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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 223: Just a Brief Note Regarding the Renewed Nuclear Panic on Social Media. CHILL OUT!!!

War for Ukraine Day 223: Just a Brief Note Regarding the Renewed Nuclear Panic on Social Media. CHILL OUT!!!

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Before we start, here is actual footage of me as soon as Yom Kippur ended:

Patrick Starfish Hungry GIF - Patrick Starfish Hungry Starving GIFs

I was not planning on returning until tomorrow evening, however, a few of you have reached out to ask what is going on with the reports about armored vehicles from Russia’s nuclear forces being on the move. Apparently, some of the self declared OSINT people on social media – both those using their own names and those using pseudonyms – got a hold of some imagery, decided the trucks were from Russia’s 12th GUMO, which is the unit that provides security for Russia’s nuclear arsenal, and off to the races they went. Fortunately for you all I know who to check to see what is really going on.

Bill Moon is a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center and he is quote tweeting Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists:

Here’s Korda’s two tweet thread:

Here’s Mark Galeotti of RUSI quote tweeting Jeffrey Lewis from the Middlebury Institute who is responding to the same tweet that Korda was. Lewis is one of the top non-proliferation subject matter experts around.

The rest of Lewis’s thread after the jump:

Obligatory:

I’ll be back tomorrow night with a proper update post.

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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    Thank you for this. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t what people were afraid it was, but part of my brain was like OR IS IT????????

    Looking forward to your update tomorrow. No need to answer tonight, but I am curious as to your thoughts about the “US says Ukraine iced Dugina” story.

  2. 2.

    N M

    The judges award you infinity points for the awesome Babylon 5 reference.  Great, underappreciated show, released before its time!

  4. 4.

    Martin

    So reading that there’s a bit of inter-office hostilities among Putin’s subordinates. Rooting for injuries.

    Adam, one thing being speculated is which bad decision Russia is chasing in Kherson – retreating back across the dam at Nova Kakhovka or retreating back across the Inhulets, which probably traps the lot of them. I’m guessing the dam is now in artillery range (not just HIMARS).

    Kherson feels like it’s going to be an absolute disaster.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: Well, yes. But also a humanitarian disaster. 15K-20K Russian troops estimated to be there, with basically no way to retreat if Ukraine gets control of the dam – which is what they are racing toward. The river there is wide, and it’s getting colder. It’s going to be fight, surrender, or die of hypothermia trying to swim for it. And if Ukraine does get control of the dam, they can also just starve them out since that cuts the last of their supply lines. Russia doesn’t stand a chance here.

    Its just going to be ugly stuff.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … AlJazeera:

    Ukraine’s deputy chief of military intelligence, Vadym Skibitskiy, told the news website Krym.Realii that Russia had redeployed Black Sea Fleet service personnel from the Sevastopol naval base in Crimea to Novorossiysk, southern Russia, to avoid casualties, after a series of explosions.

    Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has acted as a staging area for Russian personnel and equipment, supporting the invasion of Kherson and Zaporizhia in the early days of the war.

    Ukraine has made clear it wants the peninsula back and has made devastating use of 16 US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) in its September counteroffensives.

    On October 1, a lend-lease facility that speeds up the supply of US weapons came into force, and in two separate announcements, the US Department of Defense said it is sending Ukraine 22 new HIMARS rocket launchers and ammunition.

    The head of Ukrainian intelligence services predicted that after a lull for the European winter, Ukrainian forces would likely enter Crimea by the end of spring, in mid-2023. Kyrylo Budanov said Russia’s mobilisation would not present a challenge.

    “There is no need to be afraid of mobilisation. In fact, it is a gift to us. This will only speed up the process, which is already impossible to stop,” said Budanov in an interview with television channel 1+1.

    Day 224 of my 3 day war. Russian army is holding the line. It's just that the "line" keeps moving towards Russia.

    I remain a master strategist.

    — Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) October 5, 2022

    Indeed.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: My understanding is they’re trying to get to the Inhulets to set up a new defensive line there. Not sure they’re going to make it. I expect once the Ukrainians have the Russians with their backs to the river they’ll drop the bridge and seal the Russians off from retreat, resupply, and reinforcement.

    200 yards to safety, death was 50 yards behind…

  10. 10.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: I think there’s at least a chance that the Ukes tried for her father, and a last-minute car switch fucked that. Blowing up Dugin in Moscow would have been quite the statement. But even if they did do it, they must be pissed as hell about that leak. I suspect someone in the IC who is not partial to Ukraine, or who is annoyed at how Ukraine is not sharing much with the CIA.

  12. 12.

    Kent

    Some thoughts

    1. Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia (or any other nuclear state) will instantly vaporize the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.  Which is basically a deal between the nuclear and non-nuclear states that if the non-nuclear states promise not to build nuclear weapons then the nuclear states promise never to use them against a non-nuclear state.
    2. No nation currently benefits MORE from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty than Russia.  Because no nation has more hostile neighbors on its MASSIVE land borders than Russia that would have the potential to develop nuclear weapons.  There are at least half a dozen countries bordering Russia that would likely seek nuclear weapons if that was the only means that they had to deter Russia including all of the central Asian republics.  Basically every state on the Russian border not already a member of NATO.

    Given 1 and 2, it seems utterly irrational for Russia to contemplate first use in Ukraine.  Rational perhaps to THREATEN first use.  But to actually use nuclear weapons?  If they do so, how fast will countries like say Kazakhstan start developing nukes?  And for that matter Ukraine?

    I would also imagine one possible US, EU, and NATO response would be to utterly cut off Russia from the rest of the economic world.  Basically blockade.  Announce to the world that no trade of any kind with Russia is to be tolerated.  You either trade with the US/EU or you trade with Russia.  Not both.   Force the whole world to take sides.

  14. 14.

    sdhays

    @Martin: Not surprising considering what we know about Russia and its army, but once Ukraine started to demonstrate that they could make the two bridges over the very, very wide river virtually impassable, it was the height of folly for Russia to double down and send so many troops there. This end was almost pre-determined – if not now, then in another month or two. If you can’t supply and can’t get your people out, you’re sending them into a trap to die or surrender.

    The “strategy” seems to have been another “underpants gnomes” plan:

    1. transfer a huge number of troops and equipment across the river with no way back and virtually no reliable supply
    2. …
    3. Ukrainian Army goes away and Putin remains a master strategist.

    These guys would lose a tic-tac-toe.

  16. 16.

    Spadizzly

    Prof. Timothy Snyder points out that ruscist nuclear blackmail is directed not at us, but at the Ukrainians, who have resisted it throughout these 7 months, and therefore we should, as well, and further that to submit to nuclear blackmail would set the worst possible precedent and inevitably lead to their use:

    https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=auto_share

     

    Before I lay this out, we will first have to clear away the nuclear static.  Speaking of nuclear war in a broad, general way, we imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian War is all about us.  We feel like the victims.  We talk about our fears and anxieties.  We write click-bait headlines about the end of the world.  But this war is almost certainly not going to end with an exchange of nuclear weapons.  States with nuclear weapons have been fighting and losing wars since 1945, without using them.  Nuclear powers lose humiliating wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and do not use nuclear weapons.

    To be sure, there is a certain temptation to concede mentally to nuclear blackmail.  Once the subject of nuclear war is raised, it seems overwhelmingly important, and we become depressed and obsessed.  That is just where Putin is trying to lead us with his vague allusions to nuclear weapons.  Once we take his cue, we imagine threats that Russia is not actually making.  We start talking about a Ukrainian surrender, just to relieve the psychological pressure we feel.

    This, though, is doing Putin’s work for him, bailing him out of a disaster of his own creation.  He is losing the conventional war that he started.  His hope is that references to nuclear weapons will deter the democracies from delivering weapons to Ukraine, and buy him enough time to get Russian reserves to the battlefield to slow the Ukrainian offensive.  He’s probably wrong that this would work; but the rhetorical escalation is one of the few plays that he has left.

