Putin orders NUCLEAR strike drills as Ukraine war escalates: The Frontline

Putin orders NUCLEAR strike drills as Ukraine war escalates: The Frontline

Russia has ordered troops to prepare for nuclear strikes in the latest round of saber rattling drills that have so far failed to curb Ukraine from its successful campaign of longrange attacks deep inside Russian soil my name is Jerome starky I’m the defense editor at the Sun newspaper and this is Frontline your weekly Roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine we’re going to start today with Russia’s nuclear saber rattling something that we’ve seen before but we’ve seen pretty intensely over the last few days and which has come as a direct response of the topic we covered last week and that was the green light given by allies to Ukraine to use Western weapons in the series in the successful strikes against Targets on Russian soil particularly those strikes against oil refineries now we’ve seen a significant response from from Russia at least a significant rhetor iCal response from Russia on Monday Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that it was going to launch nuclear drills with non-strategic nuclear weapons involving uh its missile forces aircraft and Maritime forces to increase the preparedness was the word they used to deploy nonstrategic nuclear weapons now non-strategic nuclear weapons those are tactical n nuclear weapons generally weapons that have a shorter range and a shorter year so they’re less powerful not designed to blast intercontinentally from continent to continent across oceans rather uh more likely to be used in a sort of Battlefield scenario a bit like many of the missiles we’ve already seen used in Ukraine the difference is these would have nuclear warheads and could take out areas perhaps the size of a few football pitches destroy uh military units companies regiments at a time rather than entire cities but that warning that specific warning that Russia would be carrying out non-strategic nuclear drills with its Southern military command was a direct response to comments from the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary and others suggesting that some of Ukraine’s allies had no qualms uh had no objections to keev using the weapons that they were supplying Western weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia now also in response to those comments on Monday we saw Moscow summon the British ambassador to Russia Nigel Casey to the Russian foreign Ministry where he was given a pretty Stern dressing down in the official account of that uh Russian uh State News agencies specifically said that he had been warned that were British weapons to be used in strikes against Russia then what Russia said British military bases inside Ukraine could be targeted Britain would dispute the fact it has it doesn’t have any military bases inside Ukraine but they also warned that British bases or British targets outside Ukraine could also be targeted so that was a clear sign of the kremlin’s anger and upset at the direction of travel and at the Western allies support for Ukraine and particularly Britain’s forward leaning position on its weapons being able to be used now that has only been built on recently by the most recent comments by President Vladimir Putin who used his Victory Day speech uh in Moscow to stress in a muted way perhaps but that nonetheless that Russia’s strategic forces were combat ready now strategic forces is a veiled reference to Russia’s nuclear forces and those strategic forces are not the tactical weapons those are the Strategic nuclear weapons those are the Doomsday weapons that can blast between continents and take out cities of course in the background the mood music from the Kremlin similarly warlike we heard from ex-russian president Dimitri Medvedev saying that nowhere would be safe specifically he said no one could hide in Downing Street Washington or the Eliz palace in Paris singling out Britain America and France for their support for Ukraine so that has been a ratcheting up of the rhetoric a chance for us to understand how Russia is feeling about the West’s support for Ukraine but perhaps also worth taking a step back and wondering you does this push us to the brink of World War II of course that is the worst case scenario that is what both sides are eager and anxious to avoid uh of course it remains a risk we’ve heard this sort of nuclear saber rattling before it is Russia’s go-to position when perhaps Moscow feels threatened but as many of you pointed out in the comments in your response to last week’s update when we talked about these weapons being used in this way there was a sense of sort of natural Injustice why is it okay for Russia to use weapons from Iran from North Korea from China to attack Targets in Ukraine but somehow it’s not okay for Ukraine to use weapons from the United Kingdom uh and the West at large to attack targets inside Russia and that is why certainly a position or a logic shared by those in the United Kingdom and some of Ukraine’s other allies who have signaled uh that