Reported Ukrainian attack on a key radar site could trigger retaliation, an expert analysis shared by the Austrian armed forces says
A reported Ukrainian attack on a Russian early-warning radar installation may have been approved by the US and poses the risk of a nuclear escalation, an analysis published by the Austrian armed forces has warned.
Ukrainian sources claimed last week that Kiev had delivered a strike at a Voronezh-DM site in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, near the city of Armavir.
The alleged operation is significant, considering that the facility is part of Russian nuclear deterrence, according to a text by Colonel Markus Reisner and posted by the Austrian military on Sunday.
It is unlikely that attacking the radar station had direct military value for Kiev, Reisner argues. Disabling it would reduce the amount of intelligence that Russia collects on Ukrainian launches of US-donated ATACMS ballistic missiles, he added. But the station is designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles that fly at altitudes much higher than the tactical weapons used by Ukraine.
The expert suggested that the alleged attack may have been a US-sanctioned response to Moscow’s reminders that it could use non-strategic nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Senior Ukrainian and Western officials have called those statements a form of blackmail. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin ordered tactical nuclear exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine. Moscow said this was in response to increasingly hostile rhetoric by Western officials.
”If this is indeed the case, two further conclusions can be drawn: first, the situation in Ukraine is extremely serious and, second, the war over Ukraine has escalated again,” Reisner wrote. Such an attack could qualify for a nuclear retaliation, the colonel added.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine says that its nuclear arsenal may be used in four scenarios, one of which is “enemy action against critical Russian government and military facilities, the disabling of which would prevent a nuclear response.”
Over-the-horizon radar stations, such as the Voronezh-DM, are meant to detect ICBM launches and inform the national leadership, at which point officials can make a decision on whether to fire back.
The Russian Defense Ministry has so far not commented on the alleged attack.
This is incredibly dangerous. This is brazen flirting with nuclear war.
This seems to be arrogantly taunting Russia that they think they can or will try to take out and blind Russia before any nuclear attack by them in the event of that kind of escalation. Interception can’t work and the US knows that but blinding the enemy so the US can “catch them with their pants down” (Dr. Strangelove reference) seems like the kind of delusion these genocidal maniacs may actually believe they can pull off with Russia or worse China which has a smaller arsenal.
During the cold war this kind of attack would have been unthinkable by either side as either side would have taken it as a potential prelude to or part of a full scale attack. The US doing it to Russia is doubly unfair. Russia has very limited space between it and US stationed nuclear weapons in NATO and so very little warning potentially in case of a first strike. By contrast the US has two oceans, thousands of miles of Canada plus NATO radar installations of just this kind at the far north of Canada to give them thousands of miles of warning before missiles can even be detected from their own borders. That plus Alaska, coverage in pacific island chains, coverage in Europe via NATO, the US probably has twice as long if not 3-5 times before Russian missiles would hit their cities and home military installations compared to Russia or China for that matter. Yet delusional liberals look at this board and think it’s justified because Russia is aggressive or whatever.