  17. 17.

    elliottg

    The most generous interpretation of the link is that Dugin was taken out for some unknown reason by internal Russian political foes. Saying it was Ukraine would leave the people in the dark about what really happened fearful that Ukraine can reach into the heart of Russia to assassinate someone. It leaves those who know what happened with an insoluble problem of remaining silent unable to reassure friends and/or allies or hinting at the truth which may be even more anxiety causing. So if Ukraine was not responsible then the leak is good news (seriously – not in the good news for John McCain sense).

  18. 18.

    Ruckus

    @HumboldtBlue:

    And Russia is making it worse. Wholesale stupidity by your government for asinine reasons is never actually appreciated by those in the middle of actual warfare. Especially if or when they run out of supplies like food.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    @Quiltingfool:

    Totally inappropriate to this post, but my Patron quilt is amazing.

    Thank you for doing that. You are very, very good. Now I have to make a frame to hang it up.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yeah, saw the issue 1st pop up twitter a couple of day ago, saw they were quickly swatted down by Jeffrey Lewis & others specializing on nuclear non-proliferation & thought that was that. No idea it has taken off on social media.

    Jeffery Lewis is definitely the guy to follow on nuclear issues, whichever the country. His team also discovered (via commercial satellite imagery) the massive ICBM silo field (now plural) China has been constructing in the NW deserts, & immediately speculated a shell game strategy, when lots of non-specialists went straight to hyperventilating about China boosting its ICBM force by 100X. I have been following him since the NK nuke crises in the early aughts.

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Kent:

    1. Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia (or any other nuclear state) will instantly vaporize the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.  Which is basically a deal between the nuclear and non-nuclear states that if the non-nuclear states promise not to build nuclear weapons then the nuclear states promise never to use them against a non-nuclear state.

    I don’t think the deal is codified anywhere in the NPT treat. China is the only P5 to publicly promise No First Use of nukes, & to forswear nukes against non-nuclear states (unclear if it applies to Taiwan).  Of course, there is an implicit deal that the existing nuclear states will be responsible w/  their arsenals & in the proliferation of nuclear technology. The whole NPT system is slowly coming apart w/ the growth of unsanctioned & undeclared nuclear states; Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, whose proliferation each of the P5 are at least suspected of acquiescence if not outright support.

    I would also imagine one possible US, EU, and NATO response would be to utterly cut off Russia from the rest of the economic world.  Basically blockade.  Announce to the world that no trade of any kind with Russia is to be tolerated.  You either trade with the US/EU or you trade with Russia.  Not both.   Force the whole world to take sides.

    If Russia uses a nuke in Ukraine, the vast majority of the current fence straddlers will not choose Russia.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: The five “legal” nuclear powers have accepted the programs of three others-  Israel, Pakistan and India- as faits acompli. They are trying to draw the line with Iran, but even if the JCPOA is reinstituted its expiration in 2025 makes this effort dubious.

    Military intervention may come into play here. Israel very loudly asserts that it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and from time to time holds well publicized exercises simulating an attack on Iran. Basically they fly a lot of warplanes and a few refueling tankers in circles around the eastern Mediterranean Sea, break off for simulated bombing runs over Israel, then fly some more until they’ve logged the distance to get to and from central Iran.

    The Israelis count on the radar-evading capabilities of their F-35 warplanes to enable them to make an attack without severe losses. They cannot destroy Iran’s program, though, just more or less cripple it for a time.

    The US is not so loud, but has affirmed a policy that it will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons and that military action is not ruled out. The US probably could destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, but reports are that President Biden has Informed Israel that this would be undertaken only as a “very” last resort.

    I think there has been a hope that a new Iranian government would drop the nuclear program. We may find out, if the current round of protests topple the Islamic Republic. That’s a big if, though.