their weapons can be used now uh it’s been an interesting week uh on the sort of political front in terms of the the gesture politics that we’ve seen on both sides on Monday uh as I mentioned Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced those nuclear drills that was the same day that Britain’s Ambassador Nigel Casey was summoned to the foreign Ministry on Tuesday we had Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for his fifth term as president in the Great Hall of the Kremlin Palace now this was a deliberately theatrical Affair where you know Vladimir Putin indulged his desire to be seen in the in the context of a modernday Russian Zar indeed patriarch kill the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church even called him your highness when he addressed him during that ceremony uh it was boycotted by a number of Western Representatives nonetheless there were some there and notably among the guest was the former Hollywood star Steven Seagal a year senior to Vladimir Putin Seagal 72 to Putin 71 the two men reportedly becoming friends through their mutual love of martial arts Vladimir Putin’s message at that on that occasion uh he insisted that he wanted to be treated wanted Russia to be treated as an equal and did not want a conflict with the west but nonetheless uh actions appear to suggest otherwise and that Veiled Threat about his nuclear forces on Wednesday we saw Britain expel the defense attache the Russian defense attache here in London uh on allegations that he had been an Undeclared intelligence operative now uh Colonel Maxim evick uh had been here for over a decade and was widely known by Britain spy Chiefs to be a member a serving member of Russia’s guu Military Intelligence a agency the same Gru that was thought to be behind the uh deadly nerve agent noock attacks in Salsbury in 2018 remember they left uh innocent mom of three Dawn Sturges dead although the targets of that attack uh the scrippal uh survived it’s not clear why this colel survived so many previous culls of Russian spies in the United Kingdom in the wake of that attack in 2018 some 23 Russian spies were kicked out of Britain more were kicked out uh in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine and suggestions to me that that may be because uh British authorities British Security Services wanted to keep an eye on him uh there’s also a suggestion that the the events which led to him being expelled most recently were part of this broader pattern across Europe of an increased uh tempo of Russian Espionage and sabotage activity Britain’s Home Secretary specifically mentioned when he announced it an arson attack against a Ukrainian owned logistics company in later north of London which which the suggestion was uh Russia’s defense atache may have been involved uh somehow in enabling or in orchestrating or perhaps even uh recruiting those who were involved on Thursday uh it was Russia’s Victory Day Parade the annual event a hugely symbolic event in Russia when it commemorates the Russian victory over the Nazis during World War II what Russia refers to as the Great Patriotic War of course Russia remembers a second world war with slightly different dates to those of us in the United Kingdom because uh they tend to forget the early part of the war when they were in League with the Nazis and only really uh start counting from the moment that Hitler attacked Russia and then uh Russia became allies with uh the United Kingdom the United States and the the other Allied powers that ceremony in Moscow was a slimmed down slightly subdued Affair certainly compared to some of the more Grand ceremonies we’ve seen in the past with uh over 11,000 troops and dozens of main battle tanks this year like last year just one lonely t34 Russian tank leading the parade Putin was there uh with his nuclear briefcase as always never far from that briefcase which in theory would let him launch uh nuclear weapons in the event of a sort of catastrophic doomsday conflict as ever a bit of theater about these events the UK’s defense intelligence agency reported that some 23 planned Victory Day parades uh across other parts of Russia were cancelled because of security concerns and we know that Moscow was uh under huge heightened security while that parade took place including extra air defense systems and soldiers seen with uh anti-drone weapons in case of a possible attack from Ukraine Ukraine has managed to hit Moscow with its drones in the past although as I said at the very beginning their focus now Ukraine’s Focus now appears to be much more on those strategic oil refineries uh to try and degrade Russia’s ability to maintain both its economy and its armed forces in the fight in inside Ukraine uh other news today that we must address is there appears to have been a ground assault by Russian forces on the uh harv border harv is as we speak under attack and President Vladimir zalinski has described Fierce fighting there there’s been speculation for many many weeks if not months that uh Russia has been preparing a possible offensive on this second city of hkv