File:Nukes put on high alert.png: Difference between revisions

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Nuclear Alert Status

Amid escalating war in Ukraine, Russia's President Putin is reported as ordering nuclear weapons placed on "high alert".

The world must now hope there is no accidental use, or preemptive tactical use, or mistake/miscalculation, or other in a chain of cataclysmic command decisions.

• https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqNggKIjBDQklTSGpvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoRUtEd2p4bDRyMEJCR2phRkFEZlozVFRpZ0FQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Feb 27 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's move to put Russian forces on high alert is dangerous and irresponsible and adds to the Russian leader's aggressive pattern involving Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday (Feb. 27).

"This is dangerous rhetoric. This is a behavior which is irresponsible. And of course when you combine this rhetoric with what they are doing on the ground in Ukraine - waging war against an independent, sovereign nation, conducting full-fledged invasion of Ukraine - this adds to the seriousness of the situation," Stoltenberg said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and NATO on Sunday condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin's order to put his nuclear forces on high alert as dangerous and unacceptable, while the White House said it was considering imposing new sanctions on Russia's energy sector.

In issuing the order to prepare Russia's nuclear weapons for increased readiness for launch, Putin cited "aggressive statements" from NATO allies and widespread sanctions imposed by Western nations...

(WSJ) - Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his defense minister and chief of the general staff “to transfer the Russian army’s deterrence forces to a special mode of combat duty.”

Mr. Putin cited the threat of Western sanctions and what he described as aggressive statements from North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials.

The move would place Russia’s network of nuclear missiles, which is usually disconnected, into a state where it can be used if necessary—one step away from an actual missile launch, said Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russia’s nuclear forces.

He added, “I’ve not seen anything to suggest this has been done before.”

(Agence France-Presse) - Reporting from Washington DC: President Vladimir Putin's nuclear forces alert represents a "totally unacceptable" escalation of the invasion of Ukraine, the United States said Sunday as it accused the Russian leader of fabricating threats to justify "further aggression." "This is a pattern that we've seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on ABC when asked about the announcement from Moscow.

At the Pentagon, a senior official called the move "escalatory" but would not say if US nuclear forces had changed their stance in response.

Speaking to journalists, the defense official said the US had no reason to doubt that Putin's announcement was genuine, but had no information yet as to how it would be implemented.

"We believe that this is not only an unnecessary step for him to take, but an escalatory one," the official said, on grounds of anonymity.

"Unnecessary because Russia has never been under threat by the West, by NATO and certainly wasn't under any threat by Ukraine," the official said.

"And escalatory because it is clearly potentially putting in play forces that, if there's a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous."

Nuclear Weapons