At the battle of Stirling Bridge, 11 September 1297, the movie Braveheart has William Wallace provoking the English to battle, saying "Here are Scotland's terms. Lower your flags, and march straight back to England, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for 100 years of theft, rape, and murder. Do that and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today. ... Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own ass."
Putin's Nuclear Crisis - July 2023
Former member of the House of Representatives and Russian fellow-traveller Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 elections before moving to Fox TV, believes that the US administration does not realize the risks of a further escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and has already brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
"The actions and policies of President [US Joe] Biden have brought us to the brink of nuclear war. This is an existential threat not only for us, but for the whole world. This proxy war, which is being waged against Russia at the expense of the lives of the population of Ukraine, continues to escalate. We We hear talk that NATO countries want to send troops to Ukraine, which will only increase the risk of a direct confrontation between the United States, NATO countries and Russia, which has the most powerful nuclear weapons in the world," she said 02 July 2023.
The former congresswoman believes that Washington does not see the difference between a nuclear war and a conflict with the use of conventional weapons. “President Biden, members of his administration or so-called experts on television talk about the third world, about nuclear war as if it were just another war, just another conflict. <...> We will do this, they will do that, blah blah blah, and then we won," Gabbard believes this is how the leadership of the United States argues.
Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev demanded that the West agree with Russia on the conflict in Ukraine, because otherwise "the parties will have to end up in a nuclear war," writes The Moscow Times 03 July 2023. A nuclear apocalypse "is not only possible, but also quite probable," Dmitry Medvedev writes in his column in the propaganda publication Rossiyskaya Gazeta .
According to him, a nuclear war could be one of the solutions to the current conflict between Russia and the West, and Medvedev believes that there are two reasons for this. First, "Russia's opponents have decided to defeat Russia, the largest nuclear power." Secondly, "nuclear weapons have already been used by whom and where, which means that there is no taboo."
The third world war may become a way to resolve the current conflict, but in this case there will simply be no winners, Medvedev believes. To avoid a nuclear apocalypse, Medvedev invites the West to find "reasonable compromises" regarding Ukraine. And in these "compromises" it is necessary to take into account the interests of Russia as much as possible. In particular, there should be "no Anti-Russia," and Europe should legally ban the "Nazi regime in Kiev" "as fascist," writes Medvedev.
Renat Karchaa, a senior official at Russian nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom, warned on 04 July 2023 that Kiev was planning to strike the Zaporozhye facility with long-range high-precision munitions and kamikaze drones. Intelligence obtained by Rosenergoatom suggests that Kiev could also attempt to target the plant with a Soviet-made Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile loaded with radioactive waste, Karchaa claimed. Moscow and Kiev have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the Zaporozhye plant throughout their conflict. The Russian Defense Ministry also claimed to have repelled several attempts to retake the station by Ukrainian assault units, which reportedly approached the facility on boats via the now-drained Kakhovka reservoir. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, recently visited the facility and said that “no mines were observed at the site” during his inspection.
A possible Ukrainian attempt to sabotage the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region could lead to “catastrophic” results, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed 05 July 2023. The situation around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022, remains “tense,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. “Really, there’s a high threat of sabotage by the Kiev regime; sabotage that might lead to catastrophic results,” Peskov warned. According to the spokesman, an attack on the facility cannot be ruled out because the Ukrainian leadership “has many times shown its readiness to stop at nothing” to achieve its goals.
The Kremlin dismissed “fictitious” claims in the Western press that Chinese President Xi Jinping warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The claim was reported by The Financial Times 05 July 2023, based on anonymous diplomatic sources. “I cannot confirm that,” Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists when asked about the FT article. He suggested that official statements regarding Xi’s “important” visit to Moscow in March were “sufficient” to make conclusions about its nature.
According to the FT, Chinese officials have “privately taken credit for convincing the Russian president to back down from his veiled threats of using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine.” The newspaper alleged that “deterring Putin” from an atomic strike was a key part of Beijing’s diplomatic strategy regarding Europe.
The Chinese government had blamed Western policies, including the expansion of NATO in Europe, for the Ukraine conflict, rejecting the Western view that Russia’s military operation was “unprovoked”. It had also publicly urged Moscow not to use its nuclear capability. The purported warning from Xi to Putin gave supporters of Kiev confidence that “China is backing up its public rhetoric behind closed doors,” the FT article said.
Japan considers nuclear rhetoric "dangerous and unacceptable" from Russian officials. This was announced on 06 July 3034 at a regular press conference by Secretary General of the Cabinet of Ministers Hirokazu Matsuno in response to a request from journalists to comment on the statements of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.
"We believe that the assumptions about the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine should cause serious concern," he said in response to a request from journalists to comment on the words of Medvedev, who said that any war, even a world war, could end very quickly, recalling American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Matsuno recalled that the countries of the Group of Seven (G7) adhere to the position that nuclear rhetoric is inadmissible in the modern world, which was reflected in the joint statement of the G-7 leaders following the summit in Hiroshima in May 2023. He argued that such rhetoric of the Russian Federation is "dangerous and completely unacceptable."
Russia should consider the scenario of a simultaneous attack on three nuclear power plants in Ukraine if the information about the attempt of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack the Smolensk nuclear power plant is confirmed, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said on the Telegram channel 09 July 2023. “If an attempt to attack the Smolensk (Desnogorsk) NPP with NATO missiles is confirmed, it is necessary to consider the scenario of a simultaneous Russian strike on the South Ukrainian NPP , Rivne NPP and Khmelnitsky NPP, as well as on nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe. There is nothing to be ashamed of,” he wrote.
Western plans to provide US-designed fighter jets to Kiev represent an “extremely dangerous development,” Russia's foreign minister believes. Moscow can’t ignore the nuclear capability of US-designed F-16 fighter jets that may be supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said 12 July 2023. By continuing to provide more sophisticated arms to Kiev, “the US and its NATO satellites create the risk of a direct armed confrontation with Russia, and this may lead to catastrophic consequences,” Lavrov warned in his interview with Lenta.ru.
The plans to supply F-16s to Kiev is yet another example of an escalatory move by the West and in itself is “an extremely dangerous development,” he stated. “We have informed the nuclear powers – the US, UK and France – that Russia can’t ignore the ability of these aircraft to carry nuclear weapons,” the foreign minister continued. “No assurances [by the West] will help here,” he warned. In the midst of fighting, the Russian military isn’t going to investigate whether any specific jet is equipped to deliver nuclear weapons or not, he added. “The very fact of the appearance of such systems within the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered by us as a threat from the West in the nuclear domain,” Lavrov said.
Deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev directly threatened 30 July 2023 to use nuclear weapons if the Ukrainian counteroffensive succeeded. According to Medvedev, the Russian occupiers, repelling the counteroffensive of the "collective enemy", supposedly not only protect "the citizens of Russia and our land", but also "prevent a world conflict."
“After all, if we imagine that the offensive of the Ukrobanderites with the support of NATO was successful, and they seized part of our land, then we would have to, by virtue of the rules of the decree of the President of Russia dated 06/02/2020, go for the use of nuclear weapons. There is simply no other way out. Therefore, our enemies must pray to our warriors. They do not allow the global nuclear fire to flare up."
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