which is just the edge of hkv city is just about 15 miles from the Russian border and it repelled a Russian tank assault on the first day of the war in 2020 2 since then it’s faced an almost daily bombardment of missiles and drones uh the life in the city has sort of ebbed and flowed as the intensity of those Russian attacks uh have increased and de decreased over uh over the last two plus years there’s debate at the moment as to whether or not this is the first stage of a real offensive to try and retake uh either territory On the Border or to indeed threaten uh the city what we’ve been seeing over the last week week as we’ve been seeing over the last few weeks in fact is’s a massive uptick in Russian activity across the front line but particularly in the East uh suggestions of about 20% increase in the number of attacks particularly around AV diviva which you remember was the uh trophy town near detet city that Russia captured earlier this year uh fighting in kopans has remained pretty intense that’s further round to the north but also on the Eastern Front most recently now uh this these these attacks in uh harv now it could also be an attempt to distract or or destabilize the region to force Ukraine to stretch its defensive forces more thinly we’ve heard today that Ukraine has moved reinforcements up to the Border uh the mayor of harv region insisting that so far they have not seeded any territory uh to these attacks which they put down initially to Russian sabots rather than sabotage suggesting that it was not necessarily an armored infantry assault but something on a different scale that’s worth keeping an eye on and we’ll see where that goes one more topic I wanted to uh pick up on this week and that’s the f-16s we always get a lot of questions about the f-16s I was speaking to uh somebody today suggesting that they believe the first f-16s will arrive in Ukraine within the next few weeks so most likely uh end of May or early June now so it’s also worth saying they do not necessarily think these planes are going to to turn the tide of the conflict I mean crucially uh it’s not the planes themselves but it will be the weapons on them that will be most important in terms of what they can achieve but it will also be it will also require for these planes to be as effective as possible it will require a whole mindset shift in how they are used by Ukraine’s Armed Forces because ultimately f-16s like other fighter jets are vulnerable to being shot down and so how the missions that they engage in are planned uh will require an awful lot of uh well it will be incredibly complex and require an awful lot of input and sort of Engagement and cooperation from every level of Ukraine’s military to have the maximum effect the short the short explanation is they don’t just want to fly them within range of sophisticated Russian air defenses and see these American f-16s or americanmade f-16s but actually which are coming from Denmark and the Netherlands uh shot down immediately they may well be used at standoff to launch long range weapons if they can carry them like Britain’s Storm Shadow like France’s scalp crew missile we also know the UK is providing the Paveway four laser guided bombs but those bombs have a much shorter range and so for those to be used the f-16s will have to go much closer uh to Russia’s air defenses into the range of Russia’s air defenses and therefore in those scenarios you’d expect a series of steps to be taken first to disable degrade those defenses before the planes get close nonetheless if not a war-winning shift it will no doubt be a morale boost for Ukraine when those Jets arrive we’ll keep an eye on that uh and keep you updated over the next few weeks as ever if you’ve got any questions uh please if you’re watching on YouTube do ask them in the comments below we had an absolutely phenomenal response to last week’s episode uh thousands of comments I’ve just picked out a few of the questions one of which I’ve already addressed and that was the qu why is Russia considering an escalation for Ukraine to use Western weapons against its territory given that it is using uh other weapons from other countries from North Korea from China and from Iran against uh Ukraine a sense of the sort of natural Injustice perhaps of that Russian position Russia is not necessarily logical in how it assesses um you know its position versus the position of Ukraine or its allies and doesn’t necessarily see parity I mean ultimately Vladimir Putin uh and his and his senior left tenants have made it clear they don’t believe Ukraine has a right to exist they see it as an extension uh of Russian Russia sort of duu territory they believe it should be Russian the sentiment came through loud and clear in the comments that many of you believe uh Ukraine absolutely should have the right to use Western weapons to reply uh to Russia using both its weapons and weapons of its allies Korea China and Iran uh one of the question is quite interesting to looking at a different uh sphere of this conflict is what happens when we Face a fullscale cyber War and what