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Putin holds out possibility that Russia could resume nuclear testing

Russian President Vladimir Putin observes exercises held by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, as he takes part in a video link in Moscow, Russia, on Oct 26, 2022. (Photo: Sputnik/Alexei Babushkin/Kremlin via REUTERS)

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (Oct 5) held out the possibility that Russia could resume nuclear testing for the first time in more than three decades and might withdraw its ratification of a landmark nuclear test ban treaty.

Putin, the ultimate decision maker in the world’s biggest nuclear power, also said Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile – the Burevestnik – whose capabilities he has called unmatched.

The Kremlin chief said there was no need to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine however, as any attack on Russia would provoke a split-second response with hundreds of nuclear missiles that no enemy could survive.

“Do we need to change this? And why? Everything can be changed but I just don’t see the need for it,” Putin said of the nuclear doctrine – the Kremlin policy setting out the circumstances when Russia might use its weapons.

The existence of the Russian state was not under threat, he added. “I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” Putin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

“I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” Putin added, referring to suggestions from hardline political scientists and commentators who say such a move could send a powerful message to Moscow’s enemies in the West.

NUCLEAR TEST?
He noted that the United States had signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty but not ratified it while Russia had signed and ratified it.

“I am not ready to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not, but it is possible theoretically to behave in the same way as the United States,” Putin said.

“But this is a question for the deputies of the State Duma (lower house of parliament). Theoretically, it is possible to withdraw this ratification. That would be enough,” he said.

He was answering a question from hardline Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov who wants a tougher nuclear stance. Karaganov asked if Putin should lower the nuclear threshold to sober up Russia’s “insolent” partners.

Inside Russia, some have called for Putin to detonate a nuclear bomb to show the West that Moscow’s patience over its support for Ukraine and apparent unwillingness to negotiate is wearing thin.

Most recently, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state-funded broadcaster RT, suggested that Russia should detonate a nuclear bomb over Siberia.

In the five decades between 1945 and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, more than 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out, 1,032 of them by the United States and 715 of them by the Soviet Union, according to the United Nations.

The Soviet Union last tested in 1990. The United States last in 1992.

A resumption in nuclear tests by Russia, the United States or both would be profoundly destabilising at a time when tensions between the two countries are greater than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

In February, Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the New START treaty that limits the number of nuclear weapons each side can deploy.

Putin said on Thursday that Russia had almost finished work on its new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/putin-holds-out-possibility-russia-could-resume-nuclear-testing-3824526

Drone attack kills 80 and wounds 240 at a packed Syrian military graduation ceremony, official says

A drone attack hit a crowded military graduation ceremony Thursday in the Syrian city of Homs, killing 80 people and wounding 240, the health minister said, in one of the deadliest recent attacks on an army that’s been fighting a civil war for more than a decade.

The strike killed civilians, including six children, as well as military personnel, and there were concerns the death toll could rise as many of the wounded were in serious condition, Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash said.

Syria’s military said in an earlier statement that drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony packed with young officers and their families as it was wrapping up. Without naming any particular group, the military accused insurgents “backed by known international forces” of the attack and said “it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations, wherever they exist.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack as Syria endures its 13th year of conflict.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “expressed deep concern” about the drone attack in Homs as well as reports of retaliatory shelling in northwest Syria, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. Guterres condemned all violence and called for a nationwide cease-fire, the spokesperson added.

The military did not provide any casualty numbers, but Syria’s state television said the government announced a three-day state of mourning starting Friday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and the pro-government Sham FM radio station reported the strikes earlier.

Syria’s crisis started with peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad’s government in March 2011 but quickly morphed into a full-blown civil war after the government’s brutal crackdown on the protesters. The tide turned in Assad’s favor against rebel groups in 2015, when Russia provided key military backing to Syria, as well as Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

So far, the war has killed half a million people, wounded hundreds of thousands and destroyed many parts of the country. It has displaced half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million, including more than 5 million who are refugees outside Syria.

Although most Arab governments have restored ties with the government in Damascus, Syria remains divided, with a northwest enclave under the control of al-Qaida-linked militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group and Turkish-backed opposition fighters. The country’s northeast is under control of U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The city of Homs is deep in government-held territory, far from front lines where government and rebel forces routinely skirmish.

After the drone attack, Syrian government forces shelled villages in Idlib province, in the northwest. At least 10 civilians were wounded in the towns of Al-Nayrab and Sarmin east of Idlib city, according to opposition-held northwestern Syria’s civil defense organization known as the White Helmets. Government forces continue to shell other areas in the enclave.

The Syrian army shelled another village in the region earlier Thursday before the drone attack over Homs, killing at least five civilians, activists and emergency workers said. The shelling hit a family house on the outskirts of the the village of Kafr Nouran in western Aleppo province, according to the White Helmets.

A woman and four of her children were killed, according to the Observatory. Nine other members of the family were wounded, it said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/northwestern-syria-airstrikes-killed-rebels-russia-1de0a6b1572827dae766a6ba14fc7ac4

Hand grenade fragments found in bodies of victims after Yevgeny Prigozhin plane crash, Vladimir Putin says

Vladimir Putin has suggested the plane crash that reportedly killed his former ally Yevgeny Prigozhin was caused by hand grenades – and not by a missile attack.

Putin says that hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of victims of Wagner chief’s plane crash

Hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of victims of a plane crash that killed former Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Mr Prigozhin was reportedly among 10 people killed in a plane crash north of Moscow on 23 August, two months to the day after he led a failed mutiny against top Russian officials.

The aborted rebellion, during which he demanded the ousting of the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, was the biggest challenge to President Putin’s rule since he rose to power in 1999.

But Mr Putin appeared to dismiss Western assessments the plane had been shot down, claiming there was “no external impact” and this “is already an established fact”.

“Fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of those killed in the crash,” he told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi.

He did not give any details around how a grenade could explode in the plane – but he said investigators should have tested the bodies for alcohol and drugs, given cocaine has been found at Wagner offices before.

“In my opinion, such an examination should have been carried out but it was not,” he added.

Mr Putin said the FSB security service had found 10 billion roubles (£82.3m) in cash and 5kg of cocaine in searches of Wagner’s offices in St Petersburg.

The investigators have not publicly commented on the case, but Russia said it confirmed Mr Prigozhin’s death in the crash following genetic tests – without revealing the cause.

He was buried privately in a “farewell ceremony” in a St Petersburg cemetery in August, according to his press team.

What happened to the plane?

The private Embraer Legacy aircraft was travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg when it crashed, with Russia reporting there were no survivors.

Russian state-owned TASS news agency said seven passengers and three crew were on board the Embraer aircraft and were all killed.

A Telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner Group said Mr Prigozhin was killed in the plane crash. It called him a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of unidentified people described as “traitors to Russia”.

The plane came down near the village of Kuzhenkino Tver.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/hand-grenade-fragments-found-in-bodies-of-victims-after-yevgeny-prigozhin-plane-crash-vladimir-putin-says-12977686

American Apocalypse? 71% Don’t Trust U.S. Government To Prevent Doomsday

U.S. politics continue to be a chaotic subject, and a new poll finds the majority of Americans are rapidly losing faith in their country’s leaders. From the ousting of the Speaker of the House to the mounting controversies engulfing the current president and his predecessor, over seven in 10 people say there’s no one they trust to save them from an end-of-the-world event. Such problems only push the so-called “Doomsday Clock” to tick closer to end times.

Established in 1947 by a group of atomic scientists, including the revered Albert Einstein, the Doomsday Clock serves as a barometer for humanity’s proximity to global annihilation. It is a metaphorical measure of humanity’s vulnerability to cataclysmic events, such as nuclear war, climate change, pandemics, or asteroid impacts. The closer the clock’s hands are to midnight, the closer we presumably are to a doomsday scenario.

According to a survey of 6,200 Americans conducted by BonusFinder.com, 71.2 percent of Americans say they have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event. Even more unnerving, many respondents believe Doomsday could come within the next year.

Over half the poll (55.8%) think Doomsday will come in the form of a climate change-related catastrophe, while a third believe another virus will sweep the globe and a quarter of respondents fear the start of World War III. Another seven percent are betting on an alien invasion, while the same number believe 2024 will finally be the year zombies walk the Earth.

When it comes to the lack of faith in the U.S. government, researchers found that this growing distrust appears to be a bipartisan issue. Researchers found that a staggering 82 percent of respondents in the swing state of Arizona don’t trust the government to protect them from Doomsday. Moreover, 43 percent of these Americans have stored up supplies for a potential disaster.

Following Arizona, the top five states with the least amount of trust in the government include Kansas (78%), Alabama (78%), Pennsylvania (77%), and Oregon (76%).

As for what’s causing so many people to get ready for the potential end of the world, over 16 percent of respondents say social media and the content they consume on these platforms has convinced them to take action. One in 10 say watching the news led them to start doomsday prepping, while 7.7 percent cite their family and 4.6 percent credit watching certain movies.

Who is Doomsday prepping in America?
If you’re thinking of creating your own Doomsday checklist, researchers found that the most popular items people are stocking up on include water (41.2%), warm clothing (39.3%), and extra food (38.2%). Interestingly, one in five are making sure to have extra pet food ready and one in 10 think they’ll need some extra cash when the world ends.

To decipher which U.S. states are prepping for doomsday, surveyors examined the extent of Americans’ preparations and survival plans. A “resilient citizen,” as defined by The Prepared, can survive over 31 days without external aid or utilities. The study utilized this metric to assess the number of resilient citizens in each state.

Leading the pack, Nebraska emerged as the most prepared, with 51.35% of respondents indicating they’ve begun or are considering doomsday preparations. Additionally, 37.84% of Nebraskans are classified as resilient citizens, having stored enough provisions for at least a month.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/dont-trust-us-government-doomsday/

3 army officers among 5 personnel injured after Major opens fire, blasts grenades inside camp in J&K’s Rajouri

The officer, said to be of the rank of major, opened fire on his colleagues without provocation during a shooting practice session and then took shelter in the armoury of the unit and lobbed grenades at his superiors who moved near the building in an effort to persuade him to surrender, the sources said.

At least five army personnel, including three officers, were injured when an officer allegedly opened fire and exploded grenades inside a camp in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, official sources said.

The tense situation lasted nearly eight hours before the officer was overpowered inside the armoury. The incident took place at the Neeli post near Thanamandi in the district.

The army evacuated a village in the close vicinity of the armoury as a precautionary measure, they said.

The army, however, claimed that an officer was injured in a likely grenade accident at a post in Rajouri.

“On 05 Oct 23 one officer was injured in a likely grenade accident at a post in Rajouri sector. Officer evacuated and stable post initial treatment. Further investigation of the incident in progress,” the White Knight Corps of the army posted on X.

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/jammu-and-kashmir/army-major-opens-fire-on-fellow-soldiers-in-jk-injuring-6-report-2714707

Putin holds out possibility that Russia could resume nuclear testing

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a press conference — Russian President Vladimir Putin observes exercises held by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, as he takes part in a video link in Moscow, Russia, on Oct 26, 2022. (Photo: Sputnik/Alexei Babushkin/Kremlin via REUTERS)