  23. 23.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: IIRC from analysis during the Green Revolution, the nuclear program (If not the bombs themselves) is something of a consensus in Iran, supported across the spectrum, though the women leading the charge now may not care as much.

    I also don’t know what an Israeli and/or US strike at the Iranian nuclear program is supposed to accomplish. All of these scenarios have been hashed out prior to the JCPOA, & the military solution was determined to be at most a stopgap, if at all viable. A strike could quickly quench the popular anti-regime fire that is raging now & cause most of the Iranians to circle their wagons. While most of the Sunni Arabs monarchies are supportive, if unwilling to get their hands dirty themselves, but the pan-Western coalition that the US has been trying to consolidate through the Russian invasion of Ukraine could start to fracture over an Israel/US strike against Iran (absent some kind of overt aggressive act on the part of Iran). Things can also quickly get dicy in Iraq.

    In any case, the world is well on the way to de facto recognizing NK as a nuclear state, as fait accompli.

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: An Israeli strike on Iran would indeed be very problematic. For one thing, Iran would retaliate through its proxy, Hezbollah, which has a stockpile estimated at 130,000 rockets by one reporter for Al Jazeera, a fairly neutral souce on this question. Other estimates agree. That would lead to a very violent war.

    It’s not so clear that a new government, if one were to be achieved, would keep the nuclear program. The cost of Iran’s many foreign adventures is one of the grievances expressed by the protesters, and the nuclear program is a costly effort that causes conflict with the larger world.

    A new government might be persiaded to put the program back in a box, so to speak, and limit uranium  enrichment to 3 67%. Right now the Iranians are playing a game of “chicken,” enriching uranium to 60%, one or two steps from weapons grade. They still maintain the program is entirely peaceful in intent, but I don’t know if anyone inside or outside Iran believes this.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: A nuclear armed North Korea is not nearly as destabilizing as a nuclear armed Iran could be. Turkey and Saudi Arabia might feel impelled to acquire neclear weapons themselves. Turkey has the requisite industrial base. Saudi Arabia as yet does not, but there are reports that Pakistan would be willing to sell Saudi Arabia weapons, and that the Saudis’ current financial support of Pakistan is predicated on this.

  26. 26.

    Bill Arnold

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    I also wonder about the decision by the US to make this public when Ukraine denies it. What purpose does it serve?

    I won’t address truth or motivations, but note that it does boost the US reputation for honesty (regularly shived by GWB and many others), even though leaked or “leaked”.
    Also perhaps, with a speculation-hat on, the US may know that the FSB had solid grounds (from an investigation) to believe it already. In this case it possibly sends a signal that this current US administration does not approve of international political assassination, i.e. possibly a de-escalation move. (Anti-terrorism being a carve-out.)

  27. 27.

    Bill Arnold

    @Geminid:

    Turkey and Saudi Arabia might feel impelled to acquire neclear weapons themselves. Turkey has the requisite industrial base.

    Yeah, we’d quickly end up with a three-or-four-way regional nuclear arms race, with warhead delivery times via missile in the low numbers of minutes.
    The applied eschatologists who have or have had positions of power over such matters, like Mike Pompeo, hope that this arms race would be followed by biblical Armageddon within several years, hence their interest in regional nuclear arms proliferation disguised as support for Israel.

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: We need to remember that (baseline) nuclear weapons are 1940s technology.  Any modern country that wants to get them will eventually get them.  What’s important is for them not to want them, and try to restrict the necessary components and materials.

    CarnegieEndowment.org on A.Q. Khan Chronology:

    Early 1980s

    • Khan acquires blueprints for the Chinese bomb that was tested in China’s fourth nuclear explosion in 1966.

    • Khan is, reportedly, approached by an unknown Arab country (possibly Saudi Arabia or Syria) requesting nuclear assistance.

    The timeline indicates that he was helping Iran in the 1980s, and KSA was undoubtedly aware of that and thinking about the implications…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Not sure what your point is. Are you saying that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is obsolete?

    And how, for instance, would you make Iran “not want” nuclear weapons?

Comments are closed.