How the war in Ukraine can turn into a nuclear one, suggests the American magazine Foreign Affairs. According to the American magazine, Russian nuclear weapons are too close to the front.
06.11.2024 06:30 , updated: 06:39
Photo: SITA/AP
On Tuesday, May 21, 2024, the crew was preparing a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber for a mission as part of a tactical nuclear weapons exercise. It was the first time Russia had publicly announced such nuclear exercises.
6:39 On Tuesday, the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, appointed a woman whose son was killed in the war in Ukraine to the post of acting governor of the Jewish Autonomous Region in the Russian Far East. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
Until now, Marija Kosťuková was a high-ranking official in the Jewish Autonomous Region, which lies near the border with China. Putin has now promoted her to the position of regional head. Previously, according to AFP, she participated in the meetings of the Russian president with the mothers of soldiers who lost their lives in Ukraine. Her 26-year-old son died fighting for Moscow in eastern Ukraine.
Kostyukova is currently the only woman at the head of one of Russia’s 83 regions after Natalia Komarova, the governor of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug in western Siberia, resigned earlier this year. She was previously criticized for her statements about the war in Ukraine.
6:30 How the war in Ukraine can turn into a nuclear one, suggests the American magazine Foreign Affairs. According to the American magazine, Russian nuclear weapons are too close to the front. The greatest responsibility of a nuclear state is to keep its warheads safe, writes the magazine. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow put about 30 percent of its estimated 5,580 warheads into an unsustainably precarious position.
At the start of the war, concerns that the invasion increased the danger of a nuclear detonation or accidental explosion centered on Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants and Russia’s threats to deliberately escalate the conflict.
But the more Ukraine tries to hit targets in Russia, the clearer it becomes that Russia’s reluctance to adequately secure the nuclear arsenal it has stored in its western part — and is now within range of Ukrainian missiles and drones, and even Ukrainian troops — poses a dire threat. situation, writes Foreign Affairs.
Since Ukrainian drone attacks have only been recorded in Moscow, it is clear that at least 14 Russian nuclear sites are now within drone range. At least two of these sites are less than 100 miles from Ukraine’s border, within range of the more dangerous missiles Ukraine already possesses, and the other five sites are less than 200 miles from the border, which is close to or just beyond the range of advanced missiles provided by the West, and in which Ukraine requests permission to use them against conventional targets in Russia.
According to Foreign Affairs, there are several possible reasons for Russia’s apparent dereliction of duty: Russian President Vladimir Putin may believe that moving Russian nuclear warheads would be a sign of weakness; senior Russian leaders may not be aware of the dangers associated with these nuclear warheads; or the Russian military may fear that the West would misconstrue the repositioning of the warheads as preparation for a nuclear attack, prompting a pre-emptive NATO strike.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
