he’s not former guy stupid. I also think that if he keeps this dumbass shit up much longer the oligarchs pulling the little puppet’s strings are going to install another puppet. Of course I am operating under the assumption the oligarchs are smarter than putie and care only about their bank accounts and aren’t idiot x-tian fundies like we have in this country. If they are no different than our wealthy pieces of shit then all bets are off.
What keeps going through my mind is that these oligarchs are bought and paid for “friends” of Putin. They owe their power and more importantly their wealth that allows them (and their loved ones) to live fabulous live beyond most people’s comprehension. However ALL of that is based on Putin covering their asses diplomatically (many do business in, travel to or even live in other countries as do many of their loved ones) and financially. In the end it all comes down not even to power (which is still huge) but money, without which most of that power and privilege wouldn’t exist. The sanctions already in place are getting quite personal and not just for them but with Putin now on the list their benefactor. That’s the thing about transactional relationships as see here with Trump. The asshole at the top who has consolidated more power will thrown anyone under the bus without warning to protect their own ass. Putin is no different and they know it. The difference is that unlike Trump their destruction for not supporting the “king” enough (must less openly challenging him) isn’t merely political and/or financial but becoming one of his murder victims. With someone like Putin the old adage about Machiavelli comes to mind – If you strike at a king you must kill him.
Given the players in this life risking game one can understand why even if most of Putin’s oligarchs already reached a “he’s out of control and is going to take us down with him if I/we don’t take him down first” mentality they are hesitant to act. I feel it might be inevitable at this point but even if momentum towards such a rebellion (which would result in Putin’s death) has become unstoppable a helluva lot of bad things can happen before what needs to be done gets done and they can try to reassemble things from the wreckage. And there’s one final thing to consider which is that even if an oligarch or group of them kill off Putin there’s a good chance they too will wind up dead and that Putin might have prepared retribution against their loved ones if they ever “left the fold.” So while pundits and even experts talk about how his circle didn’t really think he’d take things this far once he did, and worse is refusing to deal with the reality of what he’s doing not just to his country but to them and even himself those oligarchs now know how desperate Putin is and that animals are most dangerous when wounded and cornered. So they are afraid and have plenty of reason to be so which is why they haven’t tried to stop him. At least yet. But the longer they wait the more desperate Putin will become which means making a decisive move against him becomes all the more dangerous for them and their loved ones.
While I’m pretty sure things will wind up with Putin dead at the hands of one or more of his oligarchs I fear it’s likely things are going to get worse and possibly much worse not just for Ukraine but regular Russian citizens before this is all over.
We can only hope that Putin is not sufficiently narcissistic, crazy, and vengeful enough (doubtful) that he would risk personal annihilation along with the rest of us.
It’s a bluff. The supposed ‘high alert’ is laughable. The fact is both the US & Russia already maintain enough nukes on ‘high alert’ 24/7 that NO ONE would survive long term. We eat, sleep, work, etc., under a storm cloud 24/7. No one trusts anyone so the arsenal is ready at a moments notice. It’s a running joke in the submarine ranks since no one knows where all the trident nuclear subs are, & one could destroy everything. Everything. Add in the fragility of our climate disaster, it wouldn’t take much. It’s a threat sure, but it’s voicing what already exist. Life or mass suicide. Putin wouldn’t move his billion dollar yacht out of harms way if he were on a suicide mission. He’s a bully. Period. There’s only one way to deal with them, FIGHT BACK.