I’d say to that is actually that uh you know the head of Ukraine’s cyber force has actually said that we are already witnessing the first cyber world war and certainly um cyber operatives in the UK have also paid tribute to Ukraine for the scale of the fight that they are already engaged in in the fight which actually uh many allies are helping Ukraine uh perform there are cyber attacks going on all the time we see that we saw that uh potentially we saw that uh during the Victory Day Parade When a number of Russian television channels appeared to be hacked and instead of broadcasting um pictures of Russia’s military might marching through Moscow instead we saw uh footage suggesting that uh footage showing the devastation those Russian soldiers have caused in Ukraine footage likening uh Vladimir Putin and his forces to Adolf Hitler’s Nazis so that most likely a result of a Cyber attack we’ve also seen other actors suggestions that China has been playing has been hacking Ukraine’s uh government during the course of this conflict stealing information that Beijing thinks will be useful possibly when it comes to getting reconstruction contracts uh in the aftermath of this war um lots of players are involved uh We’ve also seen of course just outside of Ukraine but in the United Kingdom the British Ministry of Defense uh revealing that one of its databases of its Soldiers the has been breached uh hackers gained access to personal information of basically the entire UK Armed Forces now suggestion that that may have been China that China was involved but others uh cyber professionals telling me that it’s still far too early to say all of that just an example to say that a huge ongoing cyber conflict is happening we don’t always see it it’s not always clear what is State on State uh what is criminal but actually there is a huge cyber conflict happening and it is particularly focused in Ukraine we have seen at the very beginning of the war uh the banks attacked we’ve seen the banks targeted we’ve seen uh electricity networks targeted Ukraine has managed for the most part to resist or rebuild pretty quickly and the final question today is whether or not the uh Bradley infantry fighting vehicle has been more effective than the Abrams M1 tank now both of these are American Vehicles both of these have been donated to Ukraine and both of them have been involved in Frontline fighting um it’s worth pointing out we know we think the Abrams I say we think we can’t be certain we understand the Abrams Tanks have been removed from the front line because so many of them have become vulnerable to Russian drones and this is a problem that not just the Abrams have faced but that all Heavy armored vehicles are facing in this conflict is their vulnerability to relatively cheap highly mobile and accurate oneway kamakazi attack drones both the firstperson view drones and larger uh kamakazi weapons uh which can have you know can for a fraction of the cost of a tank or an armored vehicle uh can find it hunt it find it and destroy it in terms of Effectiveness um that’s harder to gauge we know that America donated at least 31 Abrams tanks and we believe some six of them have been Destro destroyed Con on the other hand with the uh Bradley’s more than 200 donated uh according to the orx blog some 78 of th of those have been destroyed there’s been pretty dramatic footage of both of them involved in firefights both of them being effective uh it would seem from those statistics that the Bradley have perhaps been more engaged uh because of the level of uh destruction the level of losses that they have suffered it could also be a con the Bradley are lighter less armored and faster they perform a slightly different role they can carry infantry they have a smaller 25mm gun which is nonetheless hugely powerful the Abrams like other NATO tanks primarily designed as a tank killer but the nature of the battlefield the nature of the terrain in Ukraine has not lent itself particularly to tank battles to tank on tank uh confrontations and that may be why the Abrams and indeed the British challenges and the German made leopard two tanks uh have not been as involved as perhaps we would expect that could also however be a consequence of the fact that dis apart from those few months at the end of last year between late summer and winter last year when Ukraine was uh launching its counter offensive in South Central zapia on the whole Ukraine has been defending and trying to hold its front lines uh across the east and south of its country rather than uh attack that’s all we have time for this week as ever thank thank you very much uh for watching and if you do have questions please ask them in the comments below and we’ll do our best uh to answer them next week

On this week’s episode of the Frontline with Jerome Starkey, Russia has ordered troops to prepare for nuclear strikes in the latest round of sabre rattling drills that have so far failed to curb Ukraine from it’s successful campaign of long range attacks deep inside Russian soil